Tips from a Shark: How to Destroy Beginners at the Poker Table
Want to know how to destroy beginners at the poker table? Disclaimer: If you’re sitting around the poker table with some friends who are new to the game, you might not want to try these tips. You’re likely to end up making some people really mad — because you’re going to walk away with all of their money and humiliate them in the process. However, if you are playing online poker against some people you’ll never see, or if you’re at a tournament and find a novice at the table (or if someone starts talking noise), these can help you.
These Tips will How to Destroy Beginners at the Poker Table
First of all, when a novice comes into the room, he’s either going to be really nervous, or really careless. It won’t take you long to figure out which he is, either. The nervous guy calls a lot and folds most of the time when others raise. They’ll almost never open the betting. The careless guy makes crazy raises even though his hands are weak. If you have the nervous novice at your table, use big bets to scare him away each time, and watch his stack dwindle slowly. If he does raise, tread lightly, because it’s likely that he has something solid. If you’ve got the careless guy, value bet with your strong hands. Use big pairs to call down the big bets.
Oh, and when there’s another solid player at the table with you, make sure you target the novices. Solid players avoid targeting each other and instead enjoy feasting off the rookies.
One misconception that novices have is that they’re going to have a ton of great hands. After all, when poker games show up in movies, somebody always draws to a royal flush or something. There’s even that Bugs Bunny cartoon where the rabbit wins blackjack on one card by drawing the 21 of Diamonds (gotta love Looney Tunes). Most of the time, your hands will miss. Getting a premium starting hand like A-K is something that almost never happens.
Sharpen Your Bluffin’ & Reading Skills
Knowing when it’s a good time to catch a fish will improve your chances of hitting a good pot. If you have a nervous beginner at your table, he will lay down a lot after the flop if they don’t get something solid right away, so you should bet just about every time. You can raise the other hands around you, and the novices will wonder why you’re getting all the good cards.
Another fun trick here is to make the minimum bet on the river. A lot of rookies don’t understand how pot odds work, so if they miss on the draw, they are likely to fold against just about anything. Finally, watch body language. Novices with good cards usually have problems controlling their emotional responses. If they have nothing, you can tell from their faces as well.
Knowing the hand rankings is obviously helpful
No matter if you are playing online poker, the WSOP or just a friendly hands of free money poker, beginners tend to commit the same mistakes. They often think that a straight should beat a flush (when it doesn’t) and that two pair are better than three of a kind (but they aren’t). This is an example of a way to make friends mad (because a friend would tell them the hand rankings). But if you’re not playing with friends, then don’t worry about it. You’ll only be able to win one hand for each of these misconceptions, of course, but hands add up.
Using tips like this will help you clean up…and teach those novices the same hard lessons you had to learn.
Ready to put your skills on the line? You can practice as much as you need on the free online poker tables at Cafrino and get all the practice you need while winning real cash. Good luck!
