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My most popular strategy articles
A guide to help you win more and lose less during the early rounds of a Sit and Go when your stack is high relative to the blinds. A list of every single two-card starting hand in Texas Hold’em along with its long-term winning percentage against 1-8 other players holding random cards. This essentially ranks every hand by strength. Quick-fold poker variants like Zoom, Rush, and Zone Poker call for some strategy adjustments. Here are some of my top methods for maximizing winnings at fast-fold poker. Tips to Dominate Local Poker Tournaments If you’ve been playing poker online for some time or have been watching poker on TV and are considering taking a shot at local poker tournaments,… The “Beat The Fish” Guide that Started it All Josh’s updated notes: The following Beat The Fish strategy guide was actually the first piece I ever did for this site… The actual mathematical odds for the most common and useful situations in Hold’em such as odds of completing straights, flushes, or improving a set. The most important part of Hold’em independent of playing your opponents is arguably comparing pot odds to the odds of improving your hand. Let me show you how to do that and why you need to. A common but nicely-hidden tactic for extracting extra value and confusing your opponents is to lead out with a bet on your draws to straights and flushes. Here’s how and when you should do it. Poker strategy article on specific methods for playing small poker pairs 22-77. How much should you call, who do you want to play these against, and what should you do when you unearth gold with that set on the flop? What actually qualifies as a bad beat in poker, how to keep perspective when you’re on the losing end, and why they actually mean that you’re playing the game the right way. Some of my favorite ways to play Ace-King in cash games and tournaments. How often to raise, reraise, and, yes, even fold. How to Pick Your Most Profitable Poker Game I’d like to share with you a recent e-mail I received from a regular visitor who is fairly new to No-Limit Hold’em… Playing a mid-range hand that looks better than it usually is – such as pocket Jacks – may be one of the most difficult skills to master in Texas Hold’em. Here’s a look at my tendencies when holding this tricky hand.The Sit and Go Strategy to Help you Win in 2023
Texas Hold’em Poker Hand Strength – 2023 Charts
Fast-Fold Poker Strategy – Updated for 2023
How to Win Local Poker Tournaments
How to “Beat The Fish” at Poker Games
Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Calculator for 2023
Avoiding Poker Pot Odds Mistakes
Win More Betting Out Your Draws
What The Pros Rarely Say About Small Pocket Pairs
How to Deal with the Worst Poker Bad Beats
The Top Ways to Win More Playing AK (Ace-King, Big Slick)
How to Pick What Wins the Most Money in Online Poker
Profitable Methods for Playing Pocket Jacks
All strategy articles
I’m going to be honest with you: I hate multi-tabling in online poker. I do it, but I don’t like it at all. It’s stressful and I feel rushed, which… Texas Hold’em is a simple game, complicated by endless challenging situations. Imagine you are in the middle stages of a tournament and you defend your big blind to a raise… Spin & Go tournaments, under one name or another, have been all the rage in online poker the past couple of years. Ever since PokerStars introduced the concept, more and… Beginning players are often confused by pot odds or scared of them, but if you want to be consistent winning poker players you have to learn how to use them. The first…Stack and Tile Review for 2023 – Simplified Multi-Table Poker
Advanced Poker Training Introduces Combat Trainer: Hands-on Learning Tool
Spin & Go Strategy – How to Beat These Tournaments
Poker Pot Odds Quizzes for 2023
