If you've ever played a poker/slot/pokie machine online or at a aztec gems casino guru, you may have seen a game in which the progressive jackpot was just won. Instinctively, you may have thought that it was no longer worth it playing on that slot machine. You were right. When the progressive jackpot starts, the expected value is at its minimum: when you play, you're losing money. But as the progressive jackpot rises, your expected value gets better and better, until at one point it becomes positive. At that point, every single coin you put in has a positive value: it becomes an investment and you can win at poker machines! Hence why it is the best poker machine strategy.

poker betting strategy Still though, there was a secret that I found, but not before the realization that what I really have learned from the poker stars is that they each created their own distinct winning poker tournament strategy. I also realized that all that reading still hadn't fully helped me to define my strategy.

Being on the button is often considered to be the best betting condition. Why is this? Well simply because you get to see how everyone else is betting before you make your decision. Here's an example of using the button to your advantage. You are on the river and you have top pair. There has been a lot of betting so far but on the river everyone checked around the table. A carefully placed bet here can secure the pot for you. A good amount is around half the pot size if you want people to call and about the size of the pot if you are trying to scare people off of it.

Your opponent's chip stack also makes a huge difference, not only to the size of your bet, but as to whether or not you will bet at all. If you make a pre-flop raise of $300 and your opponent calls with only $300 left in his stack, he is pot-committed and you will not be able to bluff him after the flop. Realize this and either flop or be prepared to put him all in.

Fixed limit games are the most common types of Texas Hold'Em games. In fixed limit games, there are two different betting amounts, the low and the high betting amounts. For example, if you were playing Texas Hold'Em at a $10-$20 table, the first betting rounds all the bets would have to be made in $10 increments. So if the bet is currently at $10, you could only raise it to $20 or call. Dependent upon the game you are playing, at some point in the game the betting limit would double, so that all the bets would then be made at $20.

Then comes the real knowledge, reading players. You can do this online to an extent. You'll have to closely watch the players bets. See, certain players are very aggressive, and certain players are very conservative. Players will stick to the same relative betting pattern when they play, unless they are either really bad, or really good. You'll learn how to pay attention to these patterns and predict when they're bluffing and when they've got a good hand.

Just like aggression is a little counter-intuitive, that is, betting more out actually wins more back in, playing better cards can actually win you more pots.