Poker Strategies
After receiving pocket cards, you are immediately faced with a choice: play your cards and either raise or call the blinds, or fold.
Practice Matters
After every session you play
After every session you play review all of your biggest winning and losing pots. Replay them and especially pay attention to hands that go to showdown so you can see how people at your stakes are playing certain hands/situations. Mark any hands that you have questions about. Most poker tracking databases have an easy way to mark (usually by right clicking) a hand and saving it for later quick review. If you are playing live, make sure to write down or make any mental notes about hands you saw so you can review them and think about them later.
While reviewing your latest session
While reviewing your latest session go back to some very old sessions you've played and filter for any hands that have gone to showdown. Re-play as many hands as you can for the day, and hide your opponent’s hole cards. Grab a piece of paper and pen, or open up a notepad type application. On each street that is played, make a rough guesstimate for what you think your opponent’s equity is against your hand and write it down. On the river, make a guess at what you think your opponent’s top 3 hands are. Open up your equity calculator and put in your hand and the board and enter in what you think your opponent’s hand range is. Note what the calculator shows is the actual equity versus what your written guesstimate was. Do this for each street, and on the river reveal your opponent’s actual hand and see how close you were to the three hands you listed for your opponent.