The game of poker, in any form, is a game of skill, luck and nerves. These games are won consistently only if you can control and master these three factors. Most of us are still trying to learn just how to do that while others have already done that and are considered masters of the game.
Poker is a gentleman’s game and everyone can try it but only a few will stick to it either professionally or occasionally. It is a game of luck but it is also a game of skill, philosophy, psychiatry and more. This makes it rather difficult to master and become the best, but it doesn’t mean you can’t play it for fun with friends and family.
Playing poker is in our blood, and humans love to take chances whether, in cards or life, it is somehow in our DNA. What makes life a bit different from poker is that you have a strategy in life that you need to hold dearly to while poker is a bit more lenient. You can have a strategy that you hold for the entirety of the game or you can improvise on the go. This depends a lot on the game and your opponents and it depends on the luck you have been having. Today we will discuss a bit about strategy vs improvisation and we will try and advise you what to do on certain occasions. Thanks to the help of bonus.net.nz we can give you some detailed advice and if you want to say thanks check them out!
Strategy
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To start things out we will go from a standpoint of strategy. In everything in life, we have to have a strategy of a sort. A plan that will help us position ourselves in certain situations. Now, in the beginning, we stated that poker is, among other things, a game of strategy and if you don’t have one at all it is most likely that you will not go far. Strategies in poker are all different and they vary a lot. They can be basic strategies like knowing when to fold a bad hand right on the start, sticking in the game for as long as possible, avoiding going all-in immediately, to follow what your opponents do too many others. You can also have a bit more complicated strategies that will include your moves at the beginning of the game, in the middle of it and what you do towards the end.
With having a strategy, you also have to have a certain playstyle or to be more precise you develop one that suits you the best. According to tonygpoker.com you can either be
- a tight player that is very cautious during the game with low risks and fewer hands,
- loose type that is riskier and plays a lot of hands,
- aggressive which will make bigger pots and bigger bets to try and stress the opponents and
- a passive player that is there to follow the game rather than make their moves.
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Now, if you are just starting out and if you are a novice player you should probably stick to the two strategies that will yield you the best results. Believe it or not, the novice ones make the best results when combining two out of four play styles that are the tight and aggressive ones. Playing tight and aggressive allows you to play aggressively and bet big on the good hands that you get. With a tight play style, you would avoid risky hands and you will hold on to those that will be strong with aggressive betting style to freak out your opponents. When you get the ropes of the game and when you find your sweet spot the best advice we can give you is that you change your playstyles to keep them guessing because being predictable in poker is a bad thing.
Another thing you can call a strategy in poker is bluffing. Bluffing is a strategy that can help you convince other players to ditch their good hand thinking you have a better one in your hands. Bluffing is hard and if you try to bluff a more experienced poker player without the right know-how you will be seen through and a better player will call you on your bluff and make you go bankrupt. The key to bluffing is to make it as real as possible. The pros advise that you bluff in a way that you imagine you have a really good hand and you play it through just like you would do if you had a winning hand. Make every move and every bet like that and you will make a successful bluff.
Improvisation
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Improve in poker is a bit tricky and improve is something that you can utilize when you have some experience under your belt. Improvisation in poker should go hand in hand with your strategy and you should improvise only when you have a good reason for that. If your strategy is working out and you are winning do not change it. Stick to what you have been doing so far and do not improvise because you feel bored or you want to spice the game up.
Improvisation is for the professionals that can make quick assessments of the game and that can predict movements both there and of their opponents quickly and adjust to those predictions. Improvisation needs a rational reason for it to be made and if you don’t have one the advice is to never improvise if your strategy is working or if you don’t have a valid reason for that.
What we keep forgetting to say is that all of this goes the same for both online poker and live poker. The same rules apply in each and you should stick to them. Improvising can also be forced by your feelings. You can become angry, disappointed, tilted and those are the things that can sway you toward improvisation and end up costing you even more. This is why mastering your emotions, your tells is very important and only when mastered you can consider yourself a true professional that can react to any situation and predict any game right off the bat.