Are You Ready to Play Poker Professionally? So, let’s say you’ve been playing poker for a little while now. You’ve made a nice little profit and could make a living… The Different Ways to Play Pocket Aces Once every 221 hands, something wonderful happens – you lift up the corner of your cards to reveal two beautiful, shiny Aces. But,… A Full Guide on Playing Flushes As one of the most powerful hands in poker hand rankings, landing a flush can be incredibly profitable. However, like most hands, it’s not… Player’s Review of Red Chip Poker CORE Finding a good poker course that takes your from the very basics all the way to advanced concepts is quite a challenge. Most… How to Win at the Microstakes Games by Nathan “BlackRain79” Williams Ah, the micro stakes poker tables. This is where you can play online for amounts of money as low… What Separates Strong Poker Players From Weak Ones While many poker players like to believe that they are strong players, the reality is that there are significantly more weak players… Detailed Poker Rules for Beginners Poker takes five minutes to learn, but a lifetime to master – Mike Sexton That famous quote about the simplicity of poker rules and unending… Poker Glossary of Terms For all the endless poker terms thrown around at poker tables you would be forgiven for thinking that players had finally seceded to make their own… This Tell Makes The Nuts Win More Patience in poker is a virtue, as it is in life. If you don’t play poker with patience and discipline, you’re certainly not… Successful Strategies with Betting Time With online poker becoming commonplace these days, it was inevitable for poker authors and amateurs to start coming up with their own rules about online tells…. How to Play Small Suited Connectors Small suited connectors (hands like 4-5 suited and 7-8 suited) can be a goldmine if you hit the right flop, especially playing no-limit. As… Protecting Against Pocket Kings Getting Cracked If you thought I hated slowplaying Aces, don’t even get me started on slowplaying pocket Kings. Especially when you’re playing online, it’s a big… Avoid these Mistakes with Slowplaying Pocket Aces If you take away one concept for your poker game from this site, this should be it. Never slowplay your pocket Aces! Sure,… Why to Play Shorthanded Poker Shorthanded poker is a popular variation used in cash games, tournaments and Sit and Go’s. Not only is it played online but it is now… Potential reasons you may want to buy in for the table minimum at a cash game. Reasons for immediately playing the cash game big stack and buying in for as much as the poker room allows. Avoid these Mistakes with Raises on the River A common mistake that I see players make in online no-limit Hold’em cash games and tournaments is raising on the river with… How to Use Player Notes Exactly Right When poker makes an appearance in a film or dramatic television there is often quite a strong emphasis on physical tells, which is… Poker Money Management Methods to Save your Bankroll A topic that I feel is often overlooked in poker strategy literature is money management. After all, where are you in poker… Getting pocket Aces cracked by an inferior hand is one of the most frustrating parts of no-limit Hold’em. Could you have prevented it? And what should you try to do when it inevitably happens? Stop Bleeding from the Blinds Even though blind play account for 20-33% of your cash game hands depending on if you’re playing at 6, 9, or 10-player tables far too few strategy… A discussion on how to play pocket Queens and Kings in Hold’em, respectively the third and second-best starting hands. How often should you be raising and how attached should you get to these hands in various situations? Ways to Beat Maniacs at the Poker Table I recently received an e-mail from a player that I thought was particularly poignant about dealing with “maniacs” at the table. I’m… These Methods Show How to Pay for Information When playing online poker, recognizing betting patterns and trying to compare them with the hands your opponents have shown down is really… Differences of No-Limit Hold’em vs. Limit If you are a tight-aggressive player, you need to consider playing No Limit Hold ’em if you aren’t already. With proper play, not oNo-Limity… Reliable Online Poker Tells One of the largest disadvantages to online poker is the lack of physical tells you can pick up on your opponents. At brick and mortar cardrooms,… Mistakes and Fixes for the Minimum Raise I recently read a piece that Phil Gordon wrote for Full Tilt Poker on the subject of raising for the minimum in no-limit… Tips to Beat Large Tournament Fields People love to play no-limit Hold ’em poker tournaments these days. That translates to big fields in online tournaments – especially freerolls and low buy-in… The concept of implied odds is one of the most poorly understood and poorly cited ideas in poker, usually used to justify a decision you shouldn’t have made. What are they and when can they actually be useful? Tips to Jump-Start Your Bluffing in No-Limit Hold’em We all know that bluffing is an essential part of poker. If the strength of everyone’s bets was