Top 7 Leaks That Are Killing Your Poker Winrate

04 Aug 2025

Intermediate

This material is for medium-skilled players

If you're decent at poker but still losing, I'm gonna show you why. And it's not because you're unlucky or cursed by the poker gods. You just need to make a few minor tweaks to your strategy to start getting better results. In this poker lesson I break down several key strategy fundamentals — including which hands to play and when to bet, raise, bluff, or fold. Let’s jump into it right now!

Let me tell you something you already know: you can’t bluff someone at the poker table who loves to call. And that’s exactly what our fishy friends (the tourists = the recreational players) love to do. These are the people who just play the game for fun.

They didn’t come to your poker game to make disciplined folds. That’s not entertaining. That’s not fun. So when you try to bluff them, it just goes right over their head, and they call you down anyway.

Let’s say you’ve got the  . Once again, one of our fishy friends calls preflop. The flop comes down:   . They bet. What should you do?

Well, this flop is a complete disaster for our hand. We've missed in every conceivable way—we have no pair, no draw. And crucially, this is an incredibly draw-heavy board. There’s a diamond draw. For example, if this player has any two diamonds in their hand, they’ve got a flush draw. We don’t even have a diamond, so we’re not blocking that.

There are also multiple straight draws on this board. And several made straights. If they have something like  ,  , or  , they’ve flopped a straight. Then there are tons of top pair or two pair combinations:  ,  ,  , or  ,  ,  . We could go on and on. This is not the flop you want to fight for. Just fold your hand in this spot.

Calling with junk hands out of position is one of the biggest mistakes my students keep making. Let me show you exactly why this is such a big problem with a quick example. You raise it up with  . It’s a decent hand — but not a great one.

Then you get re-raised by a solid player. This is the polar opposite of the recreational “tourist” type we talked about earlier. This is someone who takes poker seriously. They’re reading poker topics like this, studying, trying to improve — just like you.

And you decide to call. Let’s skip all the way to the river. The board runs out:    . You’ve got top pair, queen-jack, and let’s say the action went bet-call on the flop, bet-call on the turn, and bet-call again on the river — with them doing the betting and you doing the calling.

So what happens here? Against a player like this, they’re going to flip over  . They had you crushed the whole way. Why? Because this is what good players do — they play good hands. So the solution is to Fold before the flop — and this never happens. And just to be clear, when I say “out of position”, I mean that you’re going to be acting first on the flop, turn, and river. That puts you at a huge disadvantage. You’re guessing the whole way through the hand.

Let me tell you something else you already know: pocket queens is the third-best starting hand in the game. However, that doesn’t mean it’s a license to print money. There’s actually a 41% chance that an ace or a king will hit the flop. I’m sure you’ve seen this happen plenty of times — and 41% is not a small number.

Let’s look at an example against a decent player. You raise it up with two  queens:  . Then, one of these solid regulars — a player who takes the game seriously like you — comes in with a re-raise. Now, in this spot, I’m never folding. Again, we’re holding the third best hand in No-Limit Hold'em. But we still need to play it cautiously.

The flop comes down:   . They bet. What should you do? Well, this is one of those 41% times where an ace shows up. Not ideal. But again—we’re holding pocket queens, and I’m not ready to let go just yet. So you call.

The turn comes: . They bet again. Now this is the crucial decision point in the hand. Speaking from 20 years in this game, most of that as a professional player: You need to fold your hand here. A competent poker player in today’s games is not going to:

• Re-raise you preflop,
• Bet the flop and
• Fire again on the turn…
• ...with a hand worse than one pair with pocket queens.

Take it to the bank: They’ve got top pair the vast majority of the time. Hands like ace-king, ace-queen, ace-jack, maybe even pocket tens that just spiked the set on the turn. Either way, you’re beat. So fold your hand here — and thank me later.

Let’s get something straight: pot control is overrated. Let me give you an example. You raise it up with  . The flop comes:   . You decide to make a continuation bet, which I love. This is a fairly harmless board, and statistically, your opponent is going to miss the flop two out of every three times.

So this is a standard c-bet spot. Now they call. Turn comes: . What should you do? This is not the time to “control the size of the pot”. You’ve just hit top pair. You should bet again — and bet strong. Let me ask you something to drive the point home: If you missed the turn, you'd probably bluff this card, right? The king of hearts is a great bluffing card. So why wouldn’t you bet it when you actually hit?

