Secret to Winning Poker

Boy, there's an answer that we'd all love to have. In fact, there is really no secret to winning poker other. To win at poker one must learn discipline, knowledge, and play the game to gain experience. Combine all three and you have your secret to winning poker.

Ultimately poker comes down to showing the best hand to gain the most money. Proper starting hand selection and optimal poker strategy will lead to this. However, there are a few other tactics that one must employ to make the most of every hand they play.

The first tactic involves skillfully planning out moves and plays. Having an acute prowess of the game and your opponents, applying masterful techniques, table selection, seat position at the table, time of day you play and table image will give you a cunning edge over others at the table.

The second tactic to winning poker involves deception and some would call fraud, but hey, I'm not playing this game to lose. Now by no measn do I mean cheating at poker, but what I am referring to is applying deceptive tactics that will allow your opponent to make a mistake and thus capitalizing on that mistake. The most common tactic is the check raise, which when applied at the right moment can earn you an additional big bet or more. The other common deceptive tactic is outright bluffing in hopes of making your opponent fold and thus stealing the pot.

The third secret to winning poker actually involves what should become the easiest thing for a poker player to do…fold! Yep, that's right. Folding serves many purposes, but most of all it saves you money. Trying to draw out when you don't have the odds or continuing to play in hands when you know you are way behind are instances when you should fold. I always think of the old Kenny Roger's song the Gambler when telling others about this tactic, and when they relate the two the lightbulb goes off. To quote "You gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away and know when to run".

So now you know the big secrets of winning poker. Not really a secret but just once again just plain sound strategy through tactful game play.