Five practical tips to improve poker skills

Poker is a difficult game. If you don't keep improving your skills, you will obviously fall behind and eventually become a loser. Don't let this happen!

Here are five suggestions to keep you competitive. You may have heard some ideas, but you will benefit a lot from putting them in an important position.

1. Learn from players who are better than you in your level

Although watching the games of world-class players is interesting and exciting, it is actually not the best way to learn. This is because the games they play are often difficult to give you an accurate understanding of the overall game plan of a world-class player.

A better way is to learn from the best players in your current level. When you sit at the table, especially if you are at a small or intermediate level, you need to have better players than you at the table. Observe the way they win, let their strategy work for you, and gradually you will grow.

After upgrading, you find that some of the ways you win at a small level do not work at a high level, so focus on the winners in the new level and repeat the previous process. If you find yourself doing nothing at the poker table, then you are not using your time wisely. You only have so much time, don't waste it.

2. Think about the opponent's range

If you habitually lock your opponent's range in a hand, of course you play poorly. To give a simple example, a tight-handed player raises from the early position to open the pot. You should not simply position his range as AA, AJ, or any other specific hand. You should set their hand as a range, perhaps AA, KK, QQ, JJ, TT (T stands for 10), 99, AK and AQ. As the game progresses, you have to gradually narrow his range.

If you lock your opponent's hand in a single hand, you will obviously make a major mistake by not evaluating each situation correctly.

3. Stop betting continuously within 100% of the hand range

In the first chapter of my first book "The Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker", I suggested that you should keep betting close to 100%. This suggestion worked a few years ago because most players fold too much, but in today's game, you should reduce your continuation frequency.

In the following situations, you should usually check:
The community cards face your range at a disadvantage;

Holding a hand of garbage cards;

Get a hand of equal cards and cannot withstand a strong attack;

In a multiplayer pot, your hole card failed to hit the flop.

But now I still have a higher continuation betting frequency than most players, because most players still fold a lot, especially when facing bets that are less than 25% of the pot.

4. Fire two or three shots more in a row

Most players now know to continue to use some relatively wide range, such as made hands, draws, and occasionally hands that have a little chance of improvement but are more bluffing for continuous betting. They also know that you continue to bet on the turn with some types of made hands. However, when you make a substantial river bet, most opponents will trust your hand strength.

So don't be afraid to go out of the way and make some big bets, especially if you don't have a good chance to win the showdown. Of course, if your particular opponent makes a call with a weak bluff-catching hand, adopt this advice in the opposite direction and start betting endlessly on three streets with a medium-strength made hand (such as top vs. weak). Kicking) Extract the greatest value. For the sake of extracting value from your opponent's mistakes, don't be afraid to go out of style.

5. Think of yourself as a mental athlete

Poker is a thinking game. You need to cherish your mind like a good athlete treats your body and encourage yourself to become truly powerful in poker. If you drink a lot of alcohol, eat unhealthy food, or abuse drugs, you will damage your thinking and ultimately destroy your thinking ability. In order to remain successful for a long time, you need to ensure your physical and mental health.