always correlated to the… Basic H.O.R.S.E. Poker Strategy In the inaugural $50,000 buy-in HORSE poker tournament event at the 2006 World Series of Poker, Chip Reese beat out fellow high-stakes cash game players like… Important Poker Odds and Probabilities Unfortunately, many new poker players are intimidated by the game because they believe they need to be math whizzes in order to be a winning… Methods for playing flops containing 2 or more high cards (10-A) and how to shut down your opponents from potential draws. Hint: proceed with extreme caution. When making what seem like harmless decisions on the flop, keep in mind “the hammer of future bets” before you walk into an expensive trap. How to Use Continuation Bets Perhaps most popularized by Dan Harrington’s segment on them in the first Harrington on Hold’em volume, continuation bets have become a standard play in all… How to Win with Checking on the Turn Occasionally, you need to mix up your play, change gears, and disguise your hand as much as possible to keep your opponents… Avoid This Mistake When Calling on the River Many otherwise good online poker players will call that big bet on the river, even when it’s obvious they’re beaten. Don’t be… What is the definition of a calling station and how can you best combat this loose-passive style of play? Learn how to classify them and make the proper winning corrections. Always Avoid These Bluffing Mistakes Bluffing has been around as long as poker itself. If everyone always bet when they had a strong hand and folded when they had a… Quick Tips for Beating Loose Poker Games The following was submitted via our online poker forum (back when I actually hosted one in 2006. These days, just go ahead and…How to Play Poker Professionally: Guide for 2023
The Different Ways to Play and Win with Pocket Aces
How to Play Flush and Flush Draws in Texas Hold’em
Is Red Chip Poker CORE Worth $5 a Week?
Win at the Micros With These Strategies
4 Essentials Weak Poker Players Can Learn From Strong Ones
Detailed Poker Rules for Beginners 2023
Poker Glossary of Terms for 2023
This Reverse Tell Makes The Nuts Win More
How to Use Betting Time as a Tell
How to Make Small Suited Connectors Powerful Hands
Win More with Pocket Kings
Avoid these Mistakes with Pocket Aces
Reasons to Play Shorthanded Poker in 2023
Reasons to Buy In With a Short Stack
How Buying in for the Maximum Can Work
Avoid These Mistakes with Raises on the River
How to Use Player Notes Exactly Right
Money Management Could Save Your Bankroll
Try This if Your Pocket Aces are Getting Cracked
How to Stop Bleeding from the Blinds
How to Play Pocket Kings and Queens Better
How to Beat Maniacs at the Poker Table
How to Pay for Information at the Poker Table
Differences of No-Limit Hold’em vs. Limit
Reliable Online Poker Tells You Can Use
Mistakes and Fixes for the Minimum Raise
Use These Tips to Beat Large Tournament Fields
The Mistake Most Players Make with Implied Odds
Jump-Start Your Bluffing in No-Limit Hold’em
H.O.R.S.E. Poker Strategy Doesn’t Have to be Hard
Common Draws and Odds in Texas Hold’em
Win More on High-Card Hold’em Flops
The Concept of The Hammer of Future Bets
Important Ingredients of Continuation Bets
The Repeatable Way to Win with Checking on the Turn
Avoid This Mistake When Calling on the River
Quick Tips Against Calling Stations
Always Avoid These Bluffing Mistakes
Quick Tips for Beating Loose Poker Games
Table of Contents
- My most popular strategy articles
- The Sit and Go Strategy to Help you Win in 2023
- Texas Hold’em Poker Hand Strength – 2023 Charts
- Fast-Fold Poker Strategy – Updated for 2023
- How to Win Local Poker Tournaments
- How to “Beat The Fish” at Poker Games
- Texas Hold’em Poker Odds Calculator for 2023
- Avoiding Poker Pot Odds Mistakes
- Win More Betting Out Your Draws
- What The Pros Rarely Say About Small Pocket Pairs
- How to Deal with the Worst Poker Bad Beats
- The Top Ways to Win More Playing AK (Ace-King, Big Slick)
- How to Pick What Wins the Most Money in Online Poker
- Profitable Methods for Playing Pocket Jacks
- All strategy articles
- Stack and Tile Review for 2023 – Simplified Multi-Table Poker
- Advanced Poker Training Introduces Combat Trainer: Hands-on Learning Tool
- Spin & Go Strategy – How to Beat These Tournaments
- Poker Pot Odds Quizzes for 2023
- How to Play Poker Professionally: Guide for 2023
- The Different Ways to Play and Win with Pocket Aces
- How to Play Flush and Flush Draws in Texas Hold’em
- Is Red Chip Poker CORE Worth $5 a Week?
