How to Win at Poker: Core Poker Strategy Course

Often people find it simple to learn the rules of poker, but remain losing players because they don’t understand the basic principles of how to win at poker.

During this free course we’ll teach you a solid basic strategy designed to help you improve your game and give you the tools to become a more confident and strategic poker player.

To help you apply the principles in this course and stay motivated, we’ll guide you step by step through a Poker Bankroll Challenge, to allow you to practise and gain experience, with the goal of turning a starting stake of $25 into a target bankroll of $1,000 — though this is an illustrative goal and individual results will vary.

What Will I Learn? Course Outline

Many people think poker is just a game of luck, but while chance plays a role, poker is also a game of skill — and learning strong strategy can make a big difference to your results over time.

Do you think the top professionals are just lucky and that’s why they consistently finish in the money in tournaments? No, in reality, it’s because they play with a poker strategy that maximises their chances of winning.

During this Course we’ll teach you how to play poker with a solid strategy and give you all the tools and information you need, including:

• How to Choose the Most Profitable Tables
• Correct Bankroll Management
• Strategy Before the Flop including hand selection and how to play with an advantage in position
• How to Play After the Flop including poker odds explained and different betting strategies
• An Introduction to Poker Psychology – How to work out what your opponent has
• Advanced Poker Strategy – including Advanced Concepts and Moves
• A Poker Bankroll Challenge where we guide you in applying the strategy with a $25 starting bankroll, aiming for an illustrative $1,000 target — though results will vary and success isn’t guaranteed

Poker Bankroll Challenge: Turn $25 into $1,000

The main aim of this course is to teach you how to play poker with a solid strategy. We’ll give you all the tools and information necessary, and during the length of this course we’ll take you step by step through a Poker Bankroll Challenge to turn an initial stake of $25 into $1,000 using the strategy you learn.

$25 into $1,000 – while this isn’t a guaranteed outcome, it’s an illustrative goal designed to motivate and structure your learning. Here’s why we’ve included the Poker Bankroll Challenge:

• Motivation – As you progress through this course, you may begin to see positive results, which can give you confidence that the strategies you’re learning are working and help motivate you to continue.
• Experience – just reading this course will not give you the full benefit, we want you to practice what you are learning and get experience playing this new style. At various points in the course we’ll send you off to practice what you have just learnt on the tables and see how it works in real life situations.
• Understanding – Its one thing to memorise a strategy, but its another thing to understand the concepts behind the strategy and understand why you are winning with it, this course together with the practical experience of playing the strategy will help you understand why it works and this will enable you to advance your game after this course on your own by developing this into your own personalised strategy.

If you’re prepared to commit to this course and take it seriously, then you’ll be well-positioned to improve your game using the strategies you learn — and by aiming for a target bankroll of $1,000, you’ll be setting yourself up with a strong foundation for playing poker over the longer term.

While individual results vary and these testimonials reflect individual experiences only, here are a few examples of what members of the Poker Professor community have shared with us:

How to Follow This Course

Work through the course at your own pace, some people will finish the course in very short time, and others will take a lot longer. There’s no rush, so take it one step at a time and if you struggle with a particular concept or lesson, then just re-visit it until you are clear, or ask for help in our Poker Q&A section.

To get the most out of the course then before you begin you should read and agree to the following statement:

“I agree to follow this course and put the strategies and concepts into practice as taught, without swaying from them at first. I understand that giving the course a fair chance is important, and if later I’m not satisfied, I can return to playing how I currently do.”

To get the most benefit from this course, it’s important to stick to the strategies and concepts as taught at first. Later, as you gain experience, you can adapt your play to what works best for you. Follow the strategies exactly and make sure you are playing at an online poker room that is suitable for the stage of learning that you are at.

Some important things that we assume in this course are:

1. The course is based on playing No Limit Texas Holdem
2. You have completed our Learn How To Play Poker Course and / or already understand the rules and how to play Texas Holdem.

Don’t be A Poker Fish: Become a Poker Shark

Internet tournaments are starting every hour that offer prize money of thousands of dollars, there are also some regular large online tournaments that offer $million+ prize money. The biggest live tournament in the world is the World Series of Poker, which features a prize pool worth tens of millions — with the Main Event winner often taking home several million dollars.

Online poker has created opportunities for players to win substantial prizes, with some high-profile tournament winners gaining recognition after breaking through in major online events — though these outcomes are rare and not typical of most players’ experiences.

While poker can offer significant prize pools in both online and live tournaments, it’s important to remember that consistent success requires a combination of skill, discipline, and responsible bankroll management — and there are no guarantees of financial return.

Over the last few years Poker has grown to become the world’s favourite game. Player numbers are growing rapidly. Two main factors behind this growth are:

• Internet Poker – the ability to log on and find a game at any time, from the comfort of home, makes poker more accessible and less intimidating than playing live in a casino.
• TV Coverage – frequent televised poker tournaments, including dedicated poker channels, help new players learn the rules and strategies, encouraging them to try the game.

This influx of new players means there are many inexperienced players still learning how to win at poker. In poker slang, such players are often called “fish,” while more skilled players are known as “sharks.” Here’s what that means…

A fish is a player who doesn’t have a strategy and chases or ‘fishes’ with long-shot hands that they shouldn’t be playing. In other words, they rely on luck and play against the odds.

The Poker Sharks are the players who play with a proper strategy and understand how to play poker with the odds in their favour. Skilled players (‘Sharks’) tend to outperform less experienced ones (‘Fish’) by making better strategic decisions — and that’s how they come out ahead over the long run.

To put it in simple terms, in poker a bad player is regarded as a Fish, and a good player is regarded as a Shark.

This course is designed to help you think like a Poker Shark — someone who uses strategy and discipline to make more informed decisions at the table, rather than relying on luck or chasing unlikely hands.

So if you’re ready to become a Poker Shark then let’s begin with the first lesson…