There is more to winning at poker than just trying to find the best strategy. While learning a solid, fundamental strategy is important, it is not necessarily going to make you an expert player.
In the beginning, we all start out as donkeys and fish and, as we learn, eventually evolve into stronger players. In this article, I am not going to focus too much on a specific strategy, as optimal tactics and strategies vary from table to table and dynamic to dynamic.
My goal, instead, is to change your entire perspective on what poker is really all about and help mold your thought processes into that of a winning player.
If you learn to think the correct way and truly understand the underlying cause and effect of what drives poker profit, specific poker strategy will not only come more naturally to you but developing a plan for every hand you play will become infinitely easier.
So, if you are tired of getting lost during a poker hand, wondering what went wrong, and how you are either losing money or not winning as much as you think you should, then read on, and let’s dig into how to convert theory into actual winning poker strategy.
To consistently win at poker over the long term, there are three key concepts that you must master. You must understand:
- Where the money comes from
- That poker is a people game
- That your tilt must be conquered
You can study strategy until you are blue in the face, but if you fail to understand and master any of these 3 concepts, your potential will be severely limited.
Concept #1: Where The Money Comes From In Poker
This is the most important concept and something very few poker players will ever really grasp. Indeed, the concept is an enigma for the vast majority of players.
After all the hands are played, and all is said and done, once the long-term is reached.. how the heck does anyone show a profit? Well, truth is, very few actually do. Due to rake and a number of other factors, very few people actually win money at poker over a significant sample size of hands. Estimates range from as low as 3%, but in reality, the number is likely in the 8% to 10% range. So yes, at least 90% of people who ever play poker for real money, will be losers.
Even so, you don’t have to become a statistic. I didn’t supply you with this information to discourage you, quite the contrary. In fact, there are things you can learn that most people are not talking about that will give you an edge over everyone who refuses to acknowledge or learn the information. That is what this article is all about. By the end of reading this, I want you to be crystal clear on how professional poker players make money over the long term.
Monster Hands Do Not Make You Money
First of all, let me get something out of the way. You do not profit in poker from making big hands and then getting paid off. Everyone, including unskilled players, win money in these spots. I am not saying that maximizing your profit when you make a big hand is not important. It is. We need to maximize profit is all areas of our game. What I am saying is that winning money and making money are two different things. Just because you got AA all-in preflop versus KK in a specific hand does not mean you won anything.
Player A nor Player B makes anything if they both make $1000 the same way
In fact, since everyone would gladly get KK all-in pre-flop, you actually made $0. Every player will pick up the same amount of AA, KK, QQ, hit the same number of sets or two pairs.. these hands are easy to play. In fact, it’s really hard to misplay these hands. Therefore, there is very little room for actual profit when you have a strong hand. Put another way, if every player plays exactly 1 million hands in their career and makes $500 with their big pairs, and $500 with their flopped nut hands, then nobody makes anything since, in order to make $500, each person has to take $500 from the player pool. Take a look at the graphic below.
Just to be clear on this point, since there seems to be a lot of confusion out there as to what I mean by this. Imagine that there are only two hands you can pick up in poker, either AA or KK. And, you play heads-up versus someone for an infinite number of hands. Each of you will pick up AA half the time and KK the other half.
Now, assuming you each play those hands exactly the same, where exactly can someone make a profit? By some extreme amount of luck, one of you might win a bit more over a lifetime.. but it would be negligible. What really matters is EV, or theoretical, dollars. And the sum of that would be exactly $0 profit for both you and your opponent.
Reciprocality Governs Profit
Don’t fall victim to something almost all people are guilty of; putting way too much emphasis on big hands. If most players get their pair all in vs. over cards and their hand holds up, they pat themselves on the back because they just won a big pot and think they made money. I have news for them; they didn’t.
When viewed from a long-term perspective, they made $0. You simply do not make money by getting all in pre-flop with QQ vs. AK, or some other variant of this situation. The spot will theoretically occur with the same frequency for everyone, yielding a net sum profit of $0 over the long term. Everyone negates everyone else’s profit in these spots! In other words, if everyone plays exactly the same and picks up the same exact hands and faces the exact same situations, no one but the house wins.
