15 poker tips that will instantly improve your game

Looking for easy to remember and effective poker tips that will quickly improve your win rate? Well today we have compiled 15 poker tactics and strategies that will make you a more confident and prosperous player.

These tips won't teach you how to win every hand - not even the best poker players in the world can do that - but they will get you on the right track (if you're a beginner) or reinforce your current knowledge (if you're already a seasoned grinder).

Choosing a really favourable poker room to play at can also affect your results, keep this point in mind. The list above features several rooms where everyone can get rakeback and find fairly weak opponents at the tables.

1. Narrow down your preflop ranges

Tidying up and strengthening your preflop is one of the easiest and quickest ways to improve your overall game.

Fortunately, forming good preflop ranges is relatively easy these days. You can simply download hand charts already prepared and tested by professionals, and find the strength and discipline to stick to them.

It is especially important to stick to the charts when you get bored, you are experiencing a slight ‘card dead’ or downswing, you are playing a few tables (for some reason) or just playing live at one table. It is very important in such situations not to start playing ‘extra’ hands because of boredom or tilt. If you are temporarily out of cards or there are few tables to play in the lobby and you have nothing to occupy yourself with, don't start forcing things. Pay more attention to your opponents, their tactics, and the cards they show on the showdown. Do not allow yourself to be impatient and play rubbish.

2. Don't be afraid to ‘pull the trigger’ with your bluffs

Many players, especially at low limits, often don't have the balls to make big bluffs, which in turn makes them very exploitable and predictable in the eyes of thinking opponents who simply stop paying them. And by doing so, they lose tons of equity.

On the contrary, you should be the kind of player who instals fear and insecurity in your opponents with your constant aggression and pressure in big bets, even though it may not work in some hands. At range, this makes you an uncomfortable and dangerous player that few people will want to deal with without a hand, but everyone will want to open you up to light, which will bring you many times more equity with your strong hands.

Of course, against weak opponents (phish), you should not overdo it with bluffs, because it will be beyond their comprehension, and often they will just ‘phone’, stupidly looking at their two cards. Of course, if the phish will be a ‘fit-or-fold’ player, it is definitely worth bluffing them. But this is the exception rather than the rule.

3. Don't change your bankroll management or training when things are going well

Surely every professional poker player has a friend who has cashed in a major tournament, and then afterwards cashed at high limits that they've never played at before, won even more, or something like that.

It's important to remember that poker is a game of ups and downs. And to survive the downs, you need to play rationally and with a cool head during the ups.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't be happy or proud of your successes. On the contrary, it's important to enjoy the results you've worked so long and hard to achieve. Just remember that upstreaks don't make you a poker god, and downstreaks are still inevitable.

4. Don't overblow the pot with medium-strength hands

Medium-strength hands should generally be played passively, as they will rarely win a big pot. The exception to this rule is when you need to beat your opponent's equity. These types of hands are best played as bluff-raisers, which also strengthens your check-raise range overall.

Passive play with medium-strength hands is a key component of a solid strategy, ensuring you’re prepared for all scenarios at the table. You can also sharpen your poker skills by playing online through the Slotozen login, where a variety of games awaits to test your strategies in real-time.

5. Game-select, table-select, and select again!

You should always set yourself up with the maximum edge (advantage). That's why it's best to leave your ego at the door when playing poker.

It's much better to play at a lower limit but against phish than to flounder around zero in tough games amongst only regs. Not only because it's much more profitable, but also because you'll experience less stress and variance against chips.

Moreover, a near-zero game can also mean that you are not ready for this limit, so it is wise to take a step back and come back prepared.

6. Try to play strong hands quickly and aggressively more often than not

Personally, it pains me to see a player check a nat flush on the flop and then have to make some small bet on the river to collect his pennies.

Sloping is a common mistake among many players who are always afraid of ‘spooking their opponent’.

In most cases, with strong hands, it's best to bet, bet, and bet to fan the sweat and protect your equity. But that doesn't mean there's no place for sloping in poker at all. You can check with strong hands if:

- There is a low probability that you will be overcalled

- You don't have a lot of scary cards in your deck that will prevent you from collecting equity on later streets.

- Your opponent's range is heavily skewed towards non-SDW hands.

But if you're not sure whether to bet or not, then bet! Yes, it's unpleasant when you have nats and your opponent falls, but it's even more unpleasant if you get run over or just undercall your equity.

7. Spend twice as much time playing as you do learning, but make sure you learn!

Learning is a must in order to become a professional poker player. But at the same time, poker is a game that requires a lot of practice. Without practice, we will not be able to apply the theory we have learnt off the table, and we will start to lose our inner sense of the game and its rhythm.

Many of the actions you take at the poker tables are automatic. Going long periods of time without practice will make those decisions less and less automatic. And things will get worse as the importance of those decisions increases. That's why you need to play regularly to keep your thinking speed up and not lose your sense of game rhythm.

But it is also very important to take time to learn: read poker strategies, study new poker software, discuss hands and new lines of play on poker forums, watch VODs, poker streams, etc. Well, and if you are a complete beginner, then first of all perfect learn poker combinations.

