20 Poker Tips to Feel Like a Pro

12 Sep 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

This is Sky with Smart Poker Study, and I appreciate you spending some study time with me. So, I know that you want to play the best poker possible, but you might not necessarily want to become a pro poker player. But I'm sure you want to be able to use all the plays that the pros make. You want to feel that you're at pro level, maybe without playing 40 to 60 hours a week. 

Well, in this topic, I have 20 tips to take you from this level here, to pro status, or at a minimum, feeling like you're making those pro plays, you're exploiting your opponents, you're improving your win rates, you're plugging your leaks, and you're having fun playing poker. Let's just get right into it!

One of the quickest ways to feel like a professional is to punish weakness whenever you see it. Weakness shows up in many forms:

• A player checks in a spot where most would bet.
• A limper enters the pot and faces a predictable isolation raise.
• Someone makes a timid bet that screams “please don’t raise me”.

For example: a loose-aggressive player iso-raises a weak limper to 4bb. That range is wide and vulnerable. Instead of just folding or calling, take the professional approach — 3-bet aggressively. 

You’re targeting a weak limper and a wide raiser simultaneously. That’s pressure. That’s profit. Apply pressure where others hesitate, and you’ll immediately start making moves that separate amateurs from pros.

When a recreational player limps, defends the blinds, or even makes a weak open raise, that’s your signal. Don’t just limp behind and let the whole table join the party. Raise aggressively with the clear intention of getting the fish all to yourself.

The sizing is key:

• Big enough to discourage other players from calling or 3-bet bluffing;
• Big enough to pressure the fish, but not so large that you isolate yourself with only the top of your range.

Poker deserves your full attention. If you’re watching YouTube, scrolling TikTok, or half-listening to a podcast while you play, you’re missing out on vital reads and patterns. Your focus doesn’t end when you fold preflop. Stay engaged:

• Watch betting patterns.
• Note unusual bet sizes.
• Track tendencies like frequent check-calls or over-aggression.

Every hand you observe without distraction adds depth to your reads.

Showdowns are goldmines of information. Whether you were in the hand or not, always review the results. Even if you missed the action while multi-tabling, use your poker site’s hand replayer. 

So at showdown you learn:

• How strong (or weak) their starting hand selection is.
• How they play streets differently with different holdings.
• Where their logic breaks down.

This insight lets you anticipate and counter their strategy in future pots.

Don’t trust memory alone — document your reads and exploits. A simple system works best:

• Write reads in lowercase (e.g., “c bets flop too often, slows down on turn”);
• Write exploits in UPPERCASE (e.g., “FLOAT FLOP, BET TURN”).

That way, your notes are organized and always accessible during study sessions. Let’s say you see a player 3-bet small — maybe 7 big blinds — with JTs, and it goes to a showdown. Your note might read:

• “small 3-bet with JTs” (lowercase = observation);
• “RE-RAISE SMALL 3-BETS” (ALL CAPS = exploit to use later).

This two-level system ensures you’re not just logging data, but also reminding yourself how to exploit it in real time.

Your HUD is the most powerful tool at the table (other than your brain). But most players only scratch the surface of what it can do. Learn every stat and pop-up inside out.

Want to see limp frequencies by position? Know exactly which pop-up to open. Facing aggression on the river? Check triple-barrel frequencies in position vs. out of position. The more fluent you are with your HUD, the faster you can spot tendencies and craft profitable counter-strategies.

Don’t wait until you’re under pressure in-game to practice reading stats. Instead, train with your HUD when reviewing past hands:

• Look at flop c-bet stats, then drill down into turn and river c-bet frequencies.
• Compare how players behave in position vs. out of position.
• Study how their numbers change across streets.

This builds familiarity so that when the clock is ticking mid-hand, you instantly know where to look and what the numbers mean.

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One of the fastest ways to plug leaks is to record your own play. Use screen capture software and narrate your thought process out loud as you go. Free tools like OBS or even the built-in Windows Snipping Tool work perfectly. Keep recordings short — 30 minutes is plenty. Then review them later, paying attention to mistakes, hesitation points, and missed reads.

When you review your own recorded play, you’ll spot mistakes, hesitation points, and missed opportunities that slipped past you in real time. This habit is one of the sharpest edges you can give yourself because it forces accountability — you can’t lie to the camera about why you clicked “call”.

Pros don’t just “play more hands”. They structure their sessions with intent:

• Focus sessions: 1–2 tables only. Pick one strategy (maybe 3-betting light), or floating the flop — and practice it repeatedly. No multitabling distractions, no chasing volume. The goal is skill development;
• Volume sessions: Once you’re comfortable with new skills, scale up. Play 3, 4, or more tables, as long as your decision-making doesn’t degrade. Your aim here is maximizing hourly profit with strategies you’ve already mastered.

The discipline to separate “learning time” from “earning time” is what turns amateurs into crushers.

If you’re a losing player right now, say you’re down 10bb/100 over your last 10k hands, grinding more volume won’t magically fix it. You’ll just lose faster.

Instead, treat every hand as a training rep. One or two tables. Maximum attention. Implement the concepts you’ve been studying. Profitability comes after skill-building. Once you’re in the green, then you can ramp up volume and grind for hours.

Real pros don’t grind endlessly against other regs just to prove themselves — they seek out profitable spots. A winning table usually has at least one or two clear recreational players, ideally more. Sitting with position on the weakest opponents is a huge edge, both in win rate and mental energy.

Why battle uphill against tougher players to your left, when you can sit in a softer lineup where your aggression dominates? Smart table selection isn’t just about profit — it makes the game more enjoyable and less stressful.

Even elite pros make mistakes. What separates them from the average grinder is how quickly they recognize, review, and correct them. Whenever you know you’ve misplayed a spot — maybe a thin call, a mistimed bluff, or a poor sizing choice — tag that hand immediately. 

