How to Win at Poker: 10 Concrete Steps to Stop Losing

Most players are losers.  Many deny it, by not keeping records and then fooling themselves into thinking they “roughly break-even”. Let’s find out how to win at poker!

All jokes aside, after having spent over 25 years in poker rooms worldwide, only a small percentage of poker players actually win.

This isn’t all bad; because without losing players, there wouldn’t be any winners.

If you are currently one of the many losers, I have 10 concrete steps you can take to improve your game.  

1. Be More Selective with Your Starting Hands
2. Be More Aggressive
3. Have Greater Positional Awareness
4. Pay Attention to Your Opponents
5. Do Not Play Automatically
6. Poker Players Have No Tilt Feature - So Avoid Steaming
7. Tend to Believe Large Bets and Raises Are Indicative of True Hand Strength
8. Don’t Play If You’re Distracted
9. Practice Ruthless Game and Seat Selection
10. Continuous Learning

Let's dive in!

1. Be More Selective with Your Starting Hands

I’m not suggesting that you play like a rock. 

But most players, losing players especially, just play too many starting hands. They figure it’s only the big blind, or only a little bit more.  

And, since they came to a poker game to play, they toss in the chips to see the flop.

There is a good, limited range, based on position and the action of your opponents, that should dictate what hands you play and which hands you discard.  

You can adjust this range based on your image at the table and based on the playing styles of your opponents, and the game in general.  It need not be fixed in cement.  

But it should generally be followed.

Realize that the problem with playing too many starting hands isn’t just that you’re generally wasting money by tossing in chips with unplayable hands.  It’s also that you can easily get yourself into trouble with these hands by continuing to play them when they improve to second best hands on the flop, turn or river.

Quick Example

Imagine that you toss in the $2 in middle position with Qh 7h, figuring it might make a flush or a pair of Queens.  A couple of other players limp in, and the button raises to $10.  

You figure that it’s only $8 more, and with all of the others calling you’re getting great pot odds.  So you call too.

Sure enough, the flop is Ks Qs 6h.  An early position player bets $15.  Many will be seduced into playing with their middle pair and backdoor flush draw.  They figure the bettor might well be bluffing or betting a hand worse than Queens.  

Down this road lies poker ruin - as the hand is headed to Loserville.  If any but the wildest player shows aggression on the flop, this hand is almost surely second best (or worse).  

Sure, it may be a winner. 

But it’s much more likely to lose to a pair of Kings or a Queen with a better kicker, or set, two pair, or a flush. 

Better to have tossed this turkey away, waiting for a better starting hand.

2. Be More Aggressive

When you think you are likely to be in the lead, you want to make opponents pay to play against you. 

You do that by betting and raising, not checking and calling.  I’m not suggesting that you should never chase.  Sometimes you will have a good drawing hand and will be getting the right price to make your draw. 

But most of the time you should be leading the betting when you estimate that you are in the lead.

This is true on every street.  

Take this hand, in a $1/2 game for example.  You are in late position with KhKd.  There are a couple of players who limp, and someone raises the $2 big blind to $15.  Don’t call.  Raise.  Make it $40 or so.  Your raise probably does three things - all of them good.  

First, it’s likely to knock out those players sitting with an Ace or a low pair.  This is good for you because it defeats the possibility that they will stick around and hit a set or an over-pair.  Get them out of the way, so you can get heads up with what is probably a lessor hand. 

Don’t be intimidated by the rare possibility that your opponent raised with Aces. 

Poker isn’t a game of certainty; it’s one of probability.  Accordingly, since you are probably in the lead, you should raise here.

Second, It will almost surely give you last action on future betting rounds. 

Your raise will almost surely knock out players after you, buying you the button.  This is good because it allows you to see the action of any player against you before you have to act.

Finally, it will probably get you a check on the flop.  Your opponent will probably not want to donk bet; with the possible exception of when they hit a very strong hand.  This is good, because it will probably greatly diminish the chance that you are being bluffed. 

Had you just called the flop, your opponent might well make a c-bet even if he hadn’t hit the flop.  You’d be left wondering if you were against a legitimate bet. 

By raising, you freeze their likely bet on the flop; giving you an opportunity to continue with the lead

3. Have Greater Positional Awareness

Losing players are often losing, at least in part, because they fail to appreciate the importance of position. 

To become a winning player you need to recognize and take advantage of the importance of it.  Later position is better than early position. 

