Matt's Tips for Beginners

In the spirit of giving back ('tis the season) I thought that I would start this thread. I'll be posting my best tips for beginners here.

A word about myself. I'm an amateur, but one who's been playing for a while and has a solid grasp of the basics. I'm doing well at online cash games, but only mediocre, at best, at tournaments. I don't have the patience for the longer sessions.

My tips will either be generic (applicable to both cash or tourneys), or cash game specific.

Always Take Notes

I always take notes about other players, especially if they do something unusual. They may be generalized (e.g., Wild Aggressive) or specifc to a hand that I observed (e.g., 4-bets all-in ($10) pre-flop w/ AK).

You'd be amazed at how people tend to play the same way over and over. You can easily exploit that the next time you meet that particular player in a similar situation.

pokerstars has a place for you to keep your notes (different tab in the chat box), but be aware that they are saved on the computer on which you took them, so they won't be available to you on other computers or devices.

Be sure to check your notes on a player before making any plays against him.

Be Aware of the Outs & Odds

I wouldn't recommend being too rigid about how you play (remember, other players will be taking notes about you), but you should always have some awareness of the outs that are possible and the odds that they may occur.

I keep a chart on my computer that I reference whenever I have to make a play with a hand that could go sideways. The two most common situations that you will encounter are 4-flush draws (9 outs) and open ended straight draws/OESD (8 outs).

There is lots of reading out there about outs, odds and pot odds that you can look up. My tip here is simply to always be aware of them before making a play - i.e., a fold, call or raise.

Be a TAG!

Be Tight Aggressive (TAG)

This tip is specific to cash tables. You have lots of time to wait for the right hands. Don't worry about the blinds that you are paying every go around the table. They're peanuts compared to the amount that you can win (or lose) by playing a hand. In 6-max NL10 for example, the blinds cost 15 cents for every 6 hands, but you can easily win or lose $1.50 on a hand. That's 10 times around the table or 60 hands that you can afford to sit out waiting for a good starring hand (i.e., by being tight).

Another advantage to being tight is that the variance that you encounter is much lower. The better the hands you play, the less likely it is that you're going to lose. BUT, remember that even pocket Aces lose sometimes. So, the hand isn't over till it's over. Remember to look at your notes and your odds chart and always be mindful of what a big bet by villain can mean.

Now, when you do decide to play a hand, you RARELY want to limp in. You should almost always be betting/raising to get into a hand. Be aggressive! But, also recognize when you are likely beat (I'll show an example of this in the next tip).

I only play 6-max tables because there are far too many hands possible in full ring (9 to 10 players). Why is this important? Because I bluff at appropriate times. It's a lot easier to bluff successfully if you start out with fewer players and fewer possible opposing hands in the first place. bluffing is a normal pert of playing aggressively.

The Hand Isn't Over till it's Over

It's hard to win a lot of money at poker, but it's REAL EASY to lose a lot.

Most of the time we lose hands because we fail to read the table and the other players properly. Let's say you start out with AQo against JTo and A2s. The pre-flop percentage odds of winning for each hand are as follows:But, a 'bad' flop can change all of that in an instant. 8cJsQs gives you top pair, top kicker (TPTK) but your lead hangs precariously in the balance. This flop is very wet, meaning that there are all sorts of possible winning hands that your opponents could be drawing to. In the example, the turn card (9s) made a flush and a straight very real threats. As it turns out one villain did make the flush and the other did make the straight.

So, be aggressive, but pick your spots, and recognize when it may be time to slow down. Most villains aren't going to throw away a nut flush draw or 2nd pair and gutshot draw on that flop.

Use the Hand Replayer - LOTS!

I do this many, many times during a session. It doesn't matter if it's a hand that I've played in or not. If something catches my eye (which usually involves a lot of money changing hands) I will instantly click on the hand replayer icon ("Show Previous Hand") at the top left of the Pokerstars table screen to see who did what, when and how it worked out.




In this hand, approx. one hundred dollars changed hands. I will replay the hand and make notes about what the players did. In this case, top pair won out over a 4-flush/OESD draw. It was pretty much a coin flip on the flop, but I'll make notes about who was ready to risk it all on a coin flip and what they did it with.




