Poker Tactics

To borrow a line from a quote made famous by G.I. Joe, knowing is half the battle. The other half is winning, but the first half is what will get you to the second half. Knowing different tactics and poker strategy to position yourself further in the game and shut down your opponents is one of the most important things a poker player needs. All the pros know them and use them. It’s how they became experts in the first place. A comprehensive, diverse and well-stocked repository of weapons is a must-have when it comes to battling your opponents across the table.

Poker strategy is looking at the big picture – complete planning and action for a long-term result. Strategy provides a player with a course of action in order to achieve a goal, while tactics are the basic maneuvers used to carry out that strategy. If you've got even the smallest hint that one of your opponents has figured out how you're playing a hand, you've got to be able to change your poker strategy immediately. You need to have more than just a plan B, but a C through F as well to keep your edge. At the same time, if that opponent is messing with your master gameplan, you need to have a number of ways to unsettle him and then send him out to pasture without ever knowing just how you did it.

One of the most important parts of poker strategy is also one of the most basic: Learn. Every move you make, every move another player makes, every game you play, it all matters. Great poker players are astute and perceptive observers and spend a lot of time and effort watching, understanding, learning and remembering the behavior and actions of other players, both from their successes and their mistakes.

So find out what the pros know, what poker strategy they use when playing, things like calculating the odds (pot odds and card odds), not getting too attached to any hand (things can change on the flip of a dime), using probe bets to help discover what kind of hand other players have, and figuring out which hands are beatable and how likely their opposing players are to have those hands.

If used correctly, the proper poker strategy combined with these advanced tactics will send a clear message that you are a poker player who knows how to play and not someone to be underestimated in any circumstances.