Poker Strategy | Poker Bankroll Tips

Newbies Guide To Online Poker

Feb 142026

The aim of this page is to provide a good starting point for those who are new to playing online poker. Online poker has developed enormously in recent years thanks in large part to Chris Moneymaker, the 2026 World Series of Poker main event champion. He qualified for the $10,000 buy-in main event by playing a $40 online satellite. After he took it down, it showed that even amateur poker players have a shot at winning millions.

Today, online poker sites offer a wide variety of games and players can play the ever popular Texas Hold'em, Omaha, and Stud poker variants throughout the micro stakes, mid stakes and high stakes tables, so there are games to suit all players. More than that, they are constantly updating their software and adding new games to their lineup in order to provide the best quality experience possible for their players.

There are various poker sites available to players to register and starting playing poker online without needing to drive to a casino. Better still, there are various incredible bonuses and promotional offers which every online poker player should take advantage of and become available once you register for a new account with an online poker site.

Upon signing up, newly registered players will be able to gain freebies in the form of welcome bonuses after you make your first deposit. Sometimes you will be able to take a no deposit bonus as well, without a deposit being necessary, after you have met the bonus requirements set out by the site, players will be able to cash out their winnings including the bonus money.

Even if you are a novice at poker, playing online is simple and enjoyable. Not every player aspires to be Phil Ivey, but it can't hurt to make some money doing something you enjoy and have a passion for. Claiming a bonus is a great way to boost your bankroll, but never allow it to become the main reason you are playing a game. Otherwise, it can become a distraction, making you less focused on your favorite games.

Depending on poker site you choose to play at, there will be a variety of games you can play and enjoy, chances are that most of the traffic will be focused around hold'em and the omaha poker tables, as the no limit and pot limit versions of these games are super exciting to play.

While you are getting your feet wet, testing the software and games of a new online poker room, always make sure to dedicate your bankroll for poker only. Don't be always cashing out small sums of money, even when you're running well. As this will only eat into your bankroll, and prevent you from moving up in limits where there is bigger potential to make money.

There is a bit of a learning curve if your goal is to make money playing online poker. You are likely going to be making lots of mistakes when you first start playing, but if you analyze your game and learn from the mistakes you make.

A very common mistake you see novice players make is playing far too many hands. By doing so, you will put yourself in many tricky spots, where you will not know what to do with marginal holdings. However, by playing fewer hands, your decision making will be simplified, and as you gain confidence in your game, you can attempt to apply different strategies you learn to play better.

It is also really common to encounter amateur players attempting to make really crazy bluffs at the wrong times. Thanks in large part to televised poker tournaments, recreational players have been exposed to the crazy hands attempted by some of the best players in the world.

But what they seem to forget is that professional players have a ton more experience playing, and therefore have the necessary skills and judgement to make these advanced plays. Also, consider the fact that players involved in high stakes games are playing against other very good players. The plays they make may work against other good opponents, but they won't against your average 10nl regular online.

When getting started in online poker, you need to learn to walk before you can run otherwise you put yourself at risk of going broke. The key to making money at poker is to play against players who are worse than you. At the lowest stakes tables, it shouldn't be difficult spotting the weak players that are basically giving their chips away.

By observing your opponents, it will help you to determine who the good and bad players are at the table. Pay close attention to what is said in the online chat box. You will need a thick skin but there is so much information that some players are giving away when talking in the game. If you are confused by any of the terms used by players in the chat box, you can learn about all the online poker lingo, so you can know what they are referring to when using words that may be foreign to you.

Short Stack Poker Strategy

Poker Strategy

Feb 142026

Buying in as a short stack is often looked upon with scorn by regular players at No-Limit Hold'em cash tables.

They think it ruins the game. But why would this ruin the game? Surely such a simple strategy must be trivially easy to defeat. Then it hit me: these people were complaining because they couldn't beat the short-stacked players! I have developed a strategy for No-Limit Hold'em based on this approach. It's not 'real poker', but it does work well.

And The Strategy Is…

Well, if you have a choice of seats, you sit with the most aggressive players to your left. If not, you need to select the most aggressive table you can find. The idea is that you will wait for a very strong hand, and then either limp-raise all-in if you're in early position, or re-raise all-in if you're in late position.