The hand replayer is a fantastically useful learning tool - and it's FREE!

Why We Take Notes - take 2

Here's an excellent example of why it's is so important to take notes. I don't like to use the term "fish", but some people really do fit the description. A3s is NOT a monster pre-flop. So when someone plays it like it is, that's worthy of making a note.




And, the likely result is:


Make a note. This guy is definitely worth remembering. That's real money this guy is throwing away on a whim!

Good read brother, thank you!!

Really good advice as usual Matt, thanks for sharing! I'll definitely be using some of those tips in the new year. Happy holidays friend! :icon_sant

Well this is one of the best post I've ever read at CC.Thank you for the information.

I might have to make one of these myself but a specialized tourney edition. Good stuff mate!

Matt, overall an excellent post and you put a lot of work into it. A great help for players in the early stages of taking up the game. Why give out odds for both turn and river when they are mutually exclusive to each other, and happen one after the other?

Always Keep your Stack Topped Up!

This is a two pronged hint, one of which I'm going to hedge a little on.

You should always buy in to a cash game for the maximum (e.g., NL10 - buy in for $10), however if you're unsure of yourself at this level, or your bankroll is getting a little soft, you may want to buy in for a lesser amount, say half the maximum (e.g., NL10 - buy in for $5). <-- that's me hedging, because I started out at the higher levels buying in for half (that was all I could afford) and did okay. Of course, you have to be reasonably sure that you're going to be able to win enough to get your stack up to the max. buy-in figure fairly quickly so that you're not playing handicapped for too long.

However, regardless of what amount you buy in for, always set the auto-rebuy feature to keep your stack topped up to the initial buy-in amount. <-- No hedging here.

Why? There are 3 reasons.

MattRyder said:

This is a two pronged hint, one of which I'm going to hedge a little on.

You should always buy in to a cash game for the maximum (e.g., NL10 - buy in for $10), however if you're unsure of yourself at this level, or your bankroll is getting a little soft, you may want to buy in for a lesser amount, say half the maximum (e.g., NL10 - buy in for $5). <-- that's me hedging, because I started out at the higher levels buying in for half (that was all I could afford) and did okay.

However, regardless of what amount you buy in for, always set the auto-rebuy feature to keep your stack topped up to the initial buy-in amount. <-- No hedging here.

Why? There are 3 reasons.

- First, when you catch a monster, you want to be able to win the maximum. The bigger your stack, the more you can potentially win.​

- Second, some more experienced players will purposely take advantage of players who buy in low, and/or those who don't auto-rebuy. It's like a big shiny sign saying "I don't know what I'm doing. Please take my money."​

-Third, the smaller your stack, the harder it is to bluff successfully. Some part of your winnings will come from bluffing (in appropriate spots against appropriate players).​

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Don't agree with you on this one mate. Not buying in for the max is fishy because it loses you value if you have a skill edge

Be VERY Aware of your Table Image!

Poker is a game full of nuances and perceptions. Good cards DO matter, but so do a lot of other things. A big one is Table Image!

If you've just won a couple of hands with good cards that have been seen at a showdown, players are going to notice. They'll usually give your bluffs or semi-bluffs a wider berth for a while because they'll think that you probably only play strong hands that hit a flop and/or turn. This is the time to consider bluffing. But be careful - your opponent may pick up a monster when you least expect it.

A tight table image is a good thing. Taken to the extreme though, a super nitty table image can work against you, since that's also a sign of a weak player. If you haven't gotten anything you like for a while, you have two options:If you've just taken down a pot pre-flop with a 3-bet or 4-bet, players will usually be less likely to try to take advantage of you for a while. They'll have noticed that you have a bite!

If you've just lost a hand or two because you stayed in too long and/or failed at a bluff, you can use this to your advantage next time you pick up a monster. The other players will be inclined to believe that you're a loose and/or weak player.

Do NOT play loose when you have a loose table image! That's a great way to lose a lot of money very quickly.