You can play more hands, and play them more aggressively from later position.  This is true for a few reasons.  By being in later position, you will have an opportunity to see how your opponents respond to each part of the board before you have to act. 

This will give you more opportunities to steal the pot with a bluff, or check behind with a hand that needs to improve, as your read of the situation dictates.  I recommend reading my guide on positions for more information.

You should also take this positional awareness to the next level, by thinking about how your better opponents might be attempting to use position to their advantage.  A good opponent who raises or 3-bets on the button may just be playing his position. 

They may be good targets for a bluff from you, or a trap with a hand they can’t beat.

By thinking about position you will be adding another dimension to your game - both with regard to offense and defense.  It’s a critical piece of a winning game.

4. Pay Attention to Your Opponents

Much has been written about tells and reading opponents.  That’s important, to be sure.  I’ve written a  dedicated guide to address those tells specifically.

But tells only address part of the awareness that you’ll need to become a winning player.  You must pay attention to your opponents in all regards.  Chiefly, concern yourself with their conscious action.  Think about how much they bet, if they are aggressive, if they tend to fold or call.

Pick one player at a time and put them into a simple category.  Loose or Tight, Passive or Aggressive.  That’s it.  Once you have done that, work on remembering it. 

Remind yourself regularly into which category your opponents fall.  

When you have finished categorizing opponents based on how loose or tight they are and how aggressive or passive they are, add one other category.  Think about whether they are tricky.  Don’t’ worry about figuring them out.  That will take too much time, be distracting, and may not be accurate anyway. 

Just worry about whether they are tricky - whether they act at the table, attempting to appear as other than they really are.  

Know that you can’t watch everything nor can you keep aware constantly. 

That’s okay.  Just devote a couple of hands in a row to this close attention.  Then remember what you can.  Give yourself a break.  And then after a few hands, go back to it.  

Once you categorize players in these ways, and can remember those categories, start tailoring your action against them to exploit their identified characteristics.  

5. Do Not Play Automatically

One thing that separates the rank beginner from the experienced player is that the experienced player tends to act quickly at the table. 

Similarly, much of their behavior tends to become routinized.  Ever see an experienced chess player? They will often glide through the first few moves of a chess game very quickly - having started hundreds of games in the same way.  They even have names for certain openings. 

A truly experienced player, knowing those openings, often just goes through the moves until a point when real decision making has to be made.

This should not be the case in poker - not for the winning player.  Ideally, your action at the table should reflect a certain degree of reflection and thought.  Purposefully put in at least a brief pause before each of your actions.  I’m not talking about tanking all of the time.  But put in place a one or two second pause before you act. 

This will help disguise your difficult decisions - since all actions will have be prefaced by at least a small moment of thought.  

There should be no “standard openings”.  That’s because in poker, unlike in other games, every single situation is unique.  Your opponents are different; their history at the table is different; your history is different; and your position is different.  Ideally, you are basing your action on all of those individual pieces of the whole - and crafting the correct action for that unique situation. 

6. Poker Players Have No Tilt Feature - So Avoid Steaming

Most of us know that the term “tilt” comes from the game of pinball. 

When pinball started to become popular in the US in the 1920s, some overly aggressive players learned that they could manipulate the ball by shaking, banging, and otherwise maneuvering the pinball machine with their arms and legs.  

Manufacturers, hearing about this, introduced a feature to cut down on the jostling.  It was a switch that completely shut down the game if the game moved too much.  When that happened, all of the bells and whistled shut down.  All that remained was an illuminated word, “TILT”

Unfortunately, emotionally jostled poker players don’t have such a switch in their brain.  When they are bumped, banged, or otherwise disturbed, perhaps with a string of bad beats or lucky draws, they can continue to play. 

Nothing shuts them down.  They can be sent into a crazed frenzy of betting - that can cost them their stack - if not their entire bankroll. 

This is known as steaming - and it is a real problem, especially for losing players.

To become a winning player, we must either learn to control our emotions, so we don’t steam; or, at the very least, we must put in place methods for removing ourselves from the game, either physically or psychologically, when we are exposed to the triggers that cause us to steam.  

7. Tend to Believe Large Bets and Raises Are Indicative of True Hand Strength

I’ve watched many a good player build up their stack - playing thoughtful, selectively aggressive poker for hours.  Then, in one flash of boneheadedness, they’ve lost it all.  Invariably, it was because they couldn’t resist the siren’s song of “He’s Probably Bluffing”, seducing them into a call.