- Win at the Micros With These Strategies
- 4 Essentials Weak Poker Players Can Learn From Strong Ones
- Detailed Poker Rules for Beginners 2023
- Poker Glossary of Terms for 2023
- This Reverse Tell Makes The Nuts Win More
- How to Use Betting Time as a Tell
- How to Make Small Suited Connectors Powerful Hands
- Win More with Pocket Kings
- Avoid these Mistakes with Pocket Aces
- Reasons to Play Shorthanded Poker in 2023
- Reasons to Buy In With a Short Stack
- How Buying in for the Maximum Can Work
- Avoid These Mistakes with Raises on the River
- How to Use Player Notes Exactly Right
- Money Management Could Save Your Bankroll
- Try This if Your Pocket Aces are Getting Cracked
- How to Stop Bleeding from the Blinds
- How to Play Pocket Kings and Queens Better
- How to Beat Maniacs at the Poker Table
- How to Pay for Information at the Poker Table
- Differences of No-Limit Hold’em vs. Limit
- Reliable Online Poker Tells You Can Use
- Mistakes and Fixes for the Minimum Raise
- Use These Tips to Beat Large Tournament Fields
- The Mistake Most Players Make with Implied Odds
- Jump-Start Your Bluffing in No-Limit Hold’em
- H.O.R.S.E. Poker Strategy Doesn’t Have to be Hard
- Common Draws and Odds in Texas Hold’em
- Win More on High-Card Hold’em Flops
- The Concept of The Hammer of Future Bets
- Important Ingredients of Continuation Bets
- The Repeatable Way to Win with Checking on the Turn
- Avoid This Mistake When Calling on the River
- Quick Tips Against Calling Stations
- Always Avoid These Bluffing Mistakes
- Quick Tips for Beating Loose Poker Games
- My poker strategy philosophy
- Don’t sleep on online-only poker strategy
- No-Limit Hold’em cash game strategy
- Poker strategy for specific hands
- Poker strategy for Texas Hold’em
- Poker strategy for beginners
- Poker strategy FAQs
- What is poker strategy?
- What is the best poker strategy?
- What can I use as a poker strategy guide?
My poker strategy philosophy
With poker strategy having been done so well already by pros and journalists alike I’ve tried to take a little bit of a different approach in my guidance for players.
I try to give special consideration to what works online and write in an accessible fashion without being too generic and simplistic.
I also don’t include a whole lot of math beyond pot odds and the odds of hitting hands in specific scenarios.

Advice like “Avoid trap hands and play conservatively from early position.” is only useful to the most inexperienced players, but a bottom-line tip like, “Pocket pairs become more valuable against early position raisers,” might actually be useful.
I believe in giving bottom-line methods that you can easily incorporate into your game.
I believe the most useful strategy can be understood by beginners yet give a useful tidbit, serve as a plug for a potential leak, or offer a new perspective that may still help intermediate and advanced players.
Don’t sleep on online-only poker strategy
Even though the game remains the same online poker strategy introduces some unique wrinkles, advantages, and disadvantages. Physical tells don’t exist, but can anything be deduced by how your online opponent acts?
Can you use technology to give you a strategic advantage? What about game modes that are online-exclusive? Where relevant, I address these online-specific poker strategy tweaks that are ignored by mainstream strategy pros.