In early position, you limp hoping that an aggressive player will raise. If you're lucky, other players will call, then when the action returns to you, you can spring the trap by re-raising all-in. At this point, your opponents might all fold, in which case you pick up the pot immediately. You might get one or more calls, meaning you will usually have the best hand and be in a profitable situation, possibly with dead money in the pot from the blinds and any callers who subsequently folded.

For example, in a $1/$2 no-limit game, you limp under the gun with A♥ A♣. The aggressive player to your left raises to $8 and gets two callers, making the pot $29. You then raise all-in for your entire $40 stack, putting both the initial raiser and the callers to a difficult decision.

In late position, you re-raise all-in. For example, if an early position player makes it $8 and gets a caller, you can re-raise all-in for your $40 stack, putting the original raiser in a tricky position. Note that in both situations, you must wait for a raise before committing yourself. Simply opening the pot for your entire stack is unlikely to be profitable unless you are at a particularly loose table. If nobody obliges you by raising, you continue your trapping strategy to the flop and turn, where your goal is to check-raise or re-raise all-in, assuming you haven't completely missed.

Tight Is Right

Your hand selection for this strategy has to be very tight. The basic hands to make this move with are aces, kings, queens, A-K, and A-Q suited. If your table is very loose and aggressive, you may want to add Jacks, A-Q offsuit, and possibly even 10? and A-J suited. All other hands must be folded.

Once you have doubled up on a particular table, you can either leave and move to another, or you can top up to a full buy-in and play 'proper poker'. There are some significant benefits to this strategy. Firstly, you're almost always getting your money in with the best hand. Because your range of hands is so narrow, it's a massive mistake for your opponents to call you with something marginal.

But in my practice session, I found myself getting called by hands as weak as pocket sevens and A-9 suited! Using any odds calculator, you can see this is a huge mistake against this strategy's basic range of hands, and that to break even, your opponents' calling range should be similar to your raising range.

Another benefit is that you will often create dead money. By limp-raising, you are effectively 'squeezing' the original raiser in between yourself and a caller. If they decide to fold, they will have committed money to the pot with no chance of winning anything in return. This is excellent for you.

You also limit your post-flop decision-making. If you're not very good at play on the later streets, or you find yourself paying off too much with the worst hand on a later betting round, this strategy will practically eliminate that weakness from your game. Consequently, this method of play allows you to take shots at higher limits than you may usually play, without risking too much of your bankroll.

If you end up all-in in a multi-way pot, you will often be protected by other players who are fighting for it. For example, you are all-in against two opponents, holding A♣ K♠ on a flop of K♣ J♥ 2♠. Your opponents hold K♦ Q♦ and J♦ 10♥ respectively. Your equity in this position is about 68%. However, you'll often find the player holding K♦ Q♦ bets, knocking out the player holding J♦ 10♥ This increases your equity to about 86%! They have done you a huge favour without even realising it.

With a short-stack, you'll often be pegged as a weak or unimaginative player. Consequently, your opponents may become overly loose or aggressive when in a pot with you, or take chances they wouldn't take against others. This is exactly the kind of attitude you would like to foster when using this short-stacked approach.

It's easy to multi-table when you're playing such a simple strategy. Consequently, you can earn a lot of loyalty points in a short period, or earn a pending bonus more quickly. Of course, you can also significantly increase your hourly rate by playing as many tables as you can handle.

Caveats

Of course, it's not all plain sailing. You may flop a huge hand such as quads and not be able to extract as much value as you would like. This is one of the key downsides to playing a short-stack, and one of the reasons why most good players buy-in for as much as they can. Hands like quads do not come along all that often, and it's nice to make the maximum when they do.

You'll also be outdrawn more often. With deep stacks, you'll have the opportunity to eliminate opposition on three betting rounds in an attempt to prevent a nasty outdraw. With a short-stack, you have just one betting round to do the same thing. You may find yourself in a coin flip situation occasionally.

Lastly, and importantly, by limping in pre-flop with the intention of raising, you will put yourself in some tough situations when nobody raises as expected. For example, if you limp in middle position with A-K, only the blinds call, and the flop comes K-7-4, you may find yourself losing your stack to a player who has K-4 or 7-4. But this is the risk you take when playing this way.