It’s very seductive, the urge to call a large bet and not be bluffed out of a pot.  

You started with Kings, hit two pair on the flop, and a flush card hits on the river.  Your opponent goes all in.  The pot is already massive.  You look at your opponent, you look at the pot, and you count out the chips to call.  

Those magic, seductive words enter your brain.  “He’s probably bluffing” you think.  You flip in a chip to call; they turn over the flush; and you say “I knew you had it”.  

To become a winning player, you’ve got to learn to lay it down.  Lay it down when the logical conclusion is that your opponent caught their hand.  

Lay it down when the logical conclusion is that they are ahead of you pre-flop, when they 3-bet you.  Lay it down on the flop when they called your pre-flop bet, when you raised 3x with KK near the button, and then they donk bet in early position with a board of Ah 7c 2d board. 

Fold because they are probably ahead.  

You don’t have to see their cards.  Fold because you surmise that they are ahead and you have improper pot odds to draw.

You’ll save yourself stack-crushing losses, even though you’ll open youself up to being bluffed from time to time.  But being bluffed is okay.  It’s part of the game.  The best players are bluffed from time to time.

8. Don’t Play If You’re Distracted

One of the great things about poker is that you never have to play.  You can pick and choose when to play and whether to play, whether you leave and when you leave.  Take advantage of that.

You should regularly take a mental inventory of your skills. 

• Alert? Check. 
• Engaged? Check. 
• Well rested? Check. 
• Undistracted by business away from the table? Check. 

If any of those things don’t check out, you should check out, at least until you sort things out and are ready to play again.

This is true before your session starts; and it’s true during your session.  Err on the side of not playing.

Playing well, but thinking of leaving?  That means you should probably leave, as you have become distracted by the notion you should stop. 

Starting to feel tired?  No need to stay.  Leave after the next hand.

Excited by a win and looking to lock it in by playing more tightly?  Probably better to leave than to alter your best game. 

Just lost a big hand and you’re afraid you may lose it all back?  Better to leave than to play under a cloud of fear about losing your stack.

9. Practice Ruthless Game and Seat Selection 

You should seek out the games that are most likely to be profitable.  They are not all the same.

First of all, you need to see games with money on the table.  You want big stacks to attack. 

Similarly, you want loose, maybe even wild players - not nitty rocks husbanding their tiny stacks.  Drinking is a good sign. 

Keno slips, Racing forms, sports betting conversation are all signs that the game is likely to be filled with gamblers.  Not that you can’t win money from tight-fisted accountants and retirees as well. 

When you become proficient you can do that too.  But it’s easier and more profitable to win money from people with deep pockets who don’t mind calling you down. 

Yes, it can be frustrating, as these players also tend to win more pots when you go in as the favorite.  But that frustration is the price you pay for your huge wins when their bad play rewards you with a large pot.

Your seat matters too. 

In general, you want to sit to the left of the big stacked loose players.  You want to see how they act before you act. 

This is useful for a few reasons. 

On the one hand, you want to be in a position to isolate them, by re-raising their big bets when you have a strong hand. 

You also want to be able to call when you have a drawing hand that wants some competition. 

What you want to avoid is having them to your immediate left.  You won’t know what the eventual price to see the next card is until after you have had to make your decision of whether to play the hand; since they may well come in for a colossal raise after you are in the hand.

You also want to avoid, if possible, sitting to the immediate right of a strong and very active player.  You want be able to stay out of their way, rather than have them manipulate you after you enter a hand.

The ideal player to your left is someone who is not very active - unlikely to affect the correctness of your decision of how to play, someone very passive, who will predictably call your raise, but rarely if ever re-raise. 

Or a player who is very predictable, as you’ll be able to account for their action based on how they tend to act when you are in the hand.

10. Continuous Learning

As a learning poker player, you should take full advantage of all of the resources available to you.  There are so many resources available to players today.  

There are hundreds of strategy books, thousands of articles, hundreds of videos of play with commentary and analysis.  There are online tutorials, and discussion groups.  

Ask your questions.  Share your hands.  Express your concerns about how you played. 

You should seek out other learning players to dissect and discuss poker hands.

Conclusion

Losing players have nothing to be ashamed about.  

Especially today, in public poker rooms, with the rakes as high as they are, it’s tough to come out ahead.  

Even so, incorporate these ten tips into your play, and you will have a much better chance of learning how to win at poker and become a better player.

For further study I recommend checking out the Academy to discover more advanced concepts and level up your poker skills.