8. If you don't know whether your bet on the river is a bluff or a straight, you don't need to bet

This is a common mistake made by beginners and sometimes by more experienced heads-up players as well. It usually occurs in the following situation. Your opponent checks on the river, and you have a medium strength hand, so you bet.... But you don't pay attention to how dangerous the board was, how the action was on the previous streets, or how your opponents tend to play in general. And eventually your opponent calls, and you lose to slightly stronger hands.

On the river, you should bet with a polar range. This means betting with a range that contains only Welsh hands and bluffs, and with all other hands you should check.

The point is that there are no more cards coming out after the river, and you don't need to protect your equity. Your hand is either ahead or it's not. All you have to do is check with your average hands and hope to pick up a sweat on the showdown.

9. The earlier the street, the more often you should bluff, because the equity difference here is minimal

Poker expert and theory god Matthew Janda says that you should bluff the most on the flop, a little less on the turn, and the least on the river. And he gives mathematical proof of this in one of his books. His calculations show that in order to bet with a balanced range on the river (containing the optimum amount of equity and bluffs), we need to bluff less and less on each subsequent street. And the reason is that our bluffs will have the most equity on the early streets, as well as the opportunity to continue bluffing on the next street.

Think about it... After all, when you bluff on the flop or turn, you are usually doing it with a hand that has the potential to improve. For example, on a board . So, because we have a lot of extra equity, we can bluff more often while staying balanced.

Having a balanced range is most important on the river, because the size of the pot on this street is the largest.

10. In the early stages of a tournament, play like a cash game. Forget about surviving and focus on playing strong

There's always a time and place to protect and preserve your stack in a tournament, but the beginning of a tournament is not the time. And this is one of the common mistakes a lot of players make.

You need to realise that to get into the money in a tournament you need to earn at least triple your initial stack (and more often than not, even more). So instead of being cautious and playing a closed style, you need to play strong and aggressive poker at the beginning of the tournament to build up a deep stack.

If you end up with a short stack and it comes to the ‘bubble’, then of course you can go into a wait-and-see mode.

11. Don't rush into decisions, use the time bank to think things through

Poker is a complex game. You have to evaluate and weigh many factors in order to choose the best decision.

You don't really have a lot of choices: check, call, bet, raise or fold (and bet-sizing). However, it is not always obvious which of these actions will bring you the maximum EV.

That's why you should always avoid rushing your decisions. The extra couple of seconds can point you to a key point that you might not have noticed, and also protect you from making emotional decisions. This will save you a lot of money in the long run.

You may agree that you have often hit an insta-call on the river, and then regret it for half a day, because of the fact that you gave in to emotions, hurried and did not notice something.

Of course, you don't have to go crazy and spend 15 seconds to fold 95o preflop. Spend the entire time-bank only in key and expensive spots, especially on the river.

12. Make poker friends

Breaking through in poker alone is hard. Over time, your eye gets washed out, prejudices appear, and you just don't have enough outside perspective.

With 2-3 extra poker heads by your side, you'll find it easier to find the right strategy and get rid of prejudices.

Poker friends will be especially useful during periods of prolonged downswings. They will give you a lot of support during these difficult times, and since they play poker themselves, this support will be especially useful for you. And of course, don't forget to be a friend to them!

13. 3-Bet more often

Most players are too passive preflop. To have an advantage over them, you need to 3-bet more often and build big bets not only with premium hands (QQ+/AK). After all, to get paid with nats, you need to dilute them with bluffs as well. Yes, 3-bets with premium hands will work at first, but if you don't periodically show your opponents your bluffs, they will soon stop paying you and start to fold. Bluffs add depth to your preflop strategy and help you be more balanced.

But more importantly, most low limit players play very poorly against 3-bets and in 3-bet pots. This in turn leads to a lot of mistakes on their part that they wouldn't make in a simple raiser pot. And given the increased pot sizes after a 3-bet, these mistakes will only get worse.

14. Check out of position more often

There is nothing more difficult in poker than playing out of position in a high SPR spot. These situations are so difficult that even solvers solve them with complex mixed strategies that are simply impossible for a live person to replicate in a real game.

One way to overcome this is to play more closed, defensively, and occasionally check middle and strong hands. This will prevent your opponent from stealing your pot with impunity every time you check, as you will now not check/fold too often. Moreover, your hands that you were going to check/fold will now realise their equity more often, as your opponents will try to bluff you less often and will give you free cards.

15. Avoid bluffing on the river with A-high if your opponent has checked on all streets

I know you like to bluff on the river when your opponent checks you, and I wouldn't blame you for that. More often than not, this is a good situation to bluff, as with this action most opponents will signal to you that they are giving up and are not going to defend their range in this situation.

However, you must remember that an A-high hand will often have a good chance to win the pot even if you just check. Turning A-high hands into bluffs will often make you more exploitable on the potting side, and will not bring you more EV than cheques, as your opponent simply won't call with worse hands.

Thus, the next time you find yourself in a spot like this, just check!