Then, during study time, revisit it in your tracker. Do a full hand-reading exercise:

• What range did your opponent realistically have?
• Which alternative lines (fold, call, raise) would have been higher EV?
• Did emotion influence your choice more than logic?

Mistakes are inevitable — but failing to review them is optional. Treat each one as a lesson, and your leaks will shrink fast.

Every decision point — fold, call, raise — is like choosing which friend to bring to the party. Your job is to pick the one that maximizes EV: winning outright, extracting value, or minimizing losses. Don’t auto-click; consciously weigh which option best fits the situation.

In fast-fold pools, you never develop reads. But in regular-speed games, you can track who sits to your left and right, notice patterns, and exploit them. For example:

• Fish in the blinds? Open wider to isolate.
• Aggro reg on your right who over-folds to 3-bets? Punish relentlessly.

Consistency of opponents means consistent opportunities to exploit.

Now, speaking of noticing who's at your table, you also want to notice their stack sizes, because stack sizes can really dictate your strategy. If you're thinking about 3-bet bluffing somebody, but he only has 25 big blinds, you're not going to have much room to maneuver post flop.

You got ace five suited, you're probably going to miss, you're going to have to bluff on the flop. But if this player with 25 big blinds never folds to three bets, you 3-bet to nine, he calls, that pot's already roughly 20 big blinds. He only has 16 big blinds behind.

Is he going to fold on the flop? Your ace five is probably not going to hit anything. You have to get him to fold to win the pot. You put yourself in a really tough situation because you did not notice his stack size. And if you're three betting a non folder with ace five suited, maybe you weren't paying attention to player type either. 

Now, speaking of stack sizes, use those to gauge your opponent's commitment. When the stack to pot ratio is at three or less, generally players are much more committed to the pot. They won't want to fold. So in a 3-bet pot, that pot is 20 big blinds already on the flop.

If your opponent has 20 behind, that's a one to one stack to pot ratio. Harder to get him to fold. If he has 100 big blinds behind, that's a five to one stack to pot ratio. You have some room to maneuver and bet through the flop and the turn at least to get him to fold.

Stack-to-Pot Ratio (SPR) is a powerful guide:

SPR ≤ 3 → players are generally pot-committed and won’t fold easily.
SPR ≥ 5 → more flexibility; you can fire multiple barrels and generate folds.

Always factor SPR into your decision-making before committing chips. Now I want to give you some non playtime study tips.

Bankroll rules aren’t boring — they’re survival. Here’s what I mean:

• Cash games → 40+ buy-ins minimum.
• MTTs & SnGs → 100–200 buy-ins minimum.

The reason you should follow the bankroll rules is because you want to stay alive in the current game as long as possible. Plus you need to avoid playing with scared money. A $400 bankroll in $200 tournaments is a recipe for disaster — you’ll play tight, avoid risk, and bleed EV. With proper bankroll discipline, you can focus on making optimal plays instead of protecting every chip.

So everything is just going wrong. You keep getting second best hands. Your pocket kings keep getting cracked by pocket aces or seven six suited. Your c-bets and your 3-bet bluffs just don't seem to work. When you hit the value hand, they all fold. You're down five buy-ins right now over the course of the past week and you're just feeling like poker has it in for you.

What a great time to play less poker but study more because I guarantee even though you're on a downswing and luck is against you, there are still those same leaks. Whatever they were before your downswing, they're still in your game. Let's spend some more time right now going through your database, analyzing your hands, recording your stats and win rates, finding your leaks, and then working to learn new strategies to plug those leaks.

And then also with a little bit of time off from play, you might feel less frustrated, less angry, less tilty. When you get back to the table with some new strategies to practice and work on, you're going to be mentally better prepared to handle that downswing or actually to bust out of the downswing. Get back up to an upswing.

Now a two-part tip with this next one is to study to plug your leaks, and also study to exploit that same leak in others. So maybe you have this thing where you just cannot fold to a 3-bet when you're in position. It doesn't matter your hand. But you filter through your database and you've realized: «Oh geez, when I open and then call a 3-bet, I'm actually at negative 600 big blinds per 100 hands. Because I can't fold, I'm losing a ton of chips every time I call the 3-bet, even when I'm in position».

So you can study to plug that leak to make better calling decisions, to make better plays when you're in position, to exploit the 3-better. Now on the flip side of that, you just learned how to plug that leak that you have. You can use your leak plugging skills to now exploit players with that old leak. Because you did your studying. You know how and why you're losing money with your leak. 

Find that same tendency in others and use those plays that they were using against you before to exploit others to earn their chips. So leak plugging helps you two ways: save chips by plugging the leak, and earn chips by exploiting others.

And now my final three tips for you. The first is to be more aggressive than passive. Aggression wins in poker. When you're able to check raise a flopped flush draw, you're not relying on just hitting the next heart on the turn or on the river. Your opponent can fold right now, and you win the pot with just a flush draw.

Aggressive plays like this allow you to win pots without always relying on hitting your hand.

And to go along with that tip, the next tip is to have a reason for every play that you make. You don't c-bet just to c-bet. You don't call on the river just because you have a top pair. Every decision should be based on your read of the opponent:

• What's he doing this with? 
• What is he betting on the river? 
• Can he be betting busted flush draws? 
• Can he be betting worse top pair hands? 

And my final tip for you is to generally play less hands than they do. So it's easy to see with a program like Flopzilla Pro, if you play only 20% of hands on average, but your opponents play 30% of hands on average, you can see that you have a lovely mathematical advantage against them.

And if you're a decently skilled player, it's going to be hard for these players to out-skill you with wider ranges with a built-in mathematical disadvantage. I know folding is boring, but folding leads to more profitable poker.