Basic Poker Theory
The basic theoretical strategy behind winning at poker is to bet when you are ahead and fold when you are behind at the casino. If everyone could follow this basic principle, acting with perfect knowledge of where you are in the hand at all times, no one would ever lose. Of course, it’s impossible to always know these things, especially if you play with deceptive players, and even when you do get it right, sometimes the odds don’t wash out as planned.
But there’s another general rule that can often be applied to most ‘basic’ games, which is: when your opponent shows weakness by checking or just calling and you have a hand, you should protect your hand by betting.
More aptly, online poker is about taking the reins, about getting money in the pot when it is likely you will win. There’s no need for blind aggression, but there’s also no need to allow yourself to get walked on and have opponents taking their liberties with you by knowing that you only will bet when you have the hand huge, and calling down when you have any other piece of it.
If you find yourself in these kind of situations often, calling off money with medium hands, it’s probably best to take a step back and get back to basics with what you are involving yourself in preflop, or at least finding a table where no one is paying attention to anything but the sheer numbers. Otherwise, you are a duck waiting to be roasted.
