9 Poker Skills You Must Have to Succeed in 2025

18 Jun 2025

Beginner

This material is for beginner players

People often ask me what is the simplest way to quickly improve your poker game these days, and my answer is always simple. There are nine critical poker skills that you absolutely must master, and I'm going to walk you step-by-step through each one of them today. So let's jump into it!

Guys, I'm going to be totally frank here — you need to stop over-complicating a very simple card game. And by the way, I'm going to give you example hands for all of these critical poker skills we're going to learn today.

Example number one: you raise it up with Ace-King, that's  , and a fish calls you. So this is one of our recreational friends. They just play a bunch of crappy, junky hands, and they play the game for fun. They are not watching a video like this. They do not take the game seriously like you do. So let's keep that in mind when we go see the    flop — one of these paired flops — with a diamond, spade, and heart, which is a rainbow flop, meaning that there is no possible flush draw.

So what should you do in a situation like this? Well, guys, you should absolutely just go ahead here and make a bet. The chances of them having anything on this board are incredibly low. We know that a player like this, on average, is going to miss the flop two out of every three times. So we make a bet — they call.

Turn comes down with the . What should you do in this spot? Guys, this is the biggest mistake that so many amateurs, beginners, and my students continually make — trying to force a recreational player here into a fold. What you want to do here is just check and give up.

Do not overthink common situations like this. When you're up against one of the players who you know is not folding anything, sometimes the best thing you can do is know when to just check and let them have the pot.

So let's talk about the flip side now — when we actually have something strong and you want to lay the hammer down.

You raise it up with   — a beautiful little suited connector that I highly recommend playing in a lot of different situations — and one of our loose maniac friends calls. Now, this is one of these highly aggressive players. They're playing all sorts of trashy, junky hands. They love to bluff you. You've probably encountered these players before, so let's keep that in mind.

Once again, flop comes down with one of these paired flops:   . What should you do in this situation? And by the way, we have flop trips on this board — three of a kind against a loose maniac. Guys, you want to do the exact opposite of what they expect you to do here.

You want to just go ahead and bet 100% of the pot. This is the easiest way to make them think you are bluffing. I have used this strategy to unbelievable success over the years. I will often bet full pot or even overbet the pot because this jingles the conspiracy switch in their head. They constantly convince themselves that I'm bluffing them — but really, I just have three of a kind.

Turn comes down with the . Rinse, repeat — bet big. Once again, guys, do not overthink a very simple card game. Let them do that. When you hit a strong hand, bet a massive amount and thank me later.

Guys, we absolutely have to be prepared that fish are just going to get lucky against you sometimes. Let me give you an example. You raise it up with   — an absolutely gorgeous hand — and once again one of our fishy friends calls. Now, we know that they're going to be playing all sorts of junky, trashy hands. They're just trying to get lucky. Once again, this is not somebody who takes the game seriously — they just play the game for fun.

So the flop comes down with the   . Boom — we have hit top pair on this board with a very strong kicker. Once again, you already know what we should do here: you should bet big. But they go ahead and make the call.

So let's go see the turn now — the . What should you do? Well, once again, guys, you just want to bet big. There is absolutely no point here in checking or getting tricky because you saw some high-stakes poker player do that once in a million-dollar poker game. Those aren't the games that you play in. Once again, we're up against a relative beginner in this hand. You just want to do the most obvious thing possible and let them overthink the situation.

The river comes down with the . Once again, you make a bet for value. They call — and they flip over   for a rivered two pair. Why was this player even in the hand?

Guys, before you fly off the handle, before you go Phil Hellmuth on them, you need to understand that this is a vital aspect of the game. Fish are going to get lucky. Sometimes they're going to hit their 10%, their 15%, their 20% chance to get lucky.

This is what keeps them coming back, refueling their chips, and ultimately fueling your success at the poker tables. The correct approach here is to take a deep breath, remind yourself of how lucky you are to have players like this in your game — and move on to the next hand.

Guys, I've talked about this one endlessly. You want to absolutely own the hand when you are on the button. By the way, I'm going to put the image up on your screen now for some of you guys who are brand new to poker: the button is the seat with the dealer chip in front of it, and the cutoff is always the seat directly to the right of that.

These are the most profitable seats at the poker table because you get to act last on the flop, turn, and river. You get to see what they do first — which is a massively statistically proven advantage in a game of incomplete information like poker.

So you want to float the flop wide when you're on the button. And by the way, "floating" in poker — as I'm going to show you in the example coming up here — is just calling on the flop, even though we don't have much of anything, with the absolute intention to take away the pot later on the turn. And we're going to talk about that right now.

You call with   — another one of these sneaky little beautiful hands that I like to play in a lot of situations. The flop comes down with the   . They bet — you call.

Now guys, this is a pretty standard situation here. We have actually flopped a reasonable draw — it's a little bit hidden. Number one, we have a backdoor diamond draw to the nuts. We have  , so if it comes with a diamond on the turn and river, we would make the nut flush — that's the best flush possible. That is an extremely strong hand in No-Limit Texas Hold’em.

Also, critically, we have an inside straight draw on this flop. There are four remaining threes in the deck. If one of those comes on the turn or river, we would make the Ace-2-3-4-5 wheel straight, which would also almost certainly be the best hand.

