Poker tips - wanna know the secrets of great poker ?

The secrets to playing great poker are that there aren't really any... well on second thought there might be a few, but all of these secrets are of a nature that everyone needs to uncover them for themselves.
If you came in here looking for some cotton-pickin, unknown by anybody, fail and fool proff strategy that I'll eventually sell you for a little over 15,99 you probably came to the wrong place.
I'll probably just leave that part for the gentlemen who are more skilled at selling stuff for a little over 15,99 that'll change your life forever, and move on to something I'm a tad more familiar with: give you guys a few pointers that may help you brush up on your play a bit.
Let us take a closer look at what is supposed to make a good poker player.
First of all there's table selection. Everybody should know that nothing and I mean absolutely nothing should be taken lightly in poker, not even the finest of details.
Rushing to find a spot at any table – when in a brick and mortar cardroom – or just letting the comp drop you into any poker room – in online poker – is obviously not the way to go. Online poker offers a great facility as far as table selection is concerned, which offline poker cannot possibly match. You can actually select a room and watch the game for as long as you wish to before actually joining.
This can be extremely useful from the point of view of table selection. One can start reading the players before ever risking a penny. All of the information based on which you'll be able to read them during the game is available right there. Hang around for several hours. See what each player is up to, wait for a seat to open then jump in.
Avoiding sharks is part of the table selection process. Whenever you see someone with an extremely large stack in an online poker room pay special attention to him. This guy is likely to be a shark. Scout him out carefully and if you indeed see him win more often than anyone else at the table, leave. It's that simple. Even if you consider yourself to be a shark, leave anyways. Poker is not some type of chivalrous jousting tournament it's not about honuor or pride, it's about winning money.You need fish you can prey on, not another shark to wrestle with.
Another type of table to avoid is the one that has a fine mix of tight and loose, aggressive and passive players playing at it. It'll be a lot easier to be confronted with a predominantly tight or loose table than with the mix. Why? Because you'll find it a lot easier to dominate if most people at the table "respond" to the same type of treatment.
Being able to do proper table selection is but the very first thing a good poker player has up his sleeve.
Getting down to the game itself other important issues surface, probably the most important of which is discipline. When I say 'discipline' I do not mean behaving nicely around the table, and not talking crap ( well, on a second thought that too...) but rather a discipline of play.
I read it somewhere that knowing the principles of good poker play is nothing if one doesn't act accordingly. 'Heck i know I should't have gone all in on that but I did anyways cause I felt like it.." stuff like this has no business in poker. Know what you have to do and act on it.
Everything one does at the poker table should be done according to a predetmined plan and not heeding the call of a momentry impulse.
Getting a quicjk read on the opposition is important again, and so is keeping them in the dark about the strategy the player himself decides to adopt. If would appear though, that in becoming a truly 'good' poker player, achieving the above is by far not enough. One needs to get out there and do not allow other players to be confuised. They need to know the wrong thing for sure. That's what the objective should be.
Knowing when, and how exactly to act on a hand is probably the most important thing ever both in offline and in online poker. No matter what online casino or poker room one plays in, and how good a table selectiuon one can achieve, knowing when and how to act on a hand will remain something that can only be learnt through countless hours of practice.

All articles written by (c) James West.