October 8, 2025 • 18 mins
Click here to get the Preflop Prodigy app.
Learn ten essential poker tips that will instantly make you a stronger and more profitable player — from preflop strategy and semi-bluffing to mental game mastery. Whether you’re a beginner or looking to refine your fundamentals, these quick lessons will help you win more and play smarter every session.
00:00 Tip 1
00:55 Tip 2
02:50 Tip 3
04:38 Tip 4
06:18 Tip 5
07:54 Tip 6
12:05 Tip 7
13:46 Tip 8
14:39 Tip 9
16:21 Tip 10
In this episode of Level Up, listeners get ten powerful poker fundamentals that can transform the way they approach No Limit Hold’em. These are not complex solver-based concepts, but timeless strategies that separate disciplined players from those who bleed chips. The first key lesson is to play fewer hands and play them aggressively — overplaying weak or marginal hands is the fastest path to losing money. From there, Mike dives into developing a solid preflop strategy, encouraging players to study and stick to proven opening ranges rather than guessing at the table.
Next, Mike emphasizes why you should never be the first to limp preflop, since it limits your ways to win and invites too many opponents into the pot. Instead, raising builds fold equity and defines your range. Semi-bluffing aggressively with draws is introduced as a way to blend offense and safety — giving players both fold equity and potential outs to strong hands. The fifth tip, fast playing strong hands, teaches that betting your big hands early often earns more value and protects against bad runouts, with slow playing reserved for specific board textures.
From there, the focus shifts to defending your big blind correctly, explaining how position, raise size, and stack depth influence which hands to call. Tip six reminds players that when unsure, it’s better to fold — curiosity is expensive, and learning to let go of marginal hands saves countless buy-ins. The seventh principle, attack when opponents show weakness, encourages calculated aggression when players check or hesitate, especially in heads-up pots.
As the episode nears its conclusion, the advice turns mental and situational. Tip eight urges tournament players to play solid early and not worry about survival, while tip nine stresses that you should only play when you feel emotionally ready — fatigue or tilt destroys good decision-making. Finally, tip ten drives home that success starts with choosing the right games; your edge is only as good as the opponents you face. Altogether, these ten tips form a simple but effective blueprint for becoming a confident, profitable poker player.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
If you want quick tips that will helpyou win at no limit Hold'em, listen up.
We've compiled ten basic butcritical tactics that will make you a
more confident andprofitable poker player.
This list of tips is from the mostpopular article ever on upswingpoker.com.
It's helped well over onemillion readers up their game.
(00:21):
Keep in mind that none of thisis complex cutting-edge strategy.
It's just ten fundamental pieces ofadvice that you'd be smart to remember at
the table. The majority ofnew poker players start out by playing way too loose,
and that's why tip number one is to playfewer hands and play them aggressively.
Put simply,
there is a limit on how many startinghands you can profitably play before the
(00:44):
flop. If you play too loose,
like by limping in with Queen Six suitedor calling a raise every single time
you have a suited connector, you'll findyourself bleeding chips way too often.
Developing a solid preflop strategyis by far the easiest and fastest
way to improve your bottom line.
You can start studying battle-testedpreflop ranges now by signing up for our
(01:06):
preflop prodigy app atupswingpoker.com/preflop. It is totally free.
You can use it on any devicewith an internet connection.
But keep in mind that having thediscipline to stick to preflop
ranges that you studied can be difficult.
This is a word of warning.
Don't allow yourself to get impatientand play a hand that's not worth playing.
(01:27):
That will really hurtyour wallet over time.
The best overall approach when raisingas the first player to enter a pot is to
play a range of strongand or playable hands,
and you should play all ofthose hands aggressively.
Playing all of your hands aggressively,including the more speculative ones,
like Seven Six suited or pocket Fives,
(01:48):
allows you to disguise the strengthof your actual hand. When you raise,
your opponents won't knowwhether you have pocket Aces,
Ace King or one of those speculativehands like Seven Six suited,
and that makes you super toughto play against. Put simply,
tight and aggressive wins the game.
Before I move on to tip number two,
(02:09):
I want to reiterate that you are justa few clicks away from the fastest
way to upgrade your preflop skills.
