Practice Drills

In order to become a successful poker player it is vital that you don’t restrict yourself to just playing poker. Following are some guidelines on how to improve your poker skills:

Learn the hand rankings
Knowing your hand rankings is crucial in Texas Hold’em. The most straightforward way to learn the ranking of the hands is to take a blank sheet of paper and recreate the list of poker hands until you know them inside out.

Learn to read the board
As explained in the strategy section, reading the board is an important skill. The easiest way to learn to recognize the possible best poker hands is to deal yourself a few hundred hands and determine the best possible hand, the second best hand, etc.

Play poker
The best way to learn the game is to play a lot of poker. At most online casinos you can register for free and practice with play money. Once you are familiar with the rules of the game, register to Pokerstrategy.com, receive $50 + $100 FREE start capital and start playing for real money.

Read poker books and articles
Reading books is an excellent way to increase your theoretical knowledge on the game of Texas Hold’em. In order to get to most out of the poker book, mark important passages, take notes and re-read the books, articles and paragraphs constantly. It will help you to internalize the essence of the material.

Participate in poker discussions
Active discussion on poker strategy is a very good way to consolidate theoretical knowledge. Follow strategic discussions, post your own opinion, and ask questions on the 2+2 Forum or other forums.

Analyse your own game with poker software
Another way to acquire knowledge is through the analysis of poker strategies using poker software. After a poker session, take some time to recapitulate your actions, recheck equity calculations, and find mistakes. This procedure has the advantage of finding weaknesses which would otherwise remain undiscovered. You can post these hands on a forum to get other opinions.