Playing a game of poker can be fascinating, thrilling, and profitable at the same time. Do you play it just as an occasional pass-time or opportunity to make some quick bucks or do you see a career in poker? Yes, the global acceptance and competition witnessed in poker worldwide has seen a considerable rise in the number of people attempting to become poker experts.
It is one thing to play poker occasionally and win, and an altogether different thing to play it more frequently as a professional with the aim to become an expert. You need a lot of practice, discipline, strategic thinking, and street smartness, to emerge as one of the well-known professional poker players. Some of the top tips you must follow and incorporate in your game to become an expert in Indian poker are discussed below.
Pick Your Format
You would have heard the phrase ‘Jack of All Trades, But Master of None’. Now, there is a good logic why this holds true in most scenarios. If you wish to becomes one of the experts in Indian poker, then, you would have to pick the right format of poker – be it Sit and Go (SNG) tournaments or Multi Table tournaments (MTT) or online LIVE cash poker. The mistake many people make is randomly playing all of these formats and attempting to become an expert. You just cannot succeed till you pick one format and consistently play it for a long period of time. The reason is every format requires slightly different strategies and till you regularly play just that format, you won’t be able to master those strategies. Focus your efforts on improving your game for that shortlisted format and develop skillset necessary to become an expert in that tournament format.
Learn, Play & Repeat
You need to learn the rules of the poker game variant (or format) in which you wish to become a pro. Deep dive into the basics and start playing using virtual money on online poker platforms like Spartan Poker. You can master the basics of a poker format only by spending more time playing it. So, go out there and play the game – first with virtual money and then with real money.
Know Your Numbers
If you wish to succeed in poker or develop a career in the game, you need to be well versed with your numbers – starting with the odds of winning a game or odds of getting a good hand post flop despite having an average hand at the preflop stage. As you play more, you will start understanding the comparison against the pot odds. Start thinking of the overall hand ranges instead of just the known cards at a time. After every game, you can even analyze what went wrong or right for you to get a better perspective of your odds during actual game time. This will help you to avoid the common mistakes.
Keep Learning and Keep Growing Your Game
Do not let complacency set in after a few random wins. Becoming an expert requires you to learn continuously and put in efforts to fine-tune your strategies to make your playing style more full proof. Ask any of the poker experts and majority of them will say that they are still learning different nuances of the game. In short, your learning should never stop. Keep reading books, go through various guides on online poker sites or apps like Spartan Poker, analyze your own game, and so on.
Get More Game Time Under Your Belt
Keep playing more and more games to practice all that you learn and relearn from the actual game experiences. Your aim should be to learn from your old mistakes and make new ones, while reducing the number of mistakes that you make. Does that mean that you lose a lot of money while attempting to play more games? Your objective should be to start playing poker on as many low-limit tables as possible so that you can minimize your losses.
Be a Good Observer
You cannot become one of the professional Indian poker experts unless you develop the ability to be a smart observer. Poker is a game which requires you to note down a list of observations related to your own mistakes, playing style of the opponents, mistakes made by the other players, your changing odds, and more.
By being a smart and silent observer, you can eventually develop the traits of a champion poker player. The critical thing over here is to ensure that you do not let your body language reveal anything about your game. This is something which cannot be developed overnight as normal human tendency is to react to the situation and that gets reflected through their body language. You need to curb this tendency if you wish to become a pro poker player.
The Verdict
If you desire to be a poker expert, you need to show a lot of persistence and discipline. This is because poker is a game of massive fluctuations and if you intend to win consistently, you need to work on your game and inner traits as well. Start today by going online on poker platforms such as Spartan Poker and pick your preferred online poker game for which you intend to develop the required expertise!