If you're on a run, be aware of your WINNING table image. Be prepared to throw away some of the less premium (but nice) cards pre-flop. I've seen more than a few tables shut down because nobody wanted to continue playing and losing to one or two strong players.

Do NOT Slow-Play Monsters!

Beginners typically have problems with pre-flop monsters like AA or KK. They either over-bet them (even jamming pre-flop out of the blue), or they try to slow-play them. Both strategies often fail.

Jamming without any obvious reason (i.e., without aggression or resistance from other players) is a clear signal that you have a monster. Most of the time you'll be folded to (netting you just the blinds), but sometimes your all-in bet w/ KK will be called by AA. Neither scenario is what you were hoping for.

Don't get me wrong - you usually DO want to get all of the money in the middle pre-flop, if you can. But, you're much better off doing it in a more thoughtful and tactical way.

Slow-playing a monster on the other hand is truly a mortal sin for beginners to make. It's a technique that you'll see the pros use sometimes on TV, but I'm not a pro and you probably wouldn't be reading this if you were either. Slow-playing a monster allows more players to get into a hand for cheap (a BAD situation that could cost you a lot), or ends up netting you just peanuts when nobody likes the flop enough to put any real money in the pot.

Here's one example of how to play a monster like AA. In this case I hadn't been at the table very long. I'd won a few smaller hands without showing my cards so I knew that I had a bit of a loose table image. I opened AA with my usual 3X pre-flop bet. This was met by a 3-bet from the btn, exactly what I had hoped my loose image would solicit. I 4-bet (2.5X) which btn called pre-flop. It would have been nice if he had 5-bet me, so that we could have nicely gotten all-in, but he didn't.



On the flop I continued with a 1/2 pot c-bet, could have been up to 2/3 pot, perhaps should have been, but still pretty much what a seasoned player would expect from a pre-flop aggressor who is out of position and who might have totally missed the flop. He called.


I did the exact same thing on the turn, i.e., 1/2 pot c-bet. I could have gone all-in with the turn bet but I usually like to leave a little left over in my stack to give the impression that I may not be fully committed to my hand (which I am).

I didn't check the turn because a T and K on the board fit into hands that villain might be playing and I'm going to make him pay to see the river card.



Villain folded to my turn bet which tells me that he was more likely playing the hand because of my loose (fishy?) image and his position, and less so because he might have had a great starting hand.

Regardless of the subtleties of how I played this hand versus what might be ideal, the point is that I did NOT slow-play it. I netted approx. $4.20 on a hand that might have only netted me peanuts if I'd slow-played it, or worse still lost me a bunch of money.

Here's the whole hand on BoomPlayer: https://www.boomplayer.com/26290486_D36D49E177

Never Show Your Cards!

This is a pretty simple tip to follow. Just don't show your cards if you don't have to--ever.

I'm always happy to see people voluntarily show their cards after they've bet me out of a hand, and I ALWAYS make a note of what they've shown me. Why? Because this is valuable intel that they're giving away for free!

If I fold to you, and you show me that your bet was based on a QQ over-pair, for example, I can use that the next time we get into a similar situation and you make a similar bet. If you do this repeatedly then I know that it's a reliable tell.

The ones that I really like to take note of are players who bet me out of a hand and then show me that it was a stone cold bluff. Not too many players will play really weak cards with the sole intent of bluffing post-flop. When someone does, I want to record that fact for later use. You may argue that you're being tricky, and that you don't always make those kinds of bluffs. I would argue, that if you've done it once, you'll do it again, and I'll be waiting.

And, I don't even have to be in the hand for me to make the note. If I see your cards, and what you did is in any way unusual, I'm going to write it down and use it against you later.

Finally, if you haven't already found this, your poker client probably has a section where you can assert your desire to NOT show your cards, where the default might have been the opposite. The Pokerstars settings are here:

Nice article. Keep it up.

MattRyder said:

Be Tight Aggressive (TAG)

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Not always true cause I've seen many profitable loose aggressive styles.
And you cannot always specify a player as a LAG or a TAG cause people mix up their game.
If you stick to a certain style you'd be easily exploited.

Most Players Actually Do Play Their Cards!