Head over to upswingpoker.com/preflopand enter your info to sign up for
the free preflop prodigy app. Thisapp works on a phone or computer,
any device really with an internetconnection and it includes battle-tested
(02:31):
ranges for live cash games,
online cash games and tournaments.
There are three stack depthsfor tournaments right now and we have some loose
plans to add more rangesto this tool over time.
So head over there, check it out,
while it's still free make sure you getyour access and start improving your
game right now.
It's great to use this tool to look uphow you should have played a hand or to
(02:54):
study ahead of time so you know whatyou're going to do when you get to the
table. Tip number two isanother key one for beginners,
don't be the first player to limp.
You should generally avoid open-limpingor just calling the big blind preflop
for two main reasons. Number one,
you have fewer ways to win the pot, you'llhave to catch something on the flop.
(03:17):
That's pretty much your onlyavenue to taking it down.
Number two is you give the playersbehind very enticing pot odds,
making it more likely that you'll facemultiple players and thus even less
likely that you will win the pot.By raising instead of limping,
you can occasionally take thepot down preflop or win with a
c-bet on the flop.
(03:38):
And that c-bet is more likely to worksince you narrowed the field with your
preflop raise.
Keep in mind it is much more reasonableto limp when at least one other player
has already limp.
This is called overlimping and it can bea good play because you're getting good
pot odds to join the action. Plus,
that player who limp clearly didn'twatch this video and is probably worth
(04:01):
targeting. So,
feel free to toss in that one big blindwith certain hands that play well in
multiway pots. That includes hands likelow pocket pairs and small suited Aces.
Basically hands that can easily hitthe flop really hard and win a big pot.
There are actually some situations inwhich open-limping can help you win extra
(04:23):
money,
but it's a fairly advanced play and itrequires a well-thought out approach to
pull off. If you'd like to see avideo covering those exceptions,
situations where you can open-limp,let me know in the comments down below.
Tip number three is to semi-bluffaggressively with your draws.
If you want to truly crush poker,you need to bluff effectively.
(04:47):
You can't just sit aroundwaiting for strong hands,
but attempting bad bluffs is one ofthe fastest ways to lose money at the
table. So,
how do you walk that line whenyou're first starting out?
The effective way to bluff is to let thecards you have dictate whether or not
you're going to pull the trigger.
The most obvious example of that isbluffing with hands that have outs to
(05:10):
improve to the besthand on a later street.
I'm talking about when you havea straight draw, a flush draw,
or even just an overcardor two to the board.
Think of your outs toimprove as your backup plan.
Your bluff might just work, youmight win the pot like that,
but if your bluff does get called,you have that escape hatch,
you have that backup planin the form of your outs.
(05:34):
These hands are often referred to assemi-bluffs because of their potential
beyond the bluff itself. Let mejust quickly go over an example.
Let's say you have Nine Seven of diamonds.
The flop comes Ten EightTwo with two diamonds,
so you have an open-ended straightdraw, you have a flush draw, you check,
your opponent bets and you decideto check-raise as a semi-bluff.
(05:54):
You might just get your opponentto fold, that would be great,
but if your opponent does call, youcan still improve on the turn or river.
For the record,
advanced players also bluff whenthey have good blockers or unblockers
in their hand. When you'rejust starting out, though,
bluffing with total-nothing handsprior to the river is not advisable
(06:15):
except in one situation that I'lltell you about in a little bit.
Tip number four is to fast play yourstrong hands so you can build the pot and
make more money.
Slow playing too often is a mistakecommonly made among players who are afraid
of chasing their opponent out ofthe pot. They have a strong hand,
they need to lay the trap becausethey're afraid of losing their customer,
(06:36):
but that's not the best wayto approach it. In most cases,
it's best to just bet your strong handsbecause it allows you to build the pot
and protect your equity.
But I'm not saying youshould never slow play,
you definitely can if it's unlikelythat you're going to be out drawn.
For example, if you have pocketKings on a King King Three flop,
(06:57):
you can definitely consider slow playing.
It's just going to be tough for youropponent to have a hand that can actually
call and they're not goingto outdraw you anyway,
so you might as well givethem some rope. Additionally,
if your opponent's range is heavilyweighted towards hands with no showdown
value, you can consider layingthe trap. In other words,
if your opponent probably just doesn'thave anything and you're going to force
them to fold by betting, you might aswell check and give them a chance to bet.
