Developing a poker strategy

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As you begin to evolve as a poker player then the big quantum leap forward that you can make is when you start to think strategically. There is a big difference between tactics and strategy in any game and games like Chess are a classic example. I recall when I used to play Chess years ago and the big quantum leap happened when I discovered strategy. Suddenly the moves that I was making were making sense to me in a much deeper way. This also happened with poker but just how do we develop a sound poker strategy on sites like Full Tilt other than to use Full Tilt Rules of poker whatever they are lol?

Well unfortunately there are no set in stone answers for numerous different reasons. Firstly your risk profile and attitude to risk will form a big part of how you operate and that will be different from person to person. It is amazing what “deals” are out there and you may be able to get a good deal with a poker site in return for promoting them for example. It doesn’t really matter how you do it as long as you start thinking about poker in a more business-like and professional way. Another way that you need to work on your poker strategy is to look at how your opponents are playing.

How your opponents play has a big impact on your poker strategy. For example you will need to play differently when your opponents play in a very loose-passive way than if your opponents play tight-aggressive. This is where many players go wrong because they do not feel out the current table dynamic. This is why I prefer full ring because it is much easier to know what your opponents are doing than it is in a respective six max or heads up game.

You need to evaluate your poker game and assess whether your profits will come from playing big pots or small pots. These days in games like full ring no limit Texas hold’em then the rules of play are somewhat different in terms of how to beat the game. Years ago for example you could play in a very tight way and make excellent earn rates. This style today would be known as weak-tight and wouldn’t really make you any money although it wouldn’t really lose any money either.

What tends to happen is that a passive style tends to be a losing style and a tight style tends to be a break even or slightly +EV style. However in most game dynamics then it tends to require a looser style than the table average to gain an edge. If your opponents average stack size is smaller then this means that playing big pots is less effective. For example if you have several short stack players on your table and a couple of players that haven’t topped their stack back up then the average stack on the table is going to be much shorter and so making money from big pots is going to be tougher and shouldn’t be a part of your strategy.

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