POKER GAMBLING AND GAMING STRATEGY GUIDE

If you’re into poker gambling and gaming, the chances are you want to increase your chances of winning in whatever way you can! If this sounds like you, then we have all the information, tips and advice you will need in this guide. Direct from the poker professionals and stars who play regularly at the world’s top casinos and feature prominently in events such as the World Series of Poker and the World Poker Tour, this info on strategy is sure to improve your Texas Hold’em game. Read this gambling and gaming strategy guide and let us know how your home, casino or online poker tournaments progress after using the info to your advantage.

The first important part of the gambling and gaming strategy guide is to identify which type of poker player you should be in order to maximize profits. As a guide, there are four types of poker player, the first word describes the way he/she plays their cards whilst the second word describes their gambling and betting patterns:

1) Tight-Passive This poker player is very tight in their choice of starting hands they are prepared to consider gambling chips with. If they ever raise, you know they are on A-A or K-K!
2) Loose-Passive This poker player plays a vast array of starting hands but never usually raises, preferring instead to call other people’s raises. You can often suck chips out of these players as they often call anything and then fold at the first sign of a raise. As part of your gaming strategy you should attempt to identify these players early on in a game.
3) Loose-Aggressive Often termed the poker ‘maniac’, these players could do almost anything. They play a wide range of starting hands and often raise or re-raise on a complete bluff out of position. This can be very profitable for them in the short-term. In the long-run, a tight-aggressive poker player will always beat them though as he focuses less on gambling and more on strategy. Your gaming strategy should never be to play a maniac at his own dangerous gambling game. Instead, your gaming strategy should be to allow him to gain confidence and then when you have a hand, check it to him and let him make the mistake of gambling big. Then re-raise him all in and watch his smirk disappear!
4) Tight-Aggressive This is the gaming strategy you are after. Choose your starting hands wisely according to your position and your read on other players at the table. When you have the hand, be prepared to raise strongly and even re-raise, in order to limit the number of poker players competing with you in a hand. You want to be competing with only one or two players and knocking out those holding marginal hands who might just get lucky to hit a flop if you let them see the cards cheaply.

A Guide to Position in Poker

In poker gaming, position refers to the position you sit relative to the dealer button (which as all poker players know moves in a clockwise direction around the table). When you are first to act in a certain betting round (‘under the gun’), you are in a relatively weak position as you have little or no information about the strength of other poker players’ hands. If you are in the blinds, you are last to act in the first betting round but first to act after the flop has come out which puts you in a very vulnerable position. You are further forced to commit money into the pot without knowing the strength of your hole cards. Gambling from this position is not a good strategy to undertake.

So the gaming strategy guide must be to tighten up the cards you play when you are in early position at a full table of poker players. However, the gaming strategy guide in late position (to the right of the dealer button or actually on the button) is to enter pots with far weaker holdings as you have more information to act on in later betting rounds. You can put pressure on the blinds and steal pots by showing strength with weak cards, as the other poker players will have to give you respect for having good cards due to your position (unless you do this too regularly, in which case you will be found out!). This isn’t silly gambling, it is intelligent strategy and gaming which will guide you to increased profits!