(07:21):
And finally, if the boardis very bad for your range,
you can consider slow playing withyour strong hands too. For example,
let's say you raise preflopand the big blind calls.
The flop comes Seven Six Five,
so very connected board thathits the big blind's range well,
the big blind could have twopair or a straight quite easily.
You can check behind when they checkwith a hand as strong as pocket Aces or
(07:45):
even a straight yourself.
That way you protect all ofthe medium-strength hands in your range just in case
the big blind comesout firing on the turn.
That last point is alittle bit more advanced,
but it's something that I just have tomention because it's a key part of how
poker works when it comes toslow playing and fast playing.
Tip number five is to defend yourbig blind with the right hands.
(08:09):
The big blind is a special positionbecause you already have an investment
in the pot,
you basically get a discount to call anyraise because of this discount and the
fact that you are the lastperson to act preflop,
you can profitably call with a lotmore hands than if you were sitting in
another position.
That's not to say you should callraises with trash hands like Nine Five
(08:31):
offsuit,
but the more borderline hands like KingNine offsuit or Queen Six suited become
playable in many situations.
Exactly how wide you should defendfrom the big blind depends on a
multitude of factors. Here arethe four main ones. Number one,
the position of the raiser.
You should play tighter against theearlier positions and looser against the
(08:54):
late positions. Number two is thenumber of players in the hand.
When one or more players has alreadycalled the raise in front of you,
play tighter and only call with handsthat play well in multiway pots,
and again, that's like low pocket pairsand suited Aces are the best examples.
Number three is the size of theraise. This one's pretty obvious,
(09:16):
but the larger the raise size, thetighter you should play and vice versa.
Finally, stack sizes are criticalas well. When you're a short stack,
you should play fewer speculative handsand prioritize high-card strength.
That's kind of an oversimplification,but for the sake of this video,
it's a solid starting point. Thereare other important factors too,
(09:37):
like how aggressive your opponentis going to play postflop,
but the four we just covered are themain ones you should consider in pretty
much every hand when you'refacing a raise from the big blind.
I've pulled up the preflop prodigy appon my screen so we can look at some
theoretically optimalbig blind defense ranges.
And if you're listening tothis rather than watching it,
(09:58):
I'm going to go through and explain thisin a way that I think will still have
value for you even if you can'tsee what I'm clicking through.
So right now I'm looking at the bigblind versus under the gun range.
So we're facing this three big blindraise and we're playing a little over
fifteen percent of handsagainst this raise.
We're playing a good amount ofhands, but it's still fairly tight.
And I'm going to use King Queen offsuitas our sort of parameter hand as
(10:21):
we click through more rangeshere. So against under the gun,
King Queen offsuit is mostly folding,
it's calling the raise eight percent ofthe time and folding ninety-two percent
of the time. Solvers love to do this.
They love to mix between two differentactions that it deems to have similar
value. So again,
we're playing fifteen percent of handsand mostly folding King Queen offsuit.
If we move one position over,
(10:42):
so now it's one to the leftof under the gun raising,
King Queen offsuit is now being playednearly a third of the time and our
overall defense has ticked a littlebit closer to sixteen percent. Now,
let's move over one moreposition to middle position,
so we're the big blindfacing middle position,
and now King Queen offsuit is callingthe vast majority of the time,
eighty-two percent,
(11:03):
and our overall range has tickedup to about nineteen percent.
Now we'll go to the lojack,that's one more position over,
and all of the sudden King Queen offsuitis being played every single time and
we're playing over twenty percentof hands against the lojack player.
This continues on versus the hijackwhere now we're playing nearly
twenty-four percent of hands.
(11:24):
Against the cutoff we're playing nearlytwenty-nine percent of hands and hands
as weak as King Jack offsuit and KingTen offsuit are being played at a high
frequency.
And finally against the button we'replaying nearly forty percent of hands
and that King Queen offsuitI was talking about,
we're not calling it every time we'reactually re-rasing with it about half the
time. So that's a big difference,
(11:45):
looking at how we played versus underthe gun and how we played versus the
button. That was really focused onposition, that first factor I mentioned,
but kind of underscores how importantit is to study ranges like this and the
preflop prodigy app isa great way to do that.