Since this point is so important, I am going to beat a dead donkey here for a minute. It is key that you make sure you understand this concept before proceeding. To that end, I am putting in a link to an article by Tommy Angelo, who defined this concept, called reciprocality. Read it, absorb it, understand it, before proceeding.
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Now that you understand reciprocality, let’s continue.
Playing Well Doesn’t Necessarily Guarantee Winning
The overriding concept here is that you do not need to play particularly well to win, you just need your opponents to play worse than you do. At the end of the day, where you really make money is by having your opponents play any of the multitudes of decisions less well than you do. In other words, all you have to do to be a good player is play poker with bad players, and the money will come, even if you are just a mediocre player yourself when it comes to technical skill. The problem is, as games get tougher and tougher, finding these super soft games is becoming increasingly difficult.
It’s true that, in the not too distant past, a professional player could simply play a very tight range of hands and wait for the bad players to basically hand their money over either bit-by-bit or in large chunks. Making little mistakes here and there and having a general lack of post-flop skill didn’t really matter. As long as you followed the adage “tight is right,” you were good to go and pretty much guaranteed to succeed. Furthermore, since a lot of players were making money doing this, there was no negative reinforcement to provide the necessary impetus for them to try and improve their games. So life was good.
Unfortunately today, even at the micros, everyone has easy access to hand charts and a plethora of information in books, on television, and online at their disposal. Anyone can learn a basic poker strategy in a few days and then beat a table of fishy players. Even at stakes as low as $10NL, maybe even lower, you will find a multitude of micro-stakes grinders out there playing decent fundamental pre-flop poker. However, “nitting it up” simply will not do if you ever have a desire to play above $25NL. In order to beat the modern game, you need to maximize profit in every situation you face.
To Excel, Redirect Your Focus
Big all-in pots, while dramatic and exciting, are only a small piece of where the money comes from in poker. The other 99% of the time we are not getting all-in. We are raising, calling, or folding in small pots that are often meaningless for the vast majority of players out there. They play for the action and excitement of big pots and simply have no clue of where their profit is coming from, or, where their losses are going to. This fact offers a great opportunity to anyone with the knowledge and will to take advantage of it.
I have said many times and been ridiculed for it as well, that cards don’t matter in poker. What I mean is that the cards you are dealt do not make a difference in your long-term win-rate, since as we know, everyone will pick up the same hands with the same frequencies over the long term. What matters is that you maximize and play each spot the best you can, no matter how unexciting it is, and not spend too much time focusing on the big pots or any number of tough spots you might encounter. In my experience, the best way to maximize is to have a routine that you follow on each and every hand you play, that takes into account all pertinent factors based on the information at hand. I wrote an article on my own personal routine for planning hands that you might be interested in checking out.
When it comes to being obsessed with interesting or “big” hands, the vast majority of players fixate on these spots. To get a taste of what I am talking about, I recommend checking out some of the poker forums out there. You will mostly see players either posting the big pot hands or hands where they faced so-called “difficult” decisions. The funny part is, most of the time, the hands they are discussing are spots where the decision is very close in EV between two separate decisions. In other words, it often doesn’t matter what they choose to do, the long-term win-rate would be virtually the same either way. Therefore, in those so-called “tough” spots, you can usually just flip a coin in making your decision rather than sitting around racking your brain about it. Furthermore, many of those difficult situations might have been caused by mistakes earlier in the hand or been a complete game flow fubar.
How Money Is Won
Ultimately, how do professional poker players make money? Where does the money come from? It comes from winning more battles, both big and small than your opponents win at the tables. Every single decision you make is a battle being fought and, if one player does it better than another, money changes hands. Over the long term, the players who maximize the best in the most overall battles will be the ones who profit. What you should strive for is to play poker by looking at expected value instead of for the thrill of making big hands. Once you can do this, you are beginning to think like a professional poker player.
Now that you know how money is made in poker, you may be wondering how to convert that theory into real money. The fastest path to profit is through sound fundamentals and strategic planning which manifests in the form of superior tactics in every single action you make. It comes from beating your opponents in ways they don’t even know exist. It is about being mindful of why you are doing what you are doing at all times. It is about winning the wars no one else is attempting to fight. But mostly, it is about mercilessly forcing your will on your opponents, while avoiding reciprocation.
This style of active, exploitative play, is most often associated with a loose-aggressive style of play that focuses on small ball poker with lots of bets and raises with very few passive plays. That leads me to our next topic because loose aggressive play involves adjusting what you are doing based on the specific table dynamic you are currently in.
