Spending time on the Las Vegas Strip can provide the perfect opportunity to explore the fascinating card game of poker if you’ve never played a game before or starting out in the discipline. However, it’s critical to begin the right way — even if you do have a few games already under your belt — since any bad habits you develop at this stage will go on to have negative effects on your game for quite some time. Here are some top tips to keep in mind, which cover both playing at a casino and online.

1. Understand Hand Rankings

It almost goes without saying that if you’re a complete poker novice, you’ll need to learn the rules, but even if you’re a rookie, it’s worth taking the time to understand poker hand rankings. For example, you need to do some studying up if you don’t know that a flush beats a straight or can’t name and describe the hand that beats them both

2. Only Play Good Starting Hands

As a beginning player, it’s critical that you keep your game “tight” before the flop. That means that you should only play “decent to good” starting hands, even if you do end up folding most of the hands you have. Of the 169 playable starting hands dealt in poker, beginners should only play around 15–20 percent of these (AK to K8, AQ to J9, AT, JT, J9 and all pairs). 

Starting hand charts are useful tools for beginners

3. Resist the Urge to Bluff

Following on from playing decent starting hands, when you’re starting out, you should keep bluffing to an absolute minimum. When you start moving on to higher-stakes games and bigger tables, bluffing will become an organic part of the game. But to begin with, only think of playing when you have a decent to good starting hand and fold when you don’t.

4. Avoid High-Stakes Games

Speaking of high-stakes games: don’t make the mistake of playing games with stakes that are much too high for you. Whether you’re playing in a casino or online, start with the lowest limit games. Such games can still be challenging and still help you develop your skill set and perfect your starting strategy, but blinds are much more affordable ($1 to $5), and buy-ins won’t be any more than $200.

5. Play within Your Bankroll

Sticking with money for a moment: it’s crucial that all inexperienced poker players play within their bankroll. Indeed, this is advice that the world’s best players stick to religiously. Your bankroll is the pot of money that you have set aside for the poker game you play. To cover variance in a game, it’s worth setting your bankroll at the equivalent of 15–20 buy-ins for the game you play. So, if your buy-in is $50, you should have a minimum of $750 in your bankroll. Remember that this amount is a limit, not a goal, so when you find yourself close to empty, fold and try again another day.

 6. Take Advantage of Online Offers

Although this tip is for aspiring online poker players, even if you’re more interested in live games and tournaments, you can still get a lot of value from playing online. As a beginner to playing poker online, it makes sense to start with a minimum deposit online casino or poker room. You may not be able to access the higher-stakes games by signing up with a $5 deposit, however, until you start winning games and increasing your bankroll, minimum deposits will cut out any unnecessary expenditure.

7. Go Fishing

We get it, as an aspiring Vanessa Rousso or Phil Ivey, you probably want to play against pros of such caliber as soon as possible. One of the best ways you can develop in poker is to sit at a table with players who are worse than you. You can spot these “fish” because they will play a lot more than those decent to good hands mentioned above and do so passively (just sitting in the pot). Since they’re making such obvious mistakes, you’re more likely to make money playing games against players like this as opposed to solid players with an aggressive game.

8. Be Aggressive with Your Hand

Speaking of aggressive play: this is something you should start doing as quickly as possible. Aggressive play will require you to come into the pot for a raise regularly — especially if you are the first player in the pot. It also helps you to gain control of the pot, making it much easier to win after the flop. A good rule to follow is to make each raise 3x the big blind amount if you’re unsure about raising when starting out.

 9. Limit the Number of Tables You Play

This tip is another one especially relevant for online players where the temptation is higher to get involved in multiple tables. However, it’s as crucial that live players remember it, too. Your main goal as a novice payer should be to absorb as much information from a game as you can so that you can develop an airtight poker strategy. Multi-tabling can come later when you start raking in the profits, so for the present, stick with one table and watch how your opponents play as well as take note of the hands that they have.

10. Only Play When You Want to Play

Poker is a strategic game, requiring a calm mind and the ability to make lots of quick (and critical) decisions. That’s why you should only come to the table or log in to your poker room when you have the energy and headspace to play. The process of playing a poker game is emotional enough itself without you add to this by bringing tiredness, negativity, anger or intoxication to the table. You need to establish this healthy boundary as early as possible if you want a long and lucrative poker career.