winning poker strategy

Many players fail to adequately protect their hands, and let another player at the table take the lead. They do this in two ways:
- Checking when they should bet
- Betting too low, and giving their opponents the odds they need to call.

Either way, giving a free card is the wrong play in most situations.

This article will discuss the dangers of giving your opponents free cards and will provide you with four solutions to avoid this mistake at the tables.

Preflop Decisions
Reducing the number hands you play out of position will help to avoid the trap of giving free cards. In early position it is often impossible to bet without telling your opponents
you have a monster. Even worse, if a player behind you was the preflop aggressor you often want them take the lead in the hand to ensure you are at least getting a continuation bet. When they opt to check instead, you have given a free card to anyone still in the hand.

Therefore, where possible avoid playing in early position.

Style of Play
All poker books preach an aggressive style of play. More specifically they preach a tight aggressive style, but a loose aggressive style is often suggested in some games. For those of you unfamiliar with these terms, tight aggressive means you see very few flops, but you raise frequently when you do play. Loose aggressive means that you are constantly playing hands, and putting maximum pressure on your opponents.
The opposite of aggressive is passive. Passive means that you prefer to check/call than to bet/reraise. It is interesting to note that none of the popular poker books preach playing a passive style on a regular basis. When you play aggressively you not only avoid giving your opponents free cards, but players also start to wonder if you actually have what you are
representing. This means that by playing aggressively you will eventually encourage
players to play back at you when you have a hand. Therefore, you need not worry about playing your big hands passively because your opponents expect you to bet whether you have hit or not.
You wait for a player to play back at you in the wrong situation, and bet your big hands in the same manner you would bet a hand when you miss. If you have been playing passively, and then suddenly get aggressive, players will know you have what your bet is representing.

When to Play Passively
Most players agree that the only time you should play passively is when there are very few hands that could call a bet AND when giving a free card is very unlikely to put your opponent in the lead.
For example, on a flop of 773 you are unlikely to get a lot of action with 77. It is therefore advisable to give your opponent a chance to make a straight or flush. Notice that there are no cards that can fall on the turn to give your opponents the lead.
One of the worse times to give another player a free card would be on a flop of 3 4 8 while holding A8. An overcard is coming about half the time here, and you are not going to be able to play your hand very hard. You should be trying to take this pot down on the flop if possible.

Avoid being greedy, take what’s in the pot
In the A8 example above, a small bet designed to keep players who are behind in the hand would be a mistake. Now, it may not be possible to bet big. If there was action preflop then overpairs are a strong possibility (Although it does sort of serve you right for being in a big pot with A8 - you knew the gamble when you called a preflop raise with A8). However, let's assume that you have reason to believe that your hand is favored at the moment. Your bet should be close to the size of the pot. You want to bet confidently in order to have the maximum chance that you
don't need to see a turn card. The added bonus of a pot sized bet is that a reraise will signify a very big hand, and you will have plenty of information to decide how to proceed.


Summary
Make a commitment to yourself to not give free cards.
When it is your turn to act always consider whether your hand is likely to be the favorite. If you believe that you have the best hand bet it. Similarly, if you have a strong draw, and you believe that nobody connected enough with the flop to call you then again you should bet.
Above all, play aggressive poker, and don't call preflop raises out of position. When you are out of position you are often forced to give free cards. So avoid being in that situation in the first place wherever possible.