Poker Strategies

The game of poker is simple: The man with the best hand wins. But the game of poker isn't considered gambling for nothing. There are a lot of variations of poker. The two most popular are Five Card Draw and Texas Hold'em. Texas Hold'em is played with two cards on hand and the dealer presents the flop, river and turn. It is now the most popular variation of poker, where you can see it played in casinos and gambling rooms. Its popularity has even reached the Internet that now presents sites where you can play simulation games with other people all over the world.

How to play poker is really quite simple, yet it's more complicated than Craps and more exiting than Black Jack where you'll only be gambling against the banker. The game is longer and pot chip increase is larger, making the game more enjoyable. Here are some strategies to help you get better at poker.

1. Chip Bullying – This is perhaps the most obvious and brutish strategy. Of course, it will only work when you control a large percentage of the chips on the table. The technique is simply to overwhelm the opposing players by putting in a very large raise to an unreasonable amount, forcing the other players to fold and leave you the pot. But it can backfire if you're only working under a bluff and an opposing player can always call your raise.
2. Death Raise – This technique demands sacrificing a lot of your chips and gives meaning to the word gambling in poker. It is played by continually raising the same amount in every round. This also means calling to every raise made by other players. It is highly dangerous because employing this technique means holding on to the hand until the dealer calls for the show of cards or the remaining player folds. This technique would give you the edge of fearlessness and would force every player on the table to adjust their style of play.
3. Possum – Each and every player has a number of "tells." Only a small number of professionals can pull off the "stone-cold" position where they put on the same face for hours on end. The Possum technique basically calls for putting out false tells thus confusing the other players every time you get your hand. This technique requires a certain degree of self control and awareness.
4. Side Winder – This calls for outside help, you won't be cheating but it's considered to be dirty. This same technique was used by Daniel Craig as James Bond in the film "Casino Royale." This will only work with the help of an attractive woman, at least attractive enough for the other players to lose their focus and look away from their cards for a brief moment. All she has to do is approach you during the game to greet you with either a kiss or a hug. This is best done during the final round of betting in a hand. However this cannot be used in professional games since audiences aren't allowed to approach the table to prevent cheating.

Wiser players will most likely tell you that the house always wins. Poker isn't called gambling for nothing. So we part with the immortal words of the legendary writer Mario Puzo in his novel, "Fools Die," "Show me a hero and I'll show you a corpse. Show me a gambler and I'll show you a loser."