Tip number Six is lame advice but Ijust have to say it, when you're unsure,
just fold.
(12:05):
Want to know the biggest differencebetween a bad player and a professional
player?
The good player has the ability to laydown a relatively strong hand like top
pair when they think they're beat.This advice sounds really simple,
but it's actually hard to do in practicebecause of the way our brains are
wired. We are naturally curiousand we naturally want to win.
(12:29):
When we fold,
we surrender our chance to win thepot and we don't get to satisfy our
curiosity. We don't get tofind out what our opponent had.
So really when you do this, you'refighting your own human nature,
so it can be fairlydifficult, but it's crucial,
because calling too often and in thewrong situations is another common way
novice players bleed money.
(12:50):
Whenever you're unsure whetherto call or fold versus a bet,
do yourself a service and justfold. But here's the key pro tip.
When you fold in one of these situations,
don't just move on and forgetthe hand ever happened.
Note down the detailsand investigate later.
Discuss the hand with fellow poker playersmaybe in our Upswing Poker discord,
(13:11):
which you can join forfree at discord.gg/upswing,
or you could talk about it with yourfriends in real life or study online.
Whatever you got to do toget to the bottom of that hand and figure out what you
should have done.
That way you can take the knowledgeto the table in your next session.
If you are getting value fromthis video and want to see more,
(13:32):
please take a momentto like and subscribe.
It helps us keep the content trainrolling and ensures you don't miss what we
put out.
We release videos and podcasts regularlyand our mission is to help you improve
your game for free.
We want the time you spend watching thesevideos and listening to these podcasts
to pay dividends at the table.
(13:53):
Tip number Seven is to attackWhen your opponent shows
weakness.
Players really don't check as often asthey should with hands that can actually
call multiple bets. Thatmeans that when they do check,
they usually have a relatively weak handand you can get them to fold it with
some aggression.
This is that bluffing-with-nothingsituation that I alluded to earlier.
(14:17):
When your opponent shows a lotof weakness in a heads-up pot,
like by checking on the flop and thenfollowing that up with another check on
the turn,
that's the green light for you to goafter them with an aggressive bluffing
strategy.
Not only should you bet with your usualsemi-bluff hands that we talked about
earlier, you should also bet with somepure nothing hands, just go after them.
(14:39):
Ideally,
you should use hands that have goodblocker effects and if you want to learn
about how to use blockers inyour poker strategy generally,
check out the episode we did on whetheror not blockers actually matter.
I'll put a link to thatone in the description.
It's time to talk briefly abouttournaments specifically and the tip for
tournaments, tip number eight,
is to play solid poker early onand don't worry about survival.
(15:04):
There is a time and a place for stackpreservation and the beginning of a
poker tournament is not it.
This is one of the most misunderstoodaspects of tournament poker strategy among
beginners. Consider that in order tofinish in the money in a tournament,
you're going to have to at leastdouble or triple your starting stack,
usually more. So, insteadof playing defensively early on and trying to survive,
(15:28):
you should be playing a solid andaggressive strategy in order to build up a
stack and set yourself up for a deep run.
If you find yourself short stackednear the money bubble or a pay jump,
it's then that you should start playinga more survival-oriented strategy.
I made another video with seven greattips that will help you run deep in more
tournaments. I'm going to drop a linkto that at the end of this one. Anyway,
(15:51):
let's move on to tip number nine,
which is kind of more of a mental-gamething and it's only play if you feel like
it. Poker should be fun.
It should be a fun experience regardlessif you play as a hobby or if you're a
professional player. You are going toperform your best when you're happy,
so it makes sense that you should onlyplay this mentally-intensive game when
(16:12):
you feel that way. If youfeel frustration, fatigue,
or anger building up,
you should generally just quityour session right then and there,
or at least take a break.
You are very likely saving yourselfa bunch of money by doing so.
Poker will still be theretomorrow. Here's a pro tip from me.
I've been playing poker for fifteen years.
I was a professional player forsix years. Before I play a session,
(16:34):
I imagine going all-in and losingmy stack on the very first hand.
It's something that's very possible.
If the thought of thatpossibility doesn't bother me,
I know I'm ready to play myA-game for that poker session,
but if going all-in and losing one ofmy buy-ins on the first hand sounds
unbearable, I'd reconsiderplaying. Our final tip,
(16:56):
tip number ten, is toonly play in good games.