Passive Poker Is Losing Poker
Concept #2: Poker Is A People Game
The second overriding poker concept that you need to understand is that poker is a game about people. The table dynamic (or the players who make up your table along with how they view you and each other) are the number one influence on how you plan your hands from pre-flop through the river. And, establishing a set of optimal vacuum lines to use against a variety of player types is the single best thing you can do to improve the quality of your play today. Indeed, game flow adjustments are what separate the men from the boys and is the biggest reason some players get stuck at a certain stake and can never move up to bigger games.
The key skill to develop is recognizing when you should not even be sitting at a table. Often, players will continue in a game with no hope of winning over the long term. In fact, table selection is the most important skill any poker player will possess, bar none. Remember concept number 1 and where profit comes from? It comes from the collective mistakes of your opponents. Therefore, the biggest winners in poker are not necessarily the best players, they are often just the best at playing against the worst players the most often. I wrote an article on the best places to play online poker, which will give you some insight into the softest poker sites to play on.
Table Selection Is Key
Just like any other poker skill, you should actively work on getting better at spotting the best poker tables to sit at. In fact, once you have all developed your arsenal of strategies and tactics, over a variety of table dynamics, the actual execution of hands will become second nature. To illustrate, when I play poker I am not really thinking too deeply about what line to take in this or that situation. If you see me tanking or taking a lot of time to consider a decision, I am probably just thinking about recent or past history and how that affects the dynamic, and which of two lines is likely optimal due to that information.
That being said, taking a lot of time during a hand is very rare for me. I tend to spend a lot more time pre-flop before I make my initial decision to enter a hand. I’ve played so many hands now, that the way the actual hands play after the flop, is relatively automatic. Nearly all of my brain power and focus goes into creating profitable situations for myself. And, the initial way to do this, is to sit down in profitable seats. Once you are actually seated, it’s all about maximizing and taking advantage of that advantageous situation.
Here is a table selection chart that I created a few years ago. Those of you who have read my book will probably recognize it. It is based on 3 opponent types: fish, nits, and lite 3-bettors, and shows a hierarchy of the top 12 possible tables at which you can be seated.
Table Selection Chart: Hero Shown As Black
The chart illustrates the positional relationship between the Hero and the Villains at the poker table. You will notice that it’s always best to have fish at the table. The next best situation is to have nits on your, left and the only time you want aggressive players to your left is if there is a soft spot somewhere else at the table. Take some time and study the chart and use it to your advantage during your next few sessions.
General Pre-Flop Adjustments To Make
Adjusting to your opponents could be the subject of an entire book. However, I will give you 3 tips that cover the vast majority of your decisions on whether to build your opening ranges according to the general makeup of your table. Note that these factors mostly apply to when you are in a stealing position but are still relevant no matter what seat you are in.
- With tight players to your left, loosen up
Players who fold to steals often are a gold mine for aggression. In some situations, you can even open 100% of hands with nits to your left. - With aggressive players to your left, tighten up
Players who fight for their blinds by aggressive 3-betting or by flatting often and attacking their opponents post-flop can be a pain in the butt if you don’t adjust properly. The most obvious adjustment is to tighten up your pre-flop range. A good rule of thumb is if you are folding to 3-bets more than 60% (once you’ve adjusted your 4-betting range and 3-bet flatting range) in the specific dynamic, you need to tighten up. I find that opening between 25% and 30% is the sweet spot with hyper aggros to my left. - With loose passive players to your left, shift your ranges around
What I mean by “shift” is to tailor your ranges to include more hands that flop well post-flop. Since you will be seeing a lot of flops, you will want a range with optimized “flopability.” That way you can do a lot more light c-betting and realize more equity with showdown value hands. A typical range would include a range with connectedness, suitedness, and high card strength. 22+, Ax, K92, Q98, J98, T98, 98s, works nicely. By the way, in case you don’t know, the way I express hand ranges now includes suited and non-suited versions worked into the shorthand. For example, K92 is K9o+ and K2s+.
General Post-Flop Adjustments To Make
If you have adjusted correctly pre-flop, then hands will generally play much easier post-flop. Let’s go through each player type again and discuss how to approach our play after the flop.
