The first step at playing winning poker at the casino is choosing a table. Many times you take the table assigned to you by the floor manager. This is bad poker strategy. You should always show up at the casino early. Spend this time scouting for a table that you will have an advantage at. The easiest way to accomplish this is to follow the cocktail waitress. Always look for a table where poker players have been drinking. Ask the floor manager to put you in that game, when an opening exists. Of course you must also pick a table with limits that you are comfortable with. Starting on a table that you have scouted will give you an advantage right away. It is simple and sound poker strategy. Winning poker will soon follow.
If you are serious about poker, play at weird hours. Most tourists will show up at either noon, or after dinner for a day of gambling. After a couple hours of poker, the tourists are usually trying to press the issue. They have a time allotted to play, and that deadline is fast approaching. This leads to the poker playing tourist, playing really loose. This is the ideal time to enter the poker arena. I find that ten o'clock at night is a great time to begin your poker session. It is great poker strategy to show up when the majority of poker players are trying to bailout in a hurry. It is common sense poker strategy to attack players when they are at their weakest. Showing up when many tourists are soon to be leaving is winning poker strategy.
Now that we have a table and the right time to play, the show begins. The biggest problem with most poker players is they give away their hands, by their actions. Facial expressions are a sure tell. Don't make faces every time you get a good or bad card, somebody is watching. Always act the same, whether you get a good or bad card. Also you should keep your body relaxed at all times. Good poker strategy is to always act the same, and keep talk to a minimum. People talk at the table to find stuff out. Don't be rude, just very silent. Going unnoticed is winning poker strategy.
If you want to win poker hands, don't play that many. This is sound poker strategy, but easier said, than accomplished. Always throw away your hand, if you have to think about what to do. When the cards are in your favor, the thumping in your chest will tell you. Always look for the advantage, it will come. People that play seemingly every hand, will eventually go broke. They will catch cards to beat you sometimes, but every poker player has to live with that, knowing in the long run, you will win out. Starting with the best hand doesn't assure winning the hand, but it helps. It is a basic poker strategy, that you should always try to follow. Most winning poker players have this strategy in common.
The final winning poker strategy to learn, is when to quit. Go into the poker session with a number in mind. When you reach that number stop, unless you are on an incredible hot streak. Always maximize the hot streak, but don't overstay your welcome. If you play the hot streak, learn when it is over. If your goal was one hundred dollars, play the hot streak until you lose two hands in a row. This is a lesson best learned from experience. Reaching the goal, only to lose it back, happens to everyone. Letting it happen multiple times is a sin, or a sign that you have a gambling problem. Also you must set a limit on losing. Accept the fact that you will not win all the time. If I start playing with a two hundred dollar buy in, I call it a losing day when I am down a buck twenty. Always keep good records of how you have done. When you are winning two out of three sessions, it may be time to step up the limits. Never step up more than one stage. If you are used to playing one and five, go to five and ten. The ten and twenty game will be to big of a jump. Take your time, and learn along the way. Never feel you have to play higher stakes, you don't. Winning poker is winning poker, no matter what the limit is.
I hope the next casino trip is a good one for you. To become a regular winner at poker, play the tourists. After a bit, you will realize a big difference in tourist play, compared to regular poker gamblers play. The gamblers play much tighter, and don't give anything away. The tourist is happy to tell his or her friends about the bad beats they took. They look for a night out, and don't mind losing. A winning poker player must hate losing.