It was said in Rounders,what, twenty years ago?,
that "if you can't spot the sucker inyour first half an hour at the table,
then you are the sucker." You shouldalways put yourself in positions
where your chance to win is the largest.
That's why it's so important to leaveyour ego at the door when playing poker.
(17:19):
Bottom line is,
you need to be better than at least halfthe players at the table if you want to
have a positive win rate. And ifyou want to make sick-good profit,
you want to play against theworst players you can find.
Here is a simple and quickthree-step checklist that will help
you know if you are ina good game. Number one,
(17:39):
at least one player is limpingin regularly. Number two,
there are many multiwaypots and number three,
re-raises are either veryrare or very frequent,
both of which can indicatea really good game,
just very different types of good games.
If you are at a table with atleast two of these boxes checked,
(18:00):
you are in a great position to makemoney. If none of these boxes are checked,
especially if you're playing low stakes,
get up and go find amore profitable table.
That is unless you feel likeputting yourself to the test.
If you want quick tips that will helpyou win at no limit Hold'em, listen up.
We've compiled ten basic butcritical tactics that will make you a
more confident andprofitable poker player.
This list of tips is from the mostpopular article ever on upswingpoker.com.
It's helped well over onemillion readers up their game.
(00:21):
Keep in mind that none of thisis complex cutting-edge strategy.
It's just ten fundamental pieces ofadvice that you'd be smart to remember at
the table. The majority ofnew poker players start out by playing way too loose,
and that's why tip number one is to playfewer hands and play them aggressively.
Put simply,
there is a limit on how many startinghands you can profitably play before the
(00:44):
flop. If you play too loose,
like by limping in with Queen Six suitedor calling a raise every single time
you have a suited connector, you'll findyourself bleeding chips way too often.
Developing a solid preflop strategyis by far the easiest and fastest
way to improve your bottom line.
You can start studying battle-testedpreflop ranges now by signing up for our
(01:06):
preflop prodigy app atupswingpoker.com/preflop. It is totally free.
You can use it on any devicewith an internet connection.
But keep in mind that having thediscipline to stick to preflop
ranges that you studied can be difficult.
This is a word of warning.
Don't allow yourself to get impatientand play a hand that's not worth playing.
(01:27):
That will really hurtyour wallet over time.
The best overall approach when raisingas the first player to enter a pot is to
play a range of strongand or playable hands,
and you should play all ofthose hands aggressively.
Playing all of your hands aggressively,including the more speculative ones,
like Seven Six suited or pocket Fives,
(01:48):
allows you to disguise the strengthof your actual hand. When you raise,
your opponents won't knowwhether you have pocket Aces,
Ace King or one of those speculativehands like Seven Six suited,
and that makes you super toughto play against. Put simply,
tight and aggressive wins the game.
Before I move on to tip number two,
(02:09):
I want to reiterate that you are justa few clicks away from the fastest
way to upgrade your preflop skills.
Head over to upswingpoker.com/preflopand enter your info to sign up for
the free preflop prodigy app. Thisapp works on a phone or computer,
any device really with an internetconnection and it includes battle-tested
(02:31):
ranges for live cash games,
online cash games and tournaments.
There are three stack depthsfor tournaments right now and we have some loose
plans to add more rangesto this tool over time.
So head over there, check it out,
while it's still free make sure you getyour access and start improving your
game right now.
It's great to use this tool to look uphow you should have played a hand or to
(02:54):
study ahead of time so you know whatyou're going to do when you get to the
table. Tip number two isanother key one for beginners,
don't be the first player to limp.
You should generally avoid open-limpingor just calling the big blind preflop
for two main reasons. Number one,
you have fewer ways to win the pot, you'llhave to catch something on the flop.
(03:17):
That's pretty much your onlyavenue to taking it down.
Number two is you give the playersbehind very enticing pot odds,
making it more likely that you'll facemultiple players and thus even less
likely that you will win the pot.By raising instead of limping,
you can occasionally take thepot down preflop or win with a
c-bet on the flop.
(03:38):
And that c-bet is more likely to worksince you narrowed the field with your
preflop raise.
Keep in mind it is much more reasonableto limp when at least one other player
has already limp.
