One aspect to poker that really draws people in is that it’s an easy game for new players to enjoy. You can have a lot of fun with just a little prior knowledge and even as a beginner, you have the opportunity to win some extra cash. There are plenty of other inexperienced players there to compete against that you might be able to beat and when the element of luck comes into play, you might even be able to beat players better and more experienced than you from time to time.

These tips are all very simple, very easy to understand, and certainly something you can follow. They won’t magically turn you into a winning player, but they will certainly help to get you started on the right track if that’s your long-term goal. They will even be useful if you just want to play poker for fun, so please take the time to read them all, as we believe everyone will benefit from this.

1. Learn the rules

Before you sit down and start playing poker for real money, it is very important that you make sure you know all the rules. This tip may seem extremely obvious to many of you, but nevertheless, it is one that we feel needs to be mentioned. It is very easy to make an expensive mistake if you don’t make it fully understand the rules and it is hard enough to make money through paying this game without putting yourself at an unnecessary disadvantage.

2. Set a budget

It is very unlikely that you will consistently make money at poker as a beginner. You may have incredible natural talent that makes you an instant success or you may just get very lucky and go on a long winning streak, but the realistic likelihood is that you will lose more often than you win when you first start playing.

3. Study the basic strategy

Learning how to play poker is relatively easy, but learning how to play well is another matter. There is a huge amount of strategy involved in the game and understanding it all requires a lot of study. It can take years to fully understand all the strategies needed to be a truly accomplished player and even then there is always something new to learn due to the constant evolution of the game.

4. Play Low Stakes

If you follow our previous tip and set a budget that you are willing to follow and this is based on what you can afford to lose, then to some extent it doesn’t matter what stakes you play at. There is a strong argument that you should limit yourself to the minimum stakes as a beginner and it’s certainly what we recommend as well.

5. Start Online

We believe that beginner poker players would benefit greatly by choosing to start by playing online rather than live. Even though the game is fundamentally the same either way, things are much simpler online. You can play whenever you want without having to go anywhere, and there are fewer distractions. You don’t have to worry about handling chips and cards or trying to maintain a “poker face”.

6. Limit yourself to one table

One of the many advantages of playing online poker is that you can play at multiple tables at the same time. This can be very beneficial for players once they reach a certain standard, as it allows them to increase their win rate by playing multiple games simultaneously. However, it is not really a good idea for beginners.

7. Always keep an eye on the table

When playing poker, you will regularly wonder how an opponent will react to your next move. For example, if you are thinking of bluffing, then it will probably be trying to decide if your opponents will fold, or you may be trying to get maximum value out of a very strong hand while trying to decide if they will make a bet when you check.

8. Watch the pros

Our final tip is one of the easiest to follow. It doesn’t require much effort and can actually be very enjoyable. There is a lot of televised poker these days and a wide variety of online poker videos, which means there are plenty of opportunities for you to see how the best players play. This can be very helpful in developing your own game and is something we recommend doing.

Pheobe Roberson