10 tips for becoming a better Texas Holdem player

I've been asked many times to advice beginner players about how to improve their Texas Holdem playing skills, here is a short list:

1. Know that Texas Holdem is a game of people rather than cards, you must know the players around you and adjust your game.

2. Choose the right game - pick the game where you perform the best, cash games or tournaments, limit game, pot limit or no limit game.

3. Choose the right stakes for you - play in a table where you feel comfortable with the stakes, you should bet an amount that if you lose it on one hand, you would still have money for your bread and milk, and if you win (lets say that you've tripled it), it would make you smile.

4. Choose your hands selectively - it's all about patience in poker, don't play hands that are easily dominated, try to be tighter than the average player in your table.

5. Play aggressively - since you should pick your starting hands selectively, you must play aggressively (by betting and raising) the hands that you do play.

6. Position - many words has written about the importance of the position in Texas Holdem so I'll be concise: don't play out of position with less than your very good hands.

7. Change your style - you mustn't play Texas Holdem 'by the rules' all the time, sometimes be looser and sometimes tighter, make it hard for other players to read your moves.

8. Create an image - know what your image at the table is and use it, if you have a very tight image bluff when the time is right, if you have a loose image you can over bet the pot when you have great hands.

9. Learn Texas Holdem - always keep learning, read books, articles and visit quality content poker sites.

10. Remember that in the play money tables (for points instead of real money) you can learn about the rules of the game, about recognizing the best hands and about the software but almost nothing about poker decision making. Most of the players never folds when they don't lose money.