This is called overlimping and it can bea good play because you're getting good
pot odds to join the action. Plus,
that player who limp clearly didn'twatch this video and is probably worth
(04:01):
targeting. So,
feel free to toss in that one big blindwith certain hands that play well in
multiway pots. That includes hands likelow pocket pairs and small suited Aces.
Basically hands that can easily hitthe flop really hard and win a big pot.
There are actually some situations inwhich open-limping can help you win extra
(04:23):
money,
but it's a fairly advanced play and itrequires a well-thought out approach to
pull off. If you'd like to see avideo covering those exceptions,
situations where you can open-limp,let me know in the comments down below.
Tip number three is to semi-bluffaggressively with your draws.
If you want to truly crush poker,you need to bluff effectively.
(04:47):
You can't just sit aroundwaiting for strong hands,
but attempting bad bluffs is one ofthe fastest ways to lose money at the
table. So,
how do you walk that line whenyou're first starting out?
The effective way to bluff is to let thecards you have dictate whether or not
you're going to pull the trigger.
The most obvious example of that isbluffing with hands that have outs to
(05:10):
improve to the besthand on a later street.
I'm talking about when you havea straight draw, a flush draw,
or even just an overcardor two to the board.
Think of your outs toimprove as your backup plan.
Your bluff might just work, youmight win the pot like that,
but if your bluff does get called,you have that escape hatch,
you have that backup planin the form of your outs.
(05:34):
These hands are often referred to assemi-bluffs because of their potential
beyond the bluff itself. Let mejust quickly go over an example.
Let's say you have Nine Seven of diamonds.
The flop comes Ten EightTwo with two diamonds,
so you have an open-ended straightdraw, you have a flush draw, you check,
your opponent bets and you decideto check-raise as a semi-bluff.
(05:54):
You might just get your opponentto fold, that would be great,
but if your opponent does call, youcan still improve on the turn or river.
For the record,
advanced players also bluff whenthey have good blockers or unblockers
in their hand. When you'rejust starting out, though,
bluffing with total-nothing handsprior to the river is not advisable
(06:15):
except in one situation that I'lltell you about in a little bit.
Tip number four is to fast play yourstrong hands so you can build the pot and
make more money.
Slow playing too often is a mistakecommonly made among players who are afraid
of chasing their opponent out ofthe pot. They have a strong hand,
they need to lay the trap becausethey're afraid of losing their customer,
(06:36):
but that's not the best wayto approach it. In most cases,
it's best to just bet your strong handsbecause it allows you to build the pot
and protect your equity.
But I'm not saying youshould never slow play,
you definitely can if it's unlikelythat you're going to be out drawn.
For example, if you have pocketKings on a King King Three flop,
(06:57):
you can definitely consider slow playing.
It's just going to be tough for youropponent to have a hand that can actually
call and they're not goingto outdraw you anyway,
so you might as well givethem some rope. Additionally,
if your opponent's range is heavilyweighted towards hands with no showdown
value, you can consider layingthe trap. In other words,
if your opponent probably just doesn'thave anything and you're going to force
them to fold by betting, you might aswell check and give them a chance to bet.
(07:21):
And finally, if the boardis very bad for your range,
you can consider slow playing withyour strong hands too. For example,
let's say you raise preflopand the big blind calls.
The flop comes Seven Six Five,
so very connected board thathits the big blind's range well,
the big blind could have twopair or a straight quite easily.
You can check behind when they checkwith a hand as strong as pocket Aces or
(07:45):
even a straight yourself.
That way you protect all ofthe medium-strength hands in your range just in case
the big blind comesout firing on the turn.
That last point is alittle bit more advanced,
but it's something that I just have tomention because it's a key part of how
poker works when it comes toslow playing and fast playing.
Tip number five is to defend yourbig blind with the right hands.
(08:09):
The big blind is a special positionbecause you already have an investment
in the pot,
you basically get a discount to call anyraise because of this discount and the
fact that you are the lastperson to act preflop,
you can profitably call with a lotmore hands than if you were sitting in
another position.
That's not to say you should callraises with trash hands like Nine Five
(08:31):
offsuit,
but the more borderline hands like KingNine offsuit or Queen Six suited become
playable in many situations.