More advanced players may scoff at such a simplistic approach to such a complex game, but there is little doubt this strategy wins money – and after all, isn't that what poker is all about?

Minimize Your Poker Losses or Maximize Your Poker Winnings

Build Your Bankroll

Feb 172026

At least once in a pro poker player’s career, after analysing their game they will find they should be making much more profit. There are two ways to make more profit, minimize your losses or maximize your winnings. Both have their advantages and disadvantages, but you will only be able to focus on one of these factors, so which do you choose? You will only ever see people bragging about their winnings on poker forums, hear about how much professionals won on television and most profitable players plastered around poker sites. You will hardly ever see players talking about minimizing their losses, or strategy to do so. Winning a huge pot is much more exciting to talk about then making a superb fold which saved you a few big blinds.

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When minimizing your losses, it will mean playing much fewer hands. Remember in no limit poker, any chips you save will be worth double that if you double up. For example, you are playing $1/2 no limit and sit down at the table with $200. You call a big blind on the first hand and then fold to a raise. Your chip stack now stands at $198. You are now in the small blind and it folds to you. You and the big blind exchange bets and end up all-in. You win the pot and your chip stack now stands at $396, when it would have been $400 had you not called that big blind of $2.

Of course that example is not accurate, as rake would have been taken etc. But it still puts into perspective the amount that is there to be lost at no limit if you constantly limp into pots with mediocre hands. If we continue from the last example, you limp into 20 hands and do now win one pot. If you now go all in you stand to lose $80 just from the hands you limped in with. That is 40 big blinds to a $1/2 player, which is a huge amount of money to be throwing away each session. This is why you will often see players constantly reloading after each hand.

In turn, minimizing your losses will eventually lead to your winnings becoming maximized, which cannot be said if you reverse the statement. If you maximize your winnings, it doesn’t affect how much money you lose, as you may still be limping into as many pots as you used to. Therefore you must start off by minimizing your losses, despite how attractive it is to win huge pots and brag about them, it will lead to you becoming a much more profitable poker player.

Facing a Maniac – How To Play Against Maniacs in Poker

Poker Strategy

Feb 162026

During any lengthy poker session, especially at micro limit stakes, you will find a maniac at your table. To every player this is a big advantage, but few know how to play against these players and therefore, fail to make money from them.

A maniac is a player who is extremely aggressive. They may raise with any hand dealt to them, re-raise any bet they face and will generally fold very few, if any hands. A players dream would to be seated with a whole table of maniacs, or sat at a heads up table along with one, but do how do you play against them? Loose, Aggressive?

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It will be a huge advantage if you are seated to the left of the maniac. Of course this is not an option if you are involved in a tournament, but if playing in a cash game try and ensure you are to the immediate left of the player. This is an advantage as you will have position on your opponent, meaning you will be able to view their actions before you make your decision on your play.

Most decent hands you are dealt will most probably be stronger then the cards your opponent will be raising with. Any A-X, pocket pair and Broadway cards are worthy of a re-raise as you will isolate the maniac meaning you can play heads up with the player.

The maniac may also change the style of the whole table, as players will loosen up to try and get into pots with the player. This can be an advantage for you, but stay away from pots involving too many players unless you have good implied odds. If a good player at the table raises the maniac whilst you are in the hand, you should only be willing to call with the top one or two hands, as any other hand will likely be behind already.

You have to be prepared to face big bets on the flop, turn and river. If your hand is not improved by the flop you simply cannot fold to a bet. If you have an A-x and are facing a large bet it will be worth a call as it is likely your opponents hand has not improved either, and your Ace high is leading. If you hit on the flop however, always fire out a re-raise. You do not want to play passively in case you allow the opponent to hit a winning hand, as you will lose a huge amount of chips calling and raising his bets.

So to sum up, when facing a overly aggressive player, you should try to sit to the immediate left of them and isolate them whenever possible with decent starting hands. When on the flop, don’t fold to any bet if your hand doesn’t improve and be prepared for the whole table’s style to change as a result of the maniac.

