Many novice amateur poker players frequently repeat the same costly hold em poker preflop mistake by playing weak starting hands that cannot hope to hit a flop hard enough and often enough to make money playing online poker.  Preflop, many amateur poker players figure that any two cards can win, and, using this excuse, play bad preflop cards combination that cost them money over and over again when these poor poker preflop hands miss the flop, leaving them with trash they must muck.  Some amateur poker enthusiasts simply play any two cards preflop, while other amateur players are slightly more selective and play any two suited cards or any high card preflop regardless of their kicker.  In any of these cases, these amateur poker lovers are making critical poker preflop errors by not exercising a winning poker betting strategy and are choosing to play poor hold em poker preflop hands.

Among other strategy concepts, preflop hand selection is a major discipline that seperates amateur from professional.  An aggressive, winning poker betting strategy means folding weak hold em poker preflop hands, essentially refusing to commit chips preflop to the longshot of flopping big with poker preflop trash in the hopes of hitting a well-concealed monster.  While making this bold preflop play to mix up your poker preflop betting strategy can be shrewd, overdoing it, as many amateur novices do, is expensive.  If one limps into nearly every pot with preflop trash and is forced to give up on the flop, he has wasted each bet he had to call preflop to see a flop, which adds up to a small fortune in the course of a session, and a large fortune over the course of a career.  Even if one flops top pair with a hand like 9-3 of spades, he cannot expect that such a poor hand will hold up, and most of the time he will be faced with a tough decision: go broke with top pair and no kicker, or fold what may be the marginally best hand right now.  In either case, it is a recipe for disaster, and is easily avoided by simply exercising discipline in selecting which preflop hands to play, and executing an aggressive betting strategy with the best of those hold em poker preflop hands.  Folding bad preflop cards is an aggressive, decisive action, and is underrated by some amateur poker players who view frequent preflop folding as weak.  This is incorrect.  Calling is weak and usually not a big part of a winning poker betting strategy, while folding is strong since one is exercising wisdom and discipline in his preflop betting strategy by not investing in pots he is destined to lose, while betting aggressively with the best of his preflop hands is a strong poker betting strategy.

The combination of folding bad preflop cards and betting or raising with good preflop hands is a winning poker betting strategy.  This may seem obvious, but many amateur poker players are seduced by any two suited cards or any Ace or King, not fully realizing the danger of playing these weak hold em preflop cards.  Since one will flop a flush only one in every 200 hands or so, it is important to play suited preflop cards that have some high card strength because of the danger that an opponent may make a better flush when you finally do hit.  That is a scenario that can cost one his whole stack if he misreads the situation.  That is the inherent strength of suited high card hands: they are more likely to win both when they make a flush and when they make a pair or better.  This is why smart preflop play is essential to a winning betting strategy, and to a winning online poker strategy as a whole.  Choosing to play any two suited cards preflop leads to tough postflop decisions, and often an amateur player who does this will be forced to spend more betting to protect his hand than he intended to, and will often find himself beaten already by an opponent who employed a better preflop strategy and a stronger betting strategy.

While the lessons and tips in this strategy article are not earth-shattering, they are the foundation of good, smart poker preflop play and the basics of a winning poker betting strategy.  The points and tips here are intended to remind casual amateur poker players seeking to improve their game to follow sound strategy at all times.  A winning preflop strategy and winning betting strategy require wisdom and discipline.  Poker, preflop and postflop, is a game of slight edges, and using a good poker betting strategy and poker preflop strategy are keys to make money playing online poker!!!

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