Poker is not a complicated game. Learning the ground rules and understanding which hand is best can be done in minutes. This is the natural part. But truly mastering poker strategy and making it a means of making money can take a lifetime.

For new players just starting, it’s essential to balance the fun and excitement of playing poker with the substantial losses you can quickly accumulate if you don’t know what you’re doing. Below are five poker strategy tips to get you on the right track at the Holdem poker.

• Be More Aggressive Than Usual

The only way to win in poker is to bet, and the only way to win a lot is to bet a lot. Poker is a game of aggression, opportunity, and focus. Plus, as you master the basics of the game, you’ll learn when you need to increase table aggression.

Many novice players are too cautious most of the time. They check when they should bet and pay when they should raise.

There are excellent starting letters; so in a game with a full table, try to push weaker players out or force them to pay more to stay.

• You Must Be Patient

Being aggressive does not mean throwing money away in wrong hands and going all-in hoping to get a big card on the river. This is a sure way to reduce the size of your stack quickly.

Another great tip is to fold a lot more hands than you play at Darren Phua. To many players, this sounds like a dull way to spend a night, just sitting at the table while everyone is in the game.

Remember that based merely on the law of probability, most of the hands dealt will be lost. If you don’t have a steady hand, your best move is to fold and fold immediately. Take the time to focus more on others.

• Watch Like a Hawk

There is an old saying in poker that says play the player, not his cards. What the other player is holding determines how good or bad your hand is. K-K is a fantastic hand, but if another player has A-A, their kings will lose 82% of the time. Imagine the reverse situation: you have A-10 while the other guy has J-J. The flop opens 10-8-6. Suddenly your two 10 have only a 20% chance of winning.

• Play Long Term Poker

As a novice player, you will lose part of the time. At some point, you will go all-in with a pair of aces and then drop to another player with a couple of 9s who will take a third nine on the river. Don’t let this kind of loss (known as a “bad beat”) discourage you. The odds will not always be in your favor, but in the long run, these aces will win more than they lose against 9s. Learning to win at poker is a long term project that requires playing thousands and thousands of hands in a real gaming environment. It is the only way to understand the basics well, and it will take much longer than that to become an expert.