Tells

In person, you have many potential tells to read. An opponent who wears a hat and glasses? He's just letting you know he's telegraphing his play. It's up to you to figure out how. One of the best tips for picking out the tell of a live opponent is to look without looking. Use your peripheral vision and your instinct. Sit back, relax, and wait for that little movement, that change in position, even a different draw of breath, to clue you in. Everything you're looking for in him? You should be mixing up in your presentation of yourself in order to keep him guessing.

The ready availability of recorded games is ripe for exploitation. If you can find video of your opponent playing poker, you'll have a free, no pressure ride where you can sit and study him at your leisure. The camera is unflinching and not distracted.

Tells are not completely absent when you play online (such as in one of the adult card game sites or free poker games), but they are harder to pick out and you have far less to go on. The amount of time it takes a player to respond is one clue. You have to remember that a player may be experiencing lag or timeout problems which may affect this behavioral cue. If you're playing, attempt to randomly vary your response times or to make them as uniform as possible in order to keep your own secrets safe.

The chat channel may show you what an online poker player is thinking, or if the player is thinking at all. Tells are not covered in the rules of poker. They are simply a small way to tip the scales in your favor.

All-In

If you want to be one of the most annoying players in poker, especially online poker games, do the immediate all-in. This annoyance factor is followed to a close second by the repeated all-in. Be aware, though, that at some point, one of your opponents is going to have the cards to call you out on your game.

While some believe that this is poker, in actuality it is not. Any fool can bluff one hand. The fact that you win the ante proves only one thing: that your opponents had cards which didn't justify such a risky bet. It doesn't make you king of the table.

I'm all for a good betting strategy when there is a reason for it. If you have a great hand and choose to go all-in, hey, I can't argue against that logic completely, but the more skillful way to proceed is to at least wait for the flop, if not longer. Playing in free online card games is no excuse for playing poorly. Develop bad habits and they will follow you.

Betting against an immediate all-in is a risky exploit. You're likely to win because your opponent is likely bluffing, especially if he's stringing together his all-in bets. Even if he has good cards now, you still have time to build your hand. That said, you're risking everything on one hand, so you might want to think twice. Factor in the possibility that another opponent may call as well, then you have two hands to beat and one of them probably has the cards to back his play.

Great Cards

If you have great poker cards, it is better to hide that fact from your opponents for as long as possible.

If the action comes to you last on the opening round of betting, you can safely make a moderate raise without giving yourself away. Why? Because often the last player will make a bet if everyone else has checked. The opponents can't be sure if the bet stems from a bluff or good cards and will be more reluctant to fold in response.

If you can't read the room, it is better to check on the opening round. Let the others think you have nothing worth jumping in about. In fact, it is best if you can let someone else take the lead altogether. Wait for an opponent to open the betting and then call or moderately raise.

This serves two purposes. You keep your opponents off balance. They will tend to lean toward the belief that you have a lesser hand or a hand you're unsure about. They will place more of their attention on the person actively placing bets or raises and hopefully you'll fly under the radar.

During the middle rounds of betting, try to introduce moderate raises to the pot. Aim for bets sized to entice the other players to stay in and try their luck. The bets should say, well, I may have something, but not anything dangerous to you. This increases your potential take and may influence an opponent to step up and do something foolish which will help your cause.

Wait until late in the hand to begin issuing significant raises. Why? You may be able to coax an opponent to stay in and keep betting, reducing his chips and increasing the pot. You will have greater leverage on an aggressive poker player.

If he has a significant investment and your earlier betting has him confused, he will be more reluctant to leave the pot to you. You can then safely make a larger bet and be reasonably assured he will call it. He may even get so crazed that he tries to force you out with an "all-in" for which you'll soon make him very sorry. Alternately, unsure opponents will be more likely to fold than challenge, helping to ensure you the pot.

Poor Cards

There is really no hand you should fold. None. Definitely not before you see the flop. That single ace someone else has? A lowly pair of twos will beat it every time. Low cards come up just as frequently as high cards and if you can put two or three of them together in a hand, you can take a pot away from mismatched face cards.

Definitely never fold low suited playing cards. You're throwing away an excellent chance at a flush.

I'm not saying you should ride those cards out to the bitter end, but it's worth the price of admission to see if you're going to be able to make anything out of what you're given. Consider the number of times an opponent throws away the same hand. If you can take even one extra pot with this poker strategy, it might be enough to turn the tide of the game.

Your Betting Strategy

Ok, so you've probably played a bit, maybe read a book or skimmed a free online card games poker site. You think you have a personal strategy set. Blow that up. Throw it away.

If you want to daze and confuse your opponent, the trick is to be unpredictable. Utterly, completely unpredictable. Fold in the middle of the hand. Play a couple of hopeless hands out to the bitter end.

As you bet, check and raise without rhyme or reason. This is best done in the early stages of the game. You can focus your attention on what you're learning from the other players about themselves as you play automatically using this tactic of chaos.

The idea here is to never do the same thing in exactly the same way twice-- until you're ready to do so. You may aggressively bet out a loser of a hand and the next hand draw into four of a kind. This would be a great time to mimic what you did on the previous poker hand. What will your opponent think? That again you have nothing and you're clowning around.

This works very well when underplaying great cards. If you come out of the chute betting as if you have pocket aces, what do you think your opponents are likely to do? Most will fold immediately because they know they don't have pocket aces. Occasionally, someone will have an ace high or a faced pair and continue to fight you, but for the most part you're betting people off the table.

Part of the skill, the art of poker, is to draw in the other players. Make them think you are unskilled, meek, your cards not a threat. Make them think their cards are better than yours. An example: you have a king and a king falls in the flop or the turn. Don't bet it right away. Either wait until someone else raises and then raise/call or wait until the next card to make your move. Your opponents will be more likely to associate that bet with the current card, even if they ought to know better.

Compliments

When offering congratulations on a hand, it is utterly ridiculous to compliment people for a card-related windfall. Please save your words of praise for a hand which has been skillfully played and don't just blanket poker players with expressions of wonder because they were dealt aces. That way your words will have actual meaning and not be considered the usual empty suit of kind words.