No-Limit Hold’em cash game strategy
This section focuses exclusively on poker strategy for No-limit Hold’em cash games. They have become the most popular game in poker and where the majority of professional players earn their profits.
Tournaments are fun and do a great job at capturing suspense and glory, but are uniquely difficult to cash in consistently. Tournaments for show, cash games for dough.
Poker strategy for specific hands
Certainly every table situation varies depending on if you’re in a cash game or tournament, the strength of your opponents, and your stack size. However, specific hands come up so often that it can be helpful to have a rough strategy guide in mind for how you’re going to play it.

Poker strategy for Texas Hold’em
Texas Hold’em is a rather complex game, so describing a correct and efficient strategy in just a few paragraphs is impossible. There are, however, certain things you need to know about the strategy for the “Cadillac of Poker,” as Texas Hold’em is often referred to.
First and foremost, poker is largely based on math. Knowing pot odds and percentages for certain draws is of the utmost importance if you want to play a solid game. Apart from that, you also need to know that your position at the table in relation to the dealer’s position makes a huge difference. You want to play hands “in position” as much as possible.
On top of all this, other people, your opponents at the table, play a huge role in determining the right poker strategy. Sometimes you will want to be as aggressive as possible, at other times you will be the silent one, waiting for your chance.
The strategy for tournaments and cash games can also be very different, so that’s another thing you need to keep in mind if you are transitioning from one format to the other.
Poker strategy for beginners
Many things stated in the answer above this one also deal with the poker strategy for beginners. Starting with poker isn’t easy because there are so many things one needs to understand and come to terms with before sitting at the table.
For those completely new to poker, here’s a few strategy tips that should keep you out of the harms way.
Tight is right.
While more experienced players can afford to play a wilder, looser style, until you’ve garnered some experience with the game, your best bet is to play only the strong hands and play them fast.
When you have a monster, don’t try to be tricky with it since you are probably not capable of putting your opponent on the hand correctly. Just keep betting and raising, making sure you don’t allow anyone to catch up for cheap.
Bluffing is overrated.
While bluffing is undoubtedely an important part of poker, what you may have seen or heard about on TV or from your friends doesn’t necessarily correspond with the reality. Pulling a big bluff does feel great but at the same time it can be very costly.
Poker strategy for beginners should include very little, if any, bluffs. The time will come when you will be able to read the hands better and assess the situations correctly. Only then will your bluffs make sense.
Don’t get emotional.
This is not a poker strategy advice per se, but poker is a game of emotions as well. What you need to understand as a beginner is that odds are you will be losing at first. That’s nothing to worry or get upset about. If you are determined to keep learning and improving, the results will come.
There are plenty of resources right to help you get better.
Make use of everything you can get your hands on, including numerous poker books, which cover different areas of strategy, from beginner’s concepts to very advanced plays.
Also, an entire industry has spawned from poker players looking to improve their strategy in the easiest way possible. Numerous sites dedicated to poker training have sprung up, teaming up with professional players and step-by-step instructions, usually for a monthly fee.

Poker strategy FAQs
What is the best way to learn?
Like anything else, the best way to learn poker strategy will depend on your preferred way of learning in general. For some, reading strategy articles and books will be of great value, while others will enjoy watching poker videos and gathering the information that way. Also, using poker forums to ask questions and exchange opinions should help you advance much faster.
Can poker strategy be learned by just playing?
While this is not completely impossible, learning just from your experience can be a rather lengthy, painful, and expensive process. You will probably need to have some talent as well if you want to learn just by playing. The best chess players in the world, despite their natural talent, have, for the most part, spent thousands of hours studying the game. Another trap of learning from the experience is that you could “learn” certain things completely wrong without even knowing it. These mistakes in poker are usually known as leaks.
What is the main difference between poker strategy for tournaments and cash games?
While both cash games and tournaments follow the same rules in terms of the game itself, the main difference is the amount of chips you have in front of you on average. Cash games usually play deeper, with players always having at least 100 big blinds in front of them. Since blinds stay the same for the entire duration of the session, the stack to blind ratio never changes.
