When I say these steps might make you a winning poker player it's because they are the very basic beginner strategies and since the poker boom the caliber of poker players has increased dramatically. Many of the people that used to be consistