BlackRain79 recently made a short guide with 7 life-changing poker tips. In the video, he showed some of the benefits of being a winning poker player. Ditching his job, traveling the globe, and judging from the footage, being near swimming pools than the average person.
As usual, the advice comes in several bullet points in an easy-to-digest YouTube video.
7. Stop Playing Trashy Hands
Poker tip number seven that literally changed my life. Guys, this is more important than anything. Stop playing trashy hands.
Guys, what this is going to do is give you a strong mathematical advantage. Now, I know this is fairly boring, this is not fun.
Amateurs, in particular, love to play all sorts of junky hands like an 8-5 offsuit or a 10-deuce. And yes, sometimes you'll get lucky and you'll hit three of a kind on the flop. But guys, the reason why amateurs get amateur-level results is because they're not disciplined enough to fold these hands before the flop.
As somebody who takes the game seriously, I'm going to assume that if you clicked on a video like this, you know that you're better than that. You have to challenge yourself to be more disciplined and simply stop playing with these trashy hands. It's going to quickly improve your poker results.
6. Take Control
So, poker tip number six that changed my life was to learn to always take control. Now, this one was a little bit more difficult for me.
I'm not the most aggressive person. I'm kind of an introverted personality. I don't really like to rock the boat a lot. But you need to rock the boat a lot in poker if you want to win.
Basically, guys, aggressive poker is winning poker. Some people are not going to like it. They're going to call you the table bully. They're going to complain that you're always raising it up. But guys, this is how winning is done in this game. So basically, I never let somebody see a cheap flop against me. If I've got a hand like and somebody limps.
So, if you're playing in a $1-$2 game, somebody just calls the $2 blind. I am going to be raising it up here, literally 100% of the time. I'm going to raise it four times the blind here. So, that would be $8. My typical amount is I raise it three times the blind plus one for every limper. And the ideal situation is you get just one caller. So, if you find that you're getting five callers in this situation, try making it $10, try making it $12. You guys get the idea.
But the bottom line, guys, is always take control of the pot before the flop. Put the table on notice that you are in charge.
They are going to be a guest in your pot, and you're going to have a lot more success.
If you want your real friends to be a guest in your pot, set up a private cash game or tournament on your favorite poker rooms. That's right – most of them have a feature like Home Games on PokerStars, which makes you a poker club owner (at least online). Set up the game, send out the invites, and get seated.
5. Always Fast Play
Poker tip number five is to always fast play.
Now, guys, for some reason, slow playing has become really popular in today's games. I think perhaps people have been watching too many Phil Hellmuth YouTube videos where he slow plays his way to success or another bad beat in high-stakes million-dollar cash games.
I'm going to go out on a limb here and guess that probably less than 1% of people watching this video also play in million-dollar cash games. No, instead, they're playing in the aforementioned $1-$2 game, which is full of beginners. And therefore, guys, instead of getting tricky and trying to slow play your top pair, you just want to be betting instead.
Guys, do the literally most obvious thing at the poker table and let them overthink the situation. So, for example, you've got , somebody limps, you already know we're going to be raising that up. So, we assume they call, flop comes down with a .
Guys, just bet here. Don't get fancy. Don't check it to them. Do the most obvious thing possible and just make a bet. And again, let them overthink the situation and bet big.
4. Large Turn Bets
Tip number four is to bet big on the turn. So, let's assume that they did call on the flop, same hand here.
You got , you raised it up preflop. By the turn, the board is a . The deuce of clubs came on the turn. Totally harmless card, does not complete any draws, anything at all.
Guys, once again, just do the most obvious thing possible here and make another big bet. I can tell you, I've literally made a career out of doing this in small-stakes games. Everybody wants to complicate a very simple card game, and I have made an unbelievable amount of money by just simply doing exactly what they expect me to do and again, letting them overthink the situation. I turn over the top pair, and they're like, "Oh, he really did just have that."
Yep, I did. I'll take those chips now.
3. Fold versus Tight Players
Number three is to fold versus the tight players.
So, let's talk about a situation now where you actually get raised and what you should be doing.
Well, guys, versus the tight players who are only sitting around waiting for their pocket aces and pocket kings, waiting for a flush, a set, three of a kind – these are the kind of players you want to be folding against.
So, let me give you an example.
- Once again, you raise it up preflop with and a tight player calls.
- The flop comes down with the a totally standard situation.
- We bet, they call.
We already talked about this, guys. No slow playing, always fast play. Do the most obvious thing. So, the turn comes down with a .
You bet, and they raise.
What's going on here, guys? Well, there should be alarm bells going off in your mind right now because why would a tight player raise you here on the turn out of nowhere for no reason at all? Guys, let me tell you from my nearly 20 years in this game, 10 plus years as a professional – they are not doing this with , , , .
No, instead, they are doing this with pocket fives, pocket fours, pocket sevens, some sort of weird straight like a or a hand that has two pair like an , a , or an . What do all these hands have in common? They have you absolutely smoked. Many of them have you drawn completely dead, meaning that you have exactly zero 0% equity.
There is no card on the turn that can make you win the hands, and a lot of the rest of them have you at around 10% odds of winning. Guys, when a tight player raises you on what I call the big money streets, the turn or river, they literally always have it. Trust me on this one. Just fold your hand. I know it's painful, but it's a lot more painful to call down here and lose a massive pot when they inevitably turn over the pocket fives.
2. Use a Proven Poker System
Poker tip number two that catapulted my poker career into the stratosphere and that is to learn a proven poker system. Guys, you do not need to figure it out all on your own in poker.
There are many proven systems out there that'll show you exactly what hands to play, how much to raise, when to bet, and so on and so forth.
So, guys, you do not need to play the guessing game. You don't need to spend years and years trying to figure it out like everybody else. Learn a proven poker system. Learn how to do things right the first time, and you're going to have a lot more success in this game.
1. Learn to Quit Early on Bad Days
My number one tip literally changed my life in poker, and that is to learn to quit early.
Learn to quit early on what I call the hell days. Now, let me describe a hell day for you.
As a 10-plus-year professional, I have gone through countless days at the poker tables where I literally could not win a hand to save my life.
Every time I hit top pair, I know they're going to hit the flush by the river.
Anytime I've got , I know they've got , and so on and so forth.
If you've played this game for any amount of time, I am sure you have been through this. You've seen it yourself.
Guys, I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that playing Captain Comeback on these days never ends well. There's several reasons why. Number one, you're playing in your worst state. A lot of the times when you're losing in poker, there's a stream of bad thoughts going through your head like, "Oh, they always get lucky against me. See, this is why I can never win." You're doubting your abilities. You're constantly second-guessing yourself, and so on.
Guys, you're not playing your best. This is really the biggest reason of all to simply quit early on these days. And the second reason why is because you almost never actually win the money back. And once you realize that poker is a long-term game, you won't concern yourself with this anyway.
It is not about booking a win. That's for amateurs.
That is not how professionals think about the game. Guys, we play this game for our results over the course of months and years, not days and weeks. And when you learn to recognize when it's just going really poorly for you on a specific day, the best thing you can possibly do is just give up for the day. I have saved myself so much money being able to simply quit on these days when I know that most of my competition stays in there playing poorly. And this is when I get to clean up versus them, but they never get to play against me when I'm playing my worst.
Guys, poker is psychological warfare. And when you can learn this one simple principle, this will do more for your poker results than anything else.