If you were bluffing the flop and then you get lucky on the turn — just bet. Don’t get gun-shy. Don’t try to “trap”. Don’t try to control the pot. Just play it straight. As I always say: Do the most obvious thing at the poker table — and let them be the ones overthinking it.

This one is straight-up costing you money. You're only shooting yourself in the foot by doing it. So you’ve got pocket fours —  . You call preflop. The flop comes:   . Boom. Beautiful spot. You've flopped bottom set.

Quick clarification:

• A set is three of a kind using both of your hole cards;
• Trips is three of a kind using just one of your hole cards.

Sets are way more powerful because they’re much harder to detect. On a board like this, they’re never putting you on three of a kind.

So what happens? They bet. You just call. Then the turn comes: . They bet again. You call again. River comes: . They check. Now you decide to bet. They call and show  , a top pair.

You win, but let me be clear: You just cost yourself money. You should’ve won a much bigger pot here. And this is one of the most common leaks amateur players have. When you flop a monster hand like a set, your goal should be to:

• Raise the flop.
• Raise the turn.
• Ideally, raise both.

Sandbagging (also called slow playing) means underplaying a strong hand, pretending it’s weak. But here’s the thing: When your opponent has a strong hand, and you just flat-call, you’re artificially keeping the pot small — and robbing yourself of value.

Now guys, this one is an absolute killer. You call preflop with the  . Flop comes down:    . So boom — we’ve got top pair, right? Looks like a great situation. However, we don’t have any kind of kicker here. And this is the problem with hands like ace-rag. When you hit top pair, you don’t have a kicker.

Guys, always remember: poker is all about the best five-card hand. And let’s talk about why this is such a big issue right now. So, on the flop, they bet—you call. Turn comes down: . They bet again, and you’re thinking: “Well hey, we’ve still got top pair, right? This six of spades doesn’t really change anything, so may as well make the call again”.

River comes down: , pairing the board. And if the six on the turn didn’t change anything, then certainly the six on the river didn’t change anything either, right? So anyway, they check on this river card, and you decide to check behind as well. We’re probably not getting any value from anything at this point.

They show down the  . They had you beat the entire way. Guys, this right here is the problem with ace-rag hands. Ace-rag simply fights the math. You had precisely a 24% chance to win this pot versus ace-queen before the flop.

Guys, we don’t need to be any kind of math genius to understand that we’re not going to win at a game like poker — or anything in life — by routinely putting ourselves in situations where we’ve only got 24% odds to win. So what’s the solution here? Well guys, it’s pretty simple. Fold these junky ace-rag hands before the flop, and you’re going to have a lot more success.

Guys, never do this. You call preflop with the  . Beautiful little hand. I actually highly suggest playing this hand in nearly all situations. The flop comes:   . So this is great, right? We’ve hit top pair on this board. We don’t have much of a kicker — mediocre kicker — but that’s okay. They make a bet. You decide to call. I’m on board at this point. I don’t really think there’s any point in raising. If you raise here, you’re just overplaying your hand, meaning:

• You’re probably only going to get action from hands that are better than yours;
• Or you’re just going to fold out their bluffs.

And obviously, we’ve got top pair, so there’s no point in folding either. So I think calling is definitely the right plan. The turn comes: . They bet again. This is the crucial point in the hand where you should be folding. But you decide to call instead.

The river comes: . They check. You decide to check as well. There’s probably no point in turning our hand into a bluff. After all, we do still have a pair. But we’re probably not getting any value from worse hands at this point.

Your opponent turns over:  . Yep — they had you beat the entire way. Guys, the lesson here is simple: You don’t play suited connectors to hit top pair. It’s nice if you hit top pair — and I’ll often call on the flop like we did here — but if they keep betting on the turn or river, it’s almost always the case, especially versus a competent player, that:

• They’ve got an overpair like pocket tens;
• Or they hit the king;
• Or they hit the jack.

Always remember why you play suited connectors. You’re playing these hands to hit some sort of monster:

• Two pair;
• A straight;
• A flush;
• Trips;
• Something big.

So don’t overplay these hands just because you hit a single pair. This is it for today! Thank you for your attention and your choice. I wish you all the best at the poker tables… unless you’re on mine.