Exactly how wide you should defendfrom the big blind depends on a
multitude of factors. Here arethe four main ones. Number one,
the position of the raiser.
You should play tighter against theearlier positions and looser against the
(08:54):
late positions. Number two is thenumber of players in the hand.
When one or more players has alreadycalled the raise in front of you,
play tighter and only call with handsthat play well in multiway pots,
and again, that's like low pocket pairsand suited Aces are the best examples.
Number three is the size of theraise. This one's pretty obvious,
(09:16):
but the larger the raise size, thetighter you should play and vice versa.
Finally, stack sizes are criticalas well. When you're a short stack,
you should play fewer speculative handsand prioritize high-card strength.
That's kind of an oversimplification,but for the sake of this video,
it's a solid starting point. Thereare other important factors too,
(09:37):
like how aggressive your opponentis going to play postflop,
but the four we just covered are themain ones you should consider in pretty
much every hand when you'refacing a raise from the big blind.
I've pulled up the preflop prodigy appon my screen so we can look at some
theoretically optimalbig blind defense ranges.
And if you're listening tothis rather than watching it,
(09:58):
I'm going to go through and explain thisin a way that I think will still have
value for you even if you can'tsee what I'm clicking through.
So right now I'm looking at the bigblind versus under the gun range.
So we're facing this three big blindraise and we're playing a little over
fifteen percent of handsagainst this raise.
We're playing a good amount ofhands, but it's still fairly tight.
And I'm going to use King Queen offsuitas our sort of parameter hand as
(10:21):
we click through more rangeshere. So against under the gun,
King Queen offsuit is mostly folding,
it's calling the raise eight percent ofthe time and folding ninety-two percent
of the time. Solvers love to do this.
They love to mix between two differentactions that it deems to have similar
value. So again,
we're playing fifteen percent of handsand mostly folding King Queen offsuit.
If we move one position over,
(10:42):
so now it's one to the leftof under the gun raising,
King Queen offsuit is now being playednearly a third of the time and our
overall defense has ticked a littlebit closer to sixteen percent. Now,
let's move over one moreposition to middle position,
so we're the big blindfacing middle position,
and now King Queen offsuit is callingthe vast majority of the time,
eighty-two percent,
(11:03):
and our overall range has tickedup to about nineteen percent.
Now we'll go to the lojack,that's one more position over,
and all of the sudden King Queen offsuitis being played every single time and
we're playing over twenty percentof hands against the lojack player.
This continues on versus the hijackwhere now we're playing nearly
twenty-four percent of hands.
(11:24):
Against the cutoff we're playing nearlytwenty-nine percent of hands and hands
as weak as King Jack offsuit and KingTen offsuit are being played at a high
frequency.
And finally against the button we'replaying nearly forty percent of hands
and that King Queen offsuitI was talking about,
we're not calling it every time we'reactually re-rasing with it about half the
time. So that's a big difference,
(11:45):
looking at how we played versus underthe gun and how we played versus the
button. That was really focused onposition, that first factor I mentioned,
but kind of underscores how importantit is to study ranges like this and the
preflop prodigy app isa great way to do that.
Tip number Six is lame advice but Ijust have to say it, when you're unsure,
just fold.
(12:05):
Want to know the biggest differencebetween a bad player and a professional
player?
The good player has the ability to laydown a relatively strong hand like top
pair when they think they're beat.This advice sounds really simple,
but it's actually hard to do in practicebecause of the way our brains are
wired. We are naturally curiousand we naturally want to win.
(12:29):
When we fold,
we surrender our chance to win thepot and we don't get to satisfy our
curiosity. We don't get tofind out what our opponent had.
So really when you do this, you'refighting your own human nature,
so it can be fairlydifficult, but it's crucial,
because calling too often and in thewrong situations is another common way
novice players bleed money.
(12:50):
Whenever you're unsure whetherto call or fold versus a bet,
do yourself a service and justfold. But here's the key pro tip.
When you fold in one of these situations,
don't just move on and forgetthe hand ever happened.
Note down the detailsand investigate later.
Discuss the hand with fellow poker playersmaybe in our Upswing Poker discord,
(13:11):
which you can join forfree at discord.gg/upswing,
or you could talk about it with yourfriends in real life or study online.
Whatever you got to do toget to the bottom of that hand and figure out what you
should have done.
