Ready for poker night with the guys? There are two possibilities for how things will unfold.
- You'll talk about sports, girls, work, and life while you play cards, not really paying attention to what’s hitting the felt. At the end of the day, everyone will walk away pretty even.
- You'll talk about sports, girls, work, and… you guessed it…life while you play cards, only someone will actually walk away with a ridiculous amount of money while everyone else ends the night with empty pockets.
If number 2 sounds pretty good to you, keep reading. We’ve got the top five tips to make you a better player so that you can beat your buddies at your next home game.
Tip #1: Be the last player to look at your cards
Home games are pretty typical. The dealer hands out his cards and every player rushed to grab his cards the second they hit the felt. It’s a typical home game mistake that you can take advantage of.
Instead of rushing to grab your cards, sit back and watch how your buddies react when they see their cards. The really bad players will smile or frown when they see their cards, telling you whether they’ve got a great hand or a really bad one. But even the somewhat good players will inadvertently communicate the quality of their hand through a smirk, by leaning on the chair, by breathing a frustrated sigh, and so on. If you can figure out whether players are happy or not with their cards, it doesn’t really matter what you’re holding.
Tip #2: Fold. A lot.
If you watch the WSOP on TV, it seems like every hand is a monster hand. But here’s the thing about televised poker tournaments. The 30 minutes or an hour of airtime is derived from hundreds of hours of footage. The Main Event of the WSOP is typically a 10-day event. A lot of really boring hands are dealt along the way, which is why a lot of great players throw away well over 95% of the hands they’re dealt.
Home games are always crowded with players who want every game to feel like a big televised tourney. So several will go in with really bad hands in hopes that they'll get lucky and excitement will ensue. Don’t get caught up in all that. Instead, toss away bad hands and play only the most solid ones.
Tip #3: Pay attention to overdramatic players
Even newbie players are familiar with how tells work, so they'll try to disguise their actions by doing the complete opposite. For example, someone with pocket Aces might take their time in trying to figure out whether to bet, even though the board has flopped an Ace, Jack, Five. And they might sigh along the way, over-exaggerating everything. If you’re dealing with new or mediocre players, these melodramatic players are pretty easy to spot. Take advantage of their bad acting and take their money.
Tip #4: Don’t be too raise-happy
Yes, poker is gambling. But that doesn’t mean you need to raise every hand just to fill the pot. If you want to win against your poker buddies, only re-raise a raiser if you’re holding an excellent hand. This is especially true when you’re out of position. Remember, you re-raise a raiser so you can flip the tables and take control. If your hand is super strong, you won’t have to worry as much when the initial raiser calls your raise.
Tip #5: Play online poker
No, we’re not suggesting you fire up your laptop at the table during your home game with your buddies. That would be rude, though nonetheless entertaining. But before your next home game, sit down at a free online poker site - many have no-download options - and play against guys you’ve never played against before.
Online poker offers you an amazing opportunity to hone your game. The online experience is way faster than what you’re used to live, which means you'll see about 10x more hands per hour at an Internet poker room than you would in person. That gives you a huge opportunity to play all sorts of different hands against all kinds of different players.
And here’s the best part. You don’t have to remember every single hand you were involved in. Many online poker sites offer players a hand history tool, so you can go back and review how you played certain hands. If you lost big-time, it’s a good way of discovering what went wrong.
So next time you sit down with your buddies, there’s no excuse for being the guy who walks away with all the chips - and the cash.