Poker can be a a game of story telling. Despite what you see on TV though, as a general rule most low stakes cash players are pretty tight and play their cards pretty honestly. In other words, a larger bet usually means a stronger hand.

There are some loose players who will try to limp (or limp/call) into a lot of hands cheaply, but they won't usually stay for any betting on the flop unless they got lucky. And of course most people will try to steal the blinds with a variety of hands.

There are all sorts of ways that you can arrive at the river as people try to figure out what each other is playing. A little semi-bluffing and c-betting missed hands on the flop is pretty common, but big bluffs are rare! The bigger the bet, the stronger the hand -- usually.

There is one notable exception, that being the disguised set. Most players holding a small/medium pocket pair that made a set on the flop will NOT bet the flop (especially if they are in early position and 1st to play). Most players prefer to check and let the other players bet their top pair or two pair hands. As long as someone else is betting, most set-holding players will sit back and check/call the flop & turn.

When that river card hits though it's almost a sure thing that a really large bet, even all-in means a really strong hand. Maybe they just made a second pair, completed a flush or straight, or maybe they've been sitting on a disguised set or some other strong hand. The river is the last chance to get paid off, and most players aren't going to ignore that.

I speak from much experience as an untrusting soul who has made more than my fair share of hero calls at the end, only to find that the large bet did in fact mean that the other guy had the nuts. The disguised set is the hardest hand to believe that the other guy is playing, especially against your big over-pair, or top pair top kicker, or two pair.

That is not to say that you won't see some big bluffs, because you will. When you do see them, you must make a note because this is really not that common at the lower stakes. You're going to want to remember the next time you get into a big hand with this same player and his actions seem very fishy.

Pay Attention!

This is key! I said earlier that poker is a game of nuances and perceptions. It's critical that you really pay attention to what your opponents are doing and how they're doing it. Never mind submerging yourself in soothing music, or watching your favorite TV show or even supporting your team members in a CC League game. Submerse yourself totally in the game that you're in.

I used to multi-table 4 to 6 games at a time. But after a while I realized that other than what was in my HUD, I really had no idea what was going on at each table. So I thought about what I was doing. I was reacting to cards and numbers. I was grinding, and as the term implies I was barely pulling in minimum wage, whatever that might be in worldwide, online poker. And then I would lose everything that I'd made over the past hour in one big hand because I just wasn't familiar enough with how a particular player had been playing, and I was only able to devote minimal attention to that one table. My variance was high. I had to player lower stakes games because I was playing 4 to 6 of them at a time.

Now I play one table, two at the most. I watch and analyze every hand, taking copious notes. While a HUD shows you general tendencies, assuming that you have enough data and have selected the best stats, it doesn't give you the finer points or in-the-moment nuances. It doesn't tell you that player A is on tilt, or that player B is super deep because he played a really bad hand, really badly and got super-lucky. It doesn't tell you that player C just popped in to the game, bought in low and is jamming a lot.

Perhaps most importantly a HUD doesn't tell you ranges. There's no better way to be able to guess at a player's cards than watching and remembering what they've played in the recent past and how they played it. For example, you WANT to know that player D always plays Ace-rag, player E loves any two suited cards, player F always plays low suited connectors or gappers in pretty much any position for any reasonable pre-flop bet and will even call a 3-bet with these cards.

That kind of concentration can get tiring quickly, so be prepared to take lots of breaks. If I'm feeling that I'm not on top of my game, I won't even wait to sit out on the next big blind. I'll drop out of a game the moment I start making stupid mistakes.

One final word about HUDs. I do use one, but I use it to supplement what I'm seeing in-the-moment at the table. If you've ever taken a stats course, you know that many stats require very large sample sizes to be considered valid predictors. Unless you're playing a lot on a small site with the same players all the time, it will take a very, very long time to get large sample sizes.

Go to poker school on line for free. then try to play poker...

One Pair Just Isn't Good Enough!

You'll see LOTS of posts on Cardchat bemoaning the fact that the poster's pocket Aces were cracked by weaker hands that somehow got lucky. Often the poster blames the poker site calling it rigged.

