How to win at poker?

To win at poker, you have two main possibilities:

• Have a better hand than your opponent.
• Make your opponent believe that you have a better hand.

Given the multitude of possible hand combinations, the goal is to try to guess your opponents' cards. By doing so, you can estimate the relative strength of your own hand and adjust your play accordingly.

A poker player's main weapons for successfully guessing other people's cards are intuition, probability calculation and observation.

Obviously, you can combine these 3 weapons.

If you believe your hand is stronger than your opponent's, you can:

• Encourage them to bluff: Make them think your hand isn’t strong enough to call their bets.
• Encourage them to bet: Make them think their hand is stronger than it is, prompting them to bet more (this is known as "value cutting").
• Encourage them to call: Size your bet in a way that makes them believe their hand is better, prompting them to call with a weaker hand.

    

If you think your opponent has a better hand than you, you can attempt to make them believe you have a stronger hand. This is called bluffing. For example, some players will fold a better hand when you place a large bet, thinking their hand isn’t strong enough to handle the aggression.

Be cautious: Experienced players use a lot of information to make their decisions and might call your bets even with a weak hand if they believe yours isn't stronger. Therefore, bluffing should be done wisely and subtly to avoid being caught.

This is also why understanding your opponents' experience, character, and habits complements the knowledge of the cards you think they have, helping to shape your strategy.

There are numerous strategies depending on your opponents, the strength of their hands, the strength of your hand, and how you are perceived. Your task is to find the strategy that causes your opponents to make the most mistakes and to change it regularly so that your play cannot be predicted.