In tournaments, due to blinds increasing over time, the stack to blind ratio changes constantly. Also, since you are not allowed to buy more chips (in most tournaments, at least), your stack size varies greatly and this requires the ability to adapt quickly. Playing with a stack of 30 big blinds is vastly different to playing 200 big blinds deep.

How long does it take to learn a proper poker strategy?
There is no simple answer to this, as it depends greatly on numerous factors. For one, some people will be able to adopt poker strategy concepts faster than the others. Apart from this, poker strategy is a wide term, as even talking about just No Limit Hold’em, there are numerous game formats and learning the proper strategy for some of them is quite simple, while some others are extremely complex.
How should I start learning poker strategy?
Assuming you already know the rules of the game, your next step would be understanding the basic math calculations behind the game. This is a very important first step before going further into detail. After that, you can start exploring different playing styles and understanding hand ranges, as this will help you structure your knowledge much better.
As mentioned in the question above, there are many different game formats, so your best bet would be focusing on learning strategy for one of them first and than expanding to other formats (if you wish) once you’ve obtained a decent grasp of the first one.
What is poker strategy?
Simply put, poker strategy is a set of rules and definitions which tell you how you should optimally play your hands. It covers different aspects of the game, from your position at the table, selecting your starting hands, playing different stack sizes, and adjusting your plays according to your opponents’ tendencies.
Despite what you may think, if you don’t know anything about the game, the poker strategy is a vast area filled with math, probability, and psychology. In fact, the game of poker is so complex that no one has of yet come up with the perfect strategy that would be the answer to all possible situations and circumstances.

What is the best poker strategy?
While it is impossible to give an absolute answer to this (see above), the generally accepted consensus is that the best poker strategy is what is known as TAG (short for tight-aggressive). The advantages of this strategy are that it makes your decision making process simpler and for the most part it keeps you out of trouble. It advocates playing strong hands and profiting from other players’ mistakes.
However, with the development of the game, players and poker writers have come up with different approaches as well. Many highly successful players today are leaning towards LAG (loose-aggressive) playing style. While this may not be the optimal playing style from the purely mathematical standpoint, it is the one that puts a lot of pressure on your opponents and constantly forces them to make tough decisions.
So, the answer is probably somewhere in-between. Playing a standard TAG style, mixed with some bold loose moves at the right time and against the right opponents can get you far.

What can I use as a poker strategy guide?
As mentioned in one of the earlier questions, figuring out your preferred poker strategy guide boils down to what you enjoy the most. With the vast amount of resources in written, video, and even audio-only form, you can pick anything you want to help you deepen your strategy knowledge.
Those completely new to poker would probably do best to pick one of poker books and start their journey there, simply because many of these books have a very good organization and will guide you step by step. After you’ve created a solid foundation, you can move on to other methods of learning.
Reading poker strategy articles, like the ones found right here at Beat The Fish, can also serve as an excellent poker strategy guide.
Josh is one of the world’s most respected online gambling experts. He has been featured on outlets such as CardPlayer, the World Poker Tour, Google News, and Forbes. Josh has nearly 20 years of experience reviewing poker rooms, casinos, and online sportsbooks. He launched Beat The Fish in 2005, which has been peer-certified as a trustworthy gambling portal. Josh’s proven systems and extensive knowledge of the iGaming industry have been used by thousands of online bettors to make more informed decisions.
So much stuff to go through here, but I guess you can never know too much poker XD
That’s the spirit, Michelle!
I do think there are diminishing returns when it comes to poker strategy, though, if you consume too much at once.
Try one or two concepts a day and then actually play to try to implement them. Anything more and you’re just bound to get overwhelmed.
I love how you try to approach the idea from different angles. There is a lot to be learned here, especially if you are a fish like I am :D
Don’t judge me. Poker needs fishes too.
Thanks, Danny, and believe me, we all appreciate your presence at the tables.