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In poker you have to make decisions repeatedly. To be successful you have to make the correct decisions a high percentage of the time. Here are what I believe to be the 3 most important poker decisions.

1. Deciding who to play against. This may seem odd at first, but it really isn’t. Poker is a game of skill. If you consistently play against players who are better than you it will be difficult to win. Ideally, you want to try to play against players who are no better than you and, preferably, worse. If you are playing in home poker games that draw from a relatively large player pool you can accomplish this by trying to avoid games where most of the players have superior skills compared to you and accept the invitations to play in games where most of the players are less skilled. CONTINUED

If you have just started playing in a home poker game it is going to take some time to learn and develop the skills you'll need to become a consistant winner. Here are 12 tips to shorten the learning curve.

1. Read. It seems to me that few players actually read any books or articles about poker and I find that surprising. I am not sure what the reasons are for neglecting this, but reading is an important method of improving your play, especially as a beginning player. You should first focus on general poker information like the rules of play, hand ranking, probabilities, pot odds. Next should come learning about tactics and strategies and when and how to apply them. Finally, you can focus on specific poker game variations at a more advanced level. Yes, it will cost you money to buy some books, but playing losing poker will cost you money, too. CONTINUED

A key maneuver that you must be aware of in order to be successful in poker games, especially poker tournaments, is the isolation play. An isolation play can help you move forward in a tournament, so you should know how they work and when an opportunity for one arises.

Example of an isolation play in a poker tournament. You play poker in the middle stages of a poker tournament with blinds at 100-200. You have an average stack of about 3000 chips and are holding 8c 8h. You are prepared to limp in and try to flop a set when a short stack to your right, with 800 chips, moves all-in. CONTINUED

Winning money in poker tournaments requires many skills and tactics. One tactic that is not often discussed is stalling. Some people may be critical of stalling as a poker tactic. But, stalling for time it is a legitimate and accepted practice in sports like football and basketball and there is no reason for it to be criticized in poker. CONTINUED

There are more than enough ways to lose at poker, but here are three of the main reasons I see most often. If you can manage these three things you’ll be well on your way to becoming a poker master: 1. Playing Too Many Starting Hands. 2. Playing at Limits Too High in Relation to Their Bankroll. 3. Trying to Get Back to Even. We are going to take a look at these one at a time. But beware; the answer to winning is in all of these. Don’t just take one of the suggestions and incorporate it. Use all of it. Why? Because it will work for you. The important key is to use these tips to develop your own “style” of play that is complimentary to you.

1. Playing Too Many Starting Hands. Simply put, you may be playing too many hands. Start by tightening up and playing only the absolute best hands. I would recommend that you only play AA, KK, A-K, QQ. Then when you start to win with these hands slowly introduce other hands into your game. Add JJ first. When you are successful with JJ then add 10-10 and so on. CONTINUED

If your home poker game is like mine, then you and the other players are in it to have an enjoyable evening. Getting out is fun, being with friends is fun, playing poker is fun. It’s not a time for being seriously focused on poker for every single minute. Still, it’s always more fun to win than it is to lose. And, if you want to win one of the most important things you need to do is pay attention. That comes as no surprise. The players in my home poker game all have many years of experience. But, despite that, nearly everyone has had lapses in attention that have cost them pots. I’m not talking about missing some subtle tell or not being able to recall every card that appeared in a folded hand. These are some glaring errors that never should have occurred, but they did. Here are a couple of examples. I could relate even more, but these should suffice in making the point. CONTINUED

While late position is a coveted spot in a texas holdem online game, a strong player will learn to play from every position. Even early position, often considered to be unfavorable by many players, can have its benefits if handled correctly.

Benefits of Early Position in Texas Hold’em Poker: Respect.  A player who raises from early position risks being raised by any of the majority of players who act after him. He will also have to act early throughout the hand. Opponents know this, and are more likely to give an early position raiser credit for a hand. A late position raiser is much more likely to be played back at, since opponents know he needs a much weaker hand to make a play at the pot and often just protecting his blinds.

All poker tournaments are not created equal. Selecting those with the most favorable conditions will help to increase your profits.

The majority of internet or casino poker tournaments take a portion of your entry fee for their profit. This is to be expected. After all, it costs money to organize and run a poker tournament and provide the facilities and personnel to do so. The organizations who run poker tournaments are profit making businesses. Whenever a portion of the entry fee is kept by the sponsor as profit, the total amount awarded as prizes will always be less than the total collected. For a brick and mortar casino, you can expect that this will be about 20-25% of the entry fee. In the area of the country I live, many charitable and fraternal organizations run poker tournaments as fund raising events. It is not uncommon that up to a third of the entry fees go to the sponsor or charity. Online casinos typically charge the least in their fees, which may average around 10%. You can see then, that the more the sponsor takes out of the game, the less advantageous it is to the players. This does not mean that you should not play in poker tournaments of this type, just that you should be aware of the amount that is actually going to the players. Indeed, it will be relatively difficult to find live tournaments that are not structured this way, although one great way to avoid fees is to hold your own home poker tournament. CONTINUED

Why should you play single table “sit and go” or “freeze-out” poker tournaments? For the same reasons that you play other forms or structures of poker: they are fun to play and you can make money. In addition, they can provide valuable experience for playing in multi-table tournaments.

First, how do they help in playing multi-table tournaments? The big money in a multi-table tournament is paid out at the final table and that is where you want to get whenever you enter a poker tournament. But, with hundreds or even thousands of entrants, a final table appearance is infrequent. Once you get there, you want to make the most of it and finish as high as possible, since there are typically even greater differences in payouts the higher you get. First place could pay 10-20 times the amount of a 10th place finish. Players with previous experience in playing at a final table have a distict advantage over those with no experience. That is the value of single table poker tournaments. With the exception that everyone starts with the same amount of chips and not everyone will get a pay-out, a single table tournament will play very much similar to the final table of a multi-table tournament. Thus, single table play can give you the valuable experience you need at the final table of a multi. CONTINUED