The fact is that AA is only good enough to go go all-in with pre-flop. Once the flop hits the table everything changes. If you see a flop and you're not already all-in, you need to take a close look at your opponent's actions. Most players will call an opening bet, even a 3-bet pre-flop with any pair. Players with a lower pair that don't flop a set will usually give in to a c-bet (especially if there are a couple of face-cards on the board). Players with an over-pair will usually continue regardless of bet on the flop, and will continue until the board starts to look dangerous.

BUT, players that flop a set almost always check out of position and are prepared to call any bet post-flop. They will continue check/calling your bets until you slow down. Once that happens, most start to get aggressive.

This is where notes (and HUD stats) are invaluable. What have you seen your opponent do in the past? Is he normally loose and aggressive? Does he normally slow-play big hands? Is his betting this hand out of character from previous hands? If so - WHY?

You need to play big pairs aggressively, but not irrationally. If your'e going to lose the hand anyway, your goal post-flop has to be to minimize that loss.

great tips, thank you matt

Some very good adivce given here which I appreciate a lot.


However I would like to add some info on one of your notes, which is the following:

MattRyder said:

Be Tight Aggressive (TAG)

This tip is specific to cash tables. You have lots of time to wait for the right hands. Don't worry about the blinds that you are paying every go around the table. They're peanuts compared to the amount that you can win (or lose) by playing a hand. In 6-max NL10 for example, the blinds cost 15 cents for every 6 hands, but you can easily win or lose $1.50 on a hand. That's 10 times around the table or 60 hands that you can afford to sit out waiting for a good starring hand (i.e., by being tight).

Another advantage to being tight is that the variance that you encounter is much lower. The better the hands you play, the less likely it is that you're going to lose. BUT, remember that even pocket Aces lose sometimes. So, the hand isn't over till it's over. Remember to look at your notes and your odds chart and always be mindful of what a big bet by villain can mean.

Now, when you do decide to play a hand, you RARELY want to limp in. You should almost always be betting/raising to get into a hand. Be aggressive! But, also recognize when you are likely beat (I'll show an example of this in the next tip).

I only play 6-max tables because there are far too many hands possible in full ring (9 to 10 players). Why is this important? Because I bluff at appropriate times. It's a lot easier to bluff successfully if you start out with fewer players and fewer possible opposing hands in the first place. Bluffing is a normal pert of playing aggressively.

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Its important to know that being tight is not the best advice you can give. Of course, being extremely loose is not good and you shouldnt play hands which are trash. But in order to be successful at poker, you need to be BALANCED. That means, your card range needs to contain bluffs and valuebets alike, and this also affcets the starting hands.
You need to be tight, but you need to balance that range by mixing in some hands which are not premium starting hands, but are, for example, played post flop easily (I.E. they realise their equity really well post flop, you know if its worth playing or throwing away).
Otherwise, if you play very tight and your range contains only value hands, you can get easily exploited by good players who will have easy reads on you and they will exploit you by overfolding when you are in the hand.
Also, when you play tight, your range becomes capped and thats not good. Capped range is name for a range, which is very well defined and you can easily define its hands. For example, if a player is really tight, and playes only 1010+, AJs+ and AJo +, his range is very capped. That means, we know that he will never have other hands than that. Given that info we can exploit him by adjusting our play on certain boards.


So my advice would be, play tight, but keep your range balanced at all times.

MattRyder said:

In the spirit of giving back ('tis the season) I thought that I would start this thread. I'll be posting my best tips for beginners here.

A word about myself. I'm an amateur, but one who's been playing for a while and has a solid grasp of the basics. I'm doing well at online cash games, but only mediocre, at best, at tournaments. I don't have the patience for the longer sessions.

My tips will either be generic (applicable to both cash or tourneys), or cash game specific.

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This is a very useful thread for player's game adjustment . I just replied to follow your new posts in this matter. I am myself recently start to practice cash games and I am seeking for some correective notes, ideas, advices for my game in this discipline. These yours consideration is realy instructively that to take a fresh look at our game and start to turn the flashlights on yourself. With great relish looking forward to hear from you in this regard.