That way you can take the knowledgeto the table in your next session.
If you are getting value fromthis video and want to see more,
(13:32):
please take a momentto like and subscribe.
It helps us keep the content trainrolling and ensures you don't miss what we
put out.
We release videos and podcasts regularlyand our mission is to help you improve
your game for free.
We want the time you spend watching thesevideos and listening to these podcasts
to pay dividends at the table.
(13:53):
Tip number Seven is to attackWhen your opponent shows
weakness.
Players really don't check as often asthey should with hands that can actually
call multiple bets. Thatmeans that when they do check,
they usually have a relatively weak handand you can get them to fold it with
some aggression.
This is that bluffing-with-nothingsituation that I alluded to earlier.
(14:17):
When your opponent shows a lotof weakness in a heads-up pot,
like by checking on the flop and thenfollowing that up with another check on
the turn,
that's the green light for you to goafter them with an aggressive bluffing
strategy.
Not only should you bet with your usualsemi-bluff hands that we talked about
earlier, you should also bet with somepure nothing hands, just go after them.
(14:39):
Ideally,
you should use hands that have goodblocker effects and if you want to learn
about how to use blockers inyour poker strategy generally,
check out the episode we did on whetheror not blockers actually matter.
I'll put a link to thatone in the description.
It's time to talk briefly abouttournaments specifically and the tip for
tournaments, tip number eight,
is to play solid poker early onand don't worry about survival.
(15:04):
There is a time and a place for stackpreservation and the beginning of a
poker tournament is not it.
This is one of the most misunderstoodaspects of tournament poker strategy among
beginners. Consider that in order tofinish in the money in a tournament,
you're going to have to at leastdouble or triple your starting stack,
usually more. So, insteadof playing defensively early on and trying to survive,
(15:28):
you should be playing a solid andaggressive strategy in order to build up a
stack and set yourself up for a deep run.
If you find yourself short stackednear the money bubble or a pay jump,
it's then that you should start playinga more survival-oriented strategy.
I made another video with seven greattips that will help you run deep in more
tournaments. I'm going to drop a linkto that at the end of this one. Anyway,
(15:51):
let's move on to tip number nine,
which is kind of more of a mental-gamething and it's only play if you feel like
it. Poker should be fun.
It should be a fun experience regardlessif you play as a hobby or if you're a
professional player. You are going toperform your best when you're happy,
so it makes sense that you should onlyplay this mentally-intensive game when
(16:12):
you feel that way. If youfeel frustration, fatigue,
or anger building up,
you should generally just quityour session right then and there,
or at least take a break.
You are very likely saving yourselfa bunch of money by doing so.
Poker will still be theretomorrow. Here's a pro tip from me.
I've been playing poker for fifteen years.
I was a professional player forsix years. Before I play a session,
(16:34):
I imagine going all-in and losingmy stack on the very first hand.
It's something that's very possible.
If the thought of thatpossibility doesn't bother me,
I know I'm ready to play myA-game for that poker session,
but if going all-in and losing one ofmy buy-ins on the first hand sounds
unbearable, I'd reconsiderplaying. Our final tip,
(16:56):
tip number ten, is toonly play in good games.
It was said in Rounders,what, twenty years ago?,
that "if you can't spot the sucker inyour first half an hour at the table,
then you are the sucker." You shouldalways put yourself in positions
where your chance to win is the largest.
That's why it's so important to leaveyour ego at the door when playing poker.
(17:19):
Bottom line is,
you need to be better than at least halfthe players at the table if you want to
have a positive win rate. And ifyou want to make sick-good profit,
you want to play against theworst players you can find.
Here is a simple and quickthree-step checklist that will help
you know if you are ina good game. Number one,
(17:39):
at least one player is limpingin regularly. Number two,
there are many multiwaypots and number three,
re-raises are either veryrare or very frequent,
both of which can indicatea really good game,
just very different types of good games.
If you are at a table with atleast two of these boxes checked,
(18:00):
you are in a great position to makemoney. If none of these boxes are checked,
especially if you're playing low stakes,
get up and go find amore profitable table.
That is unless you feel likeputting yourself to the test.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Breakfast Club
The World's Most Dangerous Morning Show, The Breakfast Club, With DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, And Charlamagne Tha God!