Understanding Poker Strategy – Betting

Understanding poker strategy and betting go hand-in-hand-no pun intended. The fact is that poker is much more than a simple game of chance. The hand one is deal is not always the only way one can win or lose a game. In fact, skillful poker players are about one part card shark and two parts psychologist. These players understand that the way the players around them react to each other's betting is as much a part of how the game unfolds as what cards are in the player's hands and what cards remain in the deck.

Bluffing is a huge part of any successful poker player's repertoire. Betting is the area where this strategy manifests in its most effective form. Essentially, the player tricks the competition into believing that he or she has a better hand than is actually the case by betting an amount that indicates that the player is holding a good hand. Although this looks obvious, nothing in poker is obvious and you need to understand that there are strategies that involve lessening risk while still taking some money off the table. Betting strategies sometimes involve loss losses as much as they involve making big wins.

Good salespeople know that, once they get a customer to buy one item, they can probably get them to buy another. This same element of human psychology is very important to poker betting. A strategy called check-raising is used to increase the pot by baiting one's opponents into raising their bet. Basically, the player checks their opponent but the move is a feint. The opponent will hopefully feel that they are in a better position than is actually the case and will decide to go along with the raise. After they've added something to the pot once, they're more likely to do it again and a good player can use this to keep their competitors betting when they're do better to back off.

If one has a lousy hand, one may want to try what's called a steal-raise. If one has been checked by all the other players and makes a bet, it may work to limit the amount of players left in the game. This strategy carries with it some risk. If one happens to be up against an experienced player, expect to be check-raised against. The only way this will work is if one's final draw makes their hand a winner.

These strategies involve cleaving as a means of deceiving an opponent and of getting them to make a play; against their own interests without them actually knowing it. Some players prefer to bet based on the math of the whole affair. This gets into the subject of how much one should raise the pot versus how much money they have to play and what they believe their opponent's odds of drawing a good hand are in reality. Where this aspect of betting strategy is concerned, the entire affair becomes much different.

Keep in mind that betting strategies depend greatly upon one understanding the odds of getting a particular hand, especially where no-limit games are concerned. If one believes that they have a good chance of drawing a flush on a pot of $ 3,500 but that belief is based only on their gut instinct, it's likely that someone else will go home with the sum of the pot. Playing poker and betting correctly does require some study and some effort paid toward understanding how statistics actually work which is a far more esoteric and complex affair than most people tend to think.

When trying a new Poker Strategy where betting is the heart of it, remember that good players will be watching every move that one makes. One should make an effort to make sure that they understand how to operate the strategy to its most effective degree and that one does not allow any tell-tale signs to give away their bluffs if that's what one is trying. Good players know all the signs and they'll make sure to catalog every tic, facial expression and relate each one to one's ending hand. Betting strategies have as much to do with one's "poker face" as they do with numbers.

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Source by Mattie Taylor