Updated November 2026
Good poker strategy comes down to a few habits: play fewer hands, play more of them from late seats, raise when you enter a pot, work out the price before you call, and bet for a reason.
Here are the ten ideas in the order we'd teach them, each with the numbers behind it and a link to the full guide.
Because most hands lose money if you play them, and your choice of starting hand is the one decision you get with no pressure. From the first seat, the chart we train raises only 16 hands in 100.
Weak hands cost you twice: they lose more often, and when they win they win small. Start with the preflop charts.
Because fewer players can wake up with something big, and you'll act last for the rest of the hand. With ace-jack, we dealt the rest of the table 600,000 times to see how often someone behind you has a big hand.
From the first seat it's nearly 1 time in 5. On the button it's 1 time in 13. More in poker positions.
A raise can win the pot right there, and a limp can't. It also pushes out players who'd otherwise see a cheap flop, and it puts you in charge after the flop.
Raise to 2.5 big blinds from a late seat and you need the blinds to fold 63% of the time for the raise to pay for itself, before counting the times you win after a call.
The blinds have to fold 63% of the time.
Work out the price first. If he bets half the pot, you need to win 1 time in 4. If he bets the full pot, 1 time in 3. Compare that with how often your hand wins.
Most new players call on a feeling. This is the fastest way to stop. Pot odds walks through it with chips.
Because it's the most common hand in the game. By the river you'll have one pair 44 times in 100, so being beaten is normal.
Top pair is a good hand in a small pot and often a losing one in a big pot. When a quiet player raises you, believe them.
Nobody can name an opponent's exact cards. A raise from the first seat in our chart covers 212 different two-card hands, and ace-king is only 16 of them.
So ask what he could have, and how often. Poker ranges shows how to count them.
A bet does one of two jobs. If you can't say which, don't bet.
Only players who can fold. A half-pot bluff has to work 1 time in 3, and a pot-size bluff half the time, so a player who never folds turns every bluff into a gift. How to bluff goes through it.
He has to fold half the time.
Watch what people show down and how often they raise. Most players fit one of four rough types, and each one wants a different plan.
Against a player who calls everything, stop bluffing and bet your good hands bigger. Against a player who folds too much, steal more.
Because a good call can lose most of the time and still make money. Call a good price with a flush draw and you'll still lose 80 times in 100.
That's why a short run of results tells you very little, which is what variance is about. Keep making the right call and let the numbers come.
It folds to you and king-queen suited is an easy raise from here. You make it $5 and only the big blind calls.
Top pair and a flush draw. He checks and you bet $6, which is about half the pot, and he calls.
You bet $16 because worse hands and draws can call. He does.
He bets $60 on the river. This player hasn't bluffed all night and you have one pair with a missed draw. The price needs 34%, and against him you don't have that. You fold.
Get the rules down first, then the seat and the starting hands, because those decisions come up every hand. Then learn the price of a call. Bluffs and solvers come after that.
Most players do it the other way round, learning fancy plays before they can tell a good call from a bad one.
Twelve spots in three rounds.
Play fewer, stronger hands, raise when you enter, and don't bluff people who call too much.
No. Learn the basics and find out what your opponents do wrong. GTO is worth learning later.
Nobody can give you an honest number. The first big step is learning a chart and a price, and that takes weeks of practice.
Yes. Tournaments add short stacks and pay jumps on top, which change some answers near the end.
Chart percentages come from our trainer's simplified six-player tables. The chance of someone behind you waking up comes from dealing 600,000 hands. The one-pair figure comes from counting all 133,784,560 seven-card deals. The figures for being ahead come from an exact formula, using a $25 call into a $100 pot with a flush draw on the turn.
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