- Against tight players, play straightforward and define your hand early
Tight players tend to play their hands face up after the flop. They will have a much stronger range after calling and connect to boards often, so don’t widen your c-betting too much. The worst thing you can do is get to later streets not knowing where your marginal top pair type hand is. Therefore, just take a bet-fold line with your mid-strength made hands and only go for delayed c-bets with your nut hands. If they have a hand worth stacking off with, it will probably happen on the turn anyway. In fact, a tight player may turn into an aggro player if you show weakness on the flop. Otherwise, don’t get too tricky and just play your opponent’s specific tendencies. - Versus aggro opponents, play pot control and induce
I like to play a counter-punching style against aggressive players by taking a lot of check back-raise turn lines. I usually do this with draws and air hands that have potential to improve by the river. I balance this by checking back some stackable mid-strength hands as well. Don’t be afraid to fire another barrel on the river if they happen to call your turn check-raise. You have repped huge strength, and that will generally create enough fold equity to make a river bluff profitable. - Light value bet against loose-passives and bet a bit larger
The old adage of not bluffing a calling range is true. As a rule, don’t put a single dime in the pot unless your hand has some showdown value. The exception being on the driest of dry boards, like 772 or A73. In general, you want to go for 2-3 streets of value with almost any piece of the board. Save the third barrel for the strongest part of your range and generally check back the river with your weaker showdown value hands. Also, generally bet a bit bigger with your stronger value hands. Since these players hate to fold, you might as well get a bit more value from them while you can. There’s no need to balance your bet sizing since loose-passives are never good hand readers.
Concept #3: Conquering Tilt
Lastly, the third important concept that all players need to know is on the mental side of poker. More specifically, it’s about avoiding tilt. If you’ve made it this far, you probably already know what tilt is, but, just to make sure we are clear, let’s define it. Tilt is when we alter our play based on short-term results, rather than reads and game flow. In other words, you play worse when either winning or losing.
I am not some kind of mental guru, but I do know that tilt is the thing that holds a lot of talented players back from achieving their full potential in poker. I won’t try and tell you specifically how to fix your tilt, and yes, everyone tilts. You are lying to yourself if you say you don’t.
Everyone tilts
What I will do, is tell you how I deal with tilt and how changing your overall perspective really can help. In fact, embracing concept #1 in this article is a strong positive step toward helping cure someone’s tilt problems. But just in case, here are a few specific keys that might help you with tilt:
- Be positive/upbeat (genuinely). Don’t grind when it feels like a grind.
- Live in the moment (breathe).
- Detach from results and your bankroll. Don’t look at the cashier/Hold’em Manager or PokerTracker during sessions!
- Accept chaos and that variance happens.
- Be efficient during hands. Only think about the way to play every street and future streets should a particular card come. Do not waste mental energy on anything that is not relevant to playing the hand well (ie. don’t think.. “no heart no heart no heart!” in your head).
If All Else Fails, Discover Your Crutch
Nearly every player has a way to clear their head and get back on track, they just have to find it. Some people can fix their tilt issues by going running or playing their favorite sport. Others can just watch a movie or hang out with their significant other. You have to find what works for you, whether it be a typical fix or something unorthodox. Here are a few ideas:
- Switch to a different game for a few days
Have a thing for SNGs or MTTs? How about PLO? The point is to refresh yourself by playing a different format for fun. I recommend playing at a stake that is low enough to just barely matter to you. I once played a $5 tournament for fun while on a cash game downswing, and ended up binking it for $1,800!
- Do a bankroll building challenge
Starting with a small amount of money and rebuilding a bankroll is a great way to get back to your winning ways. Playing against micro opponents builds confidence and allows you to refocus on the fundamentals. - Teach someone else to play
There is no better way to get back to the basics and perhaps even highlight a fundamental of poker that you have been violating, than by teaching a beginner how to play the game. - Start a poker blog
Putting down your thoughts in writing is a great way to work through issues you are having in your game. This is a great way to vent frustration and anger, just make sure you don’t sound like a crybaby and fill the text with bad beat stories. Instead, talk more about what you are feeling and how you plan to deal with it. Post some hands that you were confused on and talk through your thought process. Trust me, it helps. - Make a list of your poker strengths/weaknesses
Draw a line down the middle of a piece of paper and write all of your strengths on the left side. Then, honestly assess where you are having the most trouble during sessions and write those down on the right-hand side. Seek out help from either a teacher or various articles & videos you can find on Google or poker training sites. Actively working on your game can do wonders for your mental state.