2-7 Triple Draw Strategy

Poker Strategy

Feb 262026

2-7 triple draw is a very nice game that almost nobody knows. That’s both good and bad for you. The good thing is that a lot of novice players will try it when they are bored of hold’em or omaha. The bad thing is that there are not that many people that play 2-7 triple draw online. So it’s often hard to find a table where you can sharpen your skills and make some money. There are still some places where you can play and there are also a lot of players waiting to lose some money – a good reason to learn some 2-7 triple draw strategy.

Let’s start with some basics:

2-7 triple draw is mostly played with a limit bet structure. Every player is dealt five down cards. His aim is to build the worst five card hand while straights and flushs are valid and the ace counts as high card only. So the best hand is 2-3-4-5-7 – a seven low. You can draw three times as many cards as you want. After each draw there’s a betting round.

Enough rules, let’s take a look at some 2-7 triple draw strategy:

It’s very important to select good starting hands. If you don’t do that you’ll lose a lot of money in the long term. So if you get dealt a hand like 2-8-T-Q-A you should just fold. Even though you can draw three times you most likely still have a bad hand and end up calling with the worst hand all along.

Instead you should play hands like 2-3-6-7-7 or 2-3-5-T-A. Those are hands with potential even though 2-3-6-7-7 may look worse than our 2-8-T-Q-A hand above.

Another important point is aggression! Aggression is so important but most of the players seem to ignore the benefit of aggression. If you play aggressive you can win the hand in two ways. Either your opponents fold or you get called but get a better hand later on.

Let’s say you have 2-3-7-9-A. Instead of calling you should raise with such a hand. It’s ok when everybody folds and you win a tiny pot. And it’s also ok when you get called because it’s likely to make some sort of hand after a few draws.

Another great benefit is that your opponents can’t put you on a hand and will pay you off when you got the goods.

2-7 triple draw is a very nice game where you can show good profits if you’re playing the right style. But there are some points you can’t ignore. Be selective with your hands you play and if you play a hand – play it aggressively.

5 Tips to Beating Double or Nothing Sit and Go’s

Poker Strategy

Feb 182026

Double or nothing sit and go’s are tournaments where half of the entrants double their money and half of the entrants lose. For example if you play in a 10 player $10 buy-in double or nothing tournament, the top 5 finishers would win $20 and the bottom 5 would leave with nothing. Needless to say this unique payout structure requires you to make some changes to your game in order to have the best chance of winning.

Tip #1 – Play very tight for the first few levels.

For the first few levels you want to play very tight and only play your premium hands. Playing tight will allow you to preserve your stack for the later stages and will also give your opponents time to take each other out. You should try not to risk chips in this stage and only play pots when you think you are ahead.

Tip #2 – Try not to call in the middle to late stages

It is important to try to maintain your stack through the middle and late stages when the blinds start to get bigger. To do this you should raise your premium hands or even your moderate hands in good situations and hopefully take down some blinds. One thing you should not do in these stages is call raises. You should be pushing all-in or folding to most raises at this stage. Once the blinds get bigger it’s not worth risking a tenth or so of your stack to see the flop because those chips may be the difference between doubling up and bubbling out.

Tip #3 – Try to get your chips in when you’re ahead

In double or nothing sit and go’s coin flips are not beneficial to your cause, especially in the early stages. The amount of chips that you might win is not worth the amount of chips you could just as easily lose. This is because you can only win a maximum of double your buy-in, so the added value of a double up doesn’t equal the 50% chance of losing your entire stack, because even if you double up you aren’t guaranteed to cash.

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Tip #4 – Play tight at the bubble

In order to make the top half of the field you should stay tight at the bubble. In double or nothing sit and go’s there are more players at the bubble than in normal tournaments, which decreases your chances of being the bubble boy. For this reason it is smart to just play super tight and hope that another player busts. Fifth place pays the same as first, so there is no reason to risk being eliminated in 6^th to take the chip lead.

Tip #5 – Survive with smart all-in moves late

If you are getting short stacked at the bubble you should try to move in from good positions to steal blinds and survive in the tournament. You should go after the middle stacks who have enough chips that they feel they can survive until the cash, but have few enough that they are worried about you doubling through them.

The majority of the profit that can be made from double or nothing sit and go’s comes from the few wild players who do not understand the structure. The players who will be the most profitable are those who are able to adjust their games through the various stages of the double or nothing sit and go.

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