Poker Folding Strategy Guide – The Do’s And Don’ts

How To Play Poker

Online poker is a great leveller that can be played by all ages and abilities and for the very smallest or highest stakes that you want to put down, and this fascinating game continues to grow in popularity. It’s very easy to register to a site and install online poker software so that you can start playing very quickly on laptops, desktop computers and a number of other devices including tablets and smartphones.

There are lots of types of poker games you can join in with but the basic premise is that all games have some fundamental aspects of betting, hand values and bluffing involved. The most widely played game is know as ‘Texas No-Limit Hold-em’ which is a game consisting of only 2 cards that you attempt to combine with 5 community cards to get the best hand possible. Other ways to play poker are through tournaments, either large scale ones or ‘Sit & Gos’ which are a smaller version.

For complete beginners there are plenty of helpful resources online to get used to the game including ‘Which Hand Wins Calculators’ which help you to learn winning hands in a number of situations so that you get used to this before you start playing. If you like to learn by a more traditional method there are lots of good books that will go into detail, but for the basics it’s usually quicker to use the online resources as this information is free and accessible.

When To Fold In Poker

In simple terms, folding is when you decide to forfeit your hand in the current betting pot so that you cannot win in that particular round. However, this is game of strategy and the best players have learnt when to call it quits as they know how to hold out for a longer term gain.

Therefore, one of the key tricks that poker players needs to learn is when to fold, which means to put down a good hand even though that can seem a bit counter-intuitive. Success lies in knowing when to fold a good hand and an example is in the Texas no-limit Hold ’em games where holding a second best hand can prove to be expensive, and this also applies to other forms of poker games.

Poker Tips

Learning this technique will take combination of method and instinct that will be gained as you progress, but there are some things you can do to start to become better at the poker fold:

  • Take notice of your gut feeling: good poker players become proficient at detecting that they don’t have a good hand and acting on it. Some of this may be down to an acquired instinct for watching other players and their body language, but you will start to get a sense of this the more you play and then you can choose to take action.
  • Look for warning signs: you will become accustomed to certain moves meaning danger in your opponents method of playing and this usually means they have something major in the offing or soon will have! For instance sometimes a player will check-raise early on in a betting round which can be a sign that they feel they have a superior hand. Behaviour such as a player paying over the odds for a flush or straight draw is an indicator that they are doing this for some ulterior motive. A confident player who calls all your bets can signal they are feel they are in a better position than you are.
  • Poker logic: you can use a slightly more scientific method by doing the math! This will entail adding up your chips and if these are low then only use them for a good hand. Look at your opponent to determine their raising range and ascertain how much they are betting on different kinds of hands. This will give you clues about the strength of their hand.
  • Pot odds: in individual terms this is the value of the bet in comparison to the price of your bet, and you should only call if your chances of winning are equal or more, but if not you should fold.

Initially, it can be difficult to fold what you think may be a winning hand, but as you gain in confidence and experience you will learn when is the right time to do this and hopefully reap the financial rewards!