And finally, guys, anytime you have an Ace in your hand, you always have three Aces remaining in the deck — which could also make us the best hand. If this player just has a Jack right now, we can still catch an Ace to beat them. So this is a perfect spot to use our positional advantage and make the call here.

The turn comes down with the . They check. What should you do? This is the definition of using your position at the poker table. You should make a bet here. And a lot of people will say: “But Nathan, we don’t have anything — the 7 didn’t help us at all”.

It does not matter. All we are doing here is playing off of their hand — and what they think we have. They have wrapped the table here. They have checked. They have waved the white flag. They have given up. 

Let’s talk about tournaments for a second here — because I know that a lot of you guys also play in tournaments. So let’s just say you’re deep — you’ve got a 30-big-blind stack. Guys, what you need to understand in a situation like this is: you must take the flip.

Now, what is a flip? A flip is a coin flip in poker — it’s when you’re going to have roughly 50% odds to win. And if you want to have long-term success in tournaments, you absolutely have to take this gamble.

Let me give you an example. You raise it up with   — and a decent player reraises you. What should you do in a situation like this? You should shove all-in. Guys, sometimes you have to risk your tournament life in order to try to build a big stack.

This is how you win poker tournaments. This is how I’ve had overwhelming success taking down tournaments over the years. Guys, always remember — all of the money in tournaments is in first, second, and third place. Do not allow yourself to get blinded out like 95% of poker players do in tournaments. This is why they don’t have success. You’re better than that. You have to take these coin-flip gambles later on in tournaments in order to give yourself a strong opportunity to win the whole thing.

Guys, I’m just going to say this straight up — you need to stop rebluffing your mediocre hands. Let me give you an example: You raise it up with two eights, that’s the  , a beautiful mid pocket pair.

And one of these aggro-aggressive maniacs reraises you. What should you do here? You definitely just want to call. You do not want to reraise them back — because pocket eights is an excellent hand, but it is still a mediocre hand.

If we reraise them here, and they go all-in, we are in a terrible situation, because they are showing unbelievable strength, and we do not want to be risking all of our chips. In most situations here, we’re talking about 100 big blinds. Now in a cash game — we’re talking about a regular stack again, around 100 big blinds. So — you just make the call.

Flop comes down:   . They go ahead and make a bet. What should you do? Once again, guys — you do not want to be reraising with a mediocre hand in a situation like this. You should just make the call — on this relatively good board for pocket eights.

Turn comes down: . They bet again. What should you do? Once again, guys — you just want to call down these aggressive players. Bottom line: do not rebluff them back with your mediocre hands here. This is the biggest mistake so many amateurs and beginners make.

• Don’t fold your hand — but don’t reraise bluff them either;
• Just call them down — and make them show you a better hand.

Guys, this is the number one reason why people lose at poker — and yes, you need to ditch your favorite hand too, by the way.

Let me give you some examples:

•  .
•  .
•  .
•  .
•  .

Guys — I could go on and on for days. It doesn’t matter if they’re suited or not — all of these hands are pure hot trash — and they are costing you money at the poker table. These hands will not be long-term winners for you at the poker table. Ditch these hands. Fold these junky hands every time — before the flop.

Guys — this is the brutal, cold, hard reality of poker: nobody cares about your bad beat stories. Poker is a single-player game. A lot of people get it twisted — they get confused — and think that somebody actually wants to hear about the fact that your pocket Aces lost for the fourth time in a row.

I can’t be clear enough. I promise you — nobody at the poker table cares. They simply do not care — straight up. In fact — every single player at your table firmly believes that they are the unluckiest poker player in the world.

That’s what all poker players think — they’re sitting there thinking about how they always lose with pocket Aces too. Bottom line: we already talked about this — fish are going to get lucky against you sometimes:

• When you start telling everyone your bad beat stories at the table — number one: they don’t care. I promise you;
• And number two: you are only repeating your pain to yourself — you’re only causing yourself more harm.

The best thing you can do in situations like this is understand that there is a short-term luck element built into the game of poker. This is why this game is so beautiful — and so profitable for us in the long term.

Guys — I’m going to say it straight up:

• Winning poker players do not brag.
• Not online.
• Not at the casino.
• Not in a home game.

That’s what amateurs do. Also — they don’t argue online about “the best way to play Ace-King” or “you played that hand wrong”. When you see those guys in the comments section — that’s not a long-term winning poker player.

I’m going to tell you, without a shadow of a doubt, the best poker players in the world? Here it is:

• They are just quietly taking your chips.
• They don’t talk.
• They don’t brag.
• And they definitely don’t argue about poker hands on the internet.

Guys — you must understand: poker is a long-term game — filled with endless ups and downs.
Poker will humble everyone eventually. I don’t care if you’ve won three tournaments in a row — your luck will change at some point. And so bragging about your success — or complaining about your losses, like we just talked about — doesn’t solve anything.

Also — the game of poker is always changing. It is absolutely vital that you are always learning — and never thinking that you know everything. Bottom line: do not get an ego in this game. The best poker players in the world stay humble — and keep stacking those chips.

All right guys, that’s it for today! And if you’re serious about taking your game to the next level — check out our online poker coaches section. It’s the fastest way to improve your skills and start crushing at the tables. Thanks a lot for reading — all the best at the poker tables… unless you’re on mine) See you later!