Conclusion
In order to play poker like a pro and conquer Texas Hold’em, or any other variant of poker for that matter, you must master the mental aspects of the game, learn to manage your opponents, and understand the most basic fundamental concept of poker: Where the money comes from. This how professional poker players make money and a concept that all big winners players grasp.
This article has covered three things in depth. These are the best things that you can work on today to improve your results immediately.
In fact, the concepts are actually much more important than any specific strategy one can learn but are also the least practiced elements for most players. This creates a great opportunity for you!
If you master these three concepts, you will have a significant edge on anyone who does not, and will almost certainly enjoy a better win-rate as a result. I’m going to end this by giving you three specific things you can do today to take action and become a better player.
- Focus on the fundamentals and put yourself in good situations. Actively work on improving your play in the so-called marginal spots that everyone else thinks is boring. Seek out profit where no one else is looking.
- Avoid playing in games where there isn’t at least 1 really bad player in the two seats to your right, or at least two bad players on the table. The more bad players the better.
- Don’t change your play based on recent results. Try to think of every hand as just being one in a billion spots just like this that you will play over the long term. Keep perspective and you have a great chance of conquering or at least avoiding, tilt. The best way to do this is to live in the moment and focus on planning each and every hand like it’s the most important one you ever played!
For more on improving yourself, check out my article on the 7 Common Traits of Successful Poker Players where you will learn what it takes to be an expert player and play like a pro.
Good luck at the tables!
Update and Clarification
One of my most popular YouTube videos is the companion to this article. It’s called 3 Steps To Winning At Poker. There has been a lot of confusion from viewers on what I mean by this and it is by far the most common thing I have to respond to in the comments. Therefore, I think the subject is worthy of a blog post that sums up and clarifies what I am talking about and how reciprocality works in poker.
A gentleman made the following comment and I responded in detail. Here is the full copy:
(Name Redacted) Highlighted comment
Actually, players get rich by winning a couple of big hands in daily sessions comprising of several hours of grinding. This is how the ‘regs’ make a living. The trick is not to risk the entire bankroll after getting lucky and lose it back
AutomaticPoker (My response)
What about the big hands that they lose during losing sessions? Don’t they balance out the big hands won over the long term? My premise is that the real earnings come from grinding out every poker spot. Sure, the big hands are what dictates a winning session for the most part. But when you strip away each situation and look at them individually, it’s the one who is making more than his average opponent in the most spots that really shows a long-term profit over their career. Let me give you an over-simplified and extreme example of how profit works in poker. Imagine that you are playing a lifetime of poker sessions in one big 10 million hand marathon session. Except that you get the same exact situation, or a similar one, 10,000 straight times. Then another situation 10,000 straight times. But here’s the kicker. During each of those “mini” sessions, your opponents will each exactly have the same situation as you. I know that’s not possible, but pretend that it is. You keep doing this until you have faced basically every possible situation that you could ever face at the poker table. What’s your profit or loss the first 10k? The 2nd 10k? Add up all of the 10 sessions and then you see if you won money over your career or not. Also, I guarantee that you will be surprised at which situations make the most profit. Here’s a hint, it almost certainly won’t be the “big” hands. It’ll be something like open-raising 32o on the button with weak-tight players behind you… assuming you make the adjustment!
Please let me know if this isn’t clear to you because, IMHO, it’s definitely the most important thing a poker player needs to grasp.
Jim James is well-known as the world’s leading expert on playing short or mid-stacked poker. He has over 15 years of experience playing poker professionally, has written extensively on the topic, and is the author of the best-selling poker strategy book Automatic Poker.
Using a no-nonsense mathematical and logical approach to beating the games, he has won 7 figures at the poker tables. His innovative simple poker charts make the game easier for everyone willing to learn. Today, he helps other players demystify what it takes to win money in No-Limit Hold’em and has helped countless people become winning poker players through his Online Poker Academy.
https://automaticpoker.com/strategy/how-to-win-at-poker/
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I want to to thank you for this good read!! I absolutely enjoyed every bit of it. I’ve got you book-marked to check out new stuff you post…