Find the right game for you, find a game which suits your budget. If you have say a bankroll of £100 then you should try and find a table with an average pot of no more than about £25 and an ante of £0.50-£1.00 so that you can afford to loose a few times until you settle into the table. Obviously if your bankroll is larger or your initial bankroll grows then you can look at higher stake tables. You also need to decide between playing no limit tables or limit tables. I would advise limit tables for beginners as they will give you a better grounding into the game, and then step up to the no-limit tables later on.

Play in the tournaments
The majority of poker rooms offer tournaments for beginners so you may as well have a go. The entry fee for these tournaments is usually low and you will gain so much knowledge by participating in them, in terms of knowing when to bet, when to bluff etc, that will greatly improve your overall game. There is also another reason to play in these tournaments, they are great fun!

Learn the odds
Remember that poker is a skilful game where knowledge is king mixed of course with some luck. Now there isn’t much you can do about the luck, you either have it or you don’t, but you can compensate a lot with knowledge and skill. A large part of the knowledge side of the game comes through knowing the odds of getting a good hand based on the available cards. These odds obviously become much clearer the more community cards are dealt but the real skill comes in evaluating the odds from the very first two cards dealt to you, the “hole cards”. There are many combinations of cards but below I have listed the top ten as they exist in Hold’em:

Value of cards
1. AA
2. KK
3. QQ
4. JJ
5. AK Suited
6. TT
7. AK Mixed
8. AQ Suited
9. KQ Suited
10. AJ Suited

Patience is a virtue
This is as true in poker as it is in life, by only playing good hands you give yourself many more opportunities to win, I know it is frustrating when you fold two low cards only to see them turn up on the flop but they were just as likely to not turn up and in any case even if you make that pair of two’s it is still not going to beat the player who already had a pair of ten’s!

Bluff within reason
If you follow the advice above then you will find it far easier to set up simple bluffs as your opponents will feel that you are a safe player who only bets with a good hand. But be very careful with this tactic as it quickly becomes very predictable to your opponents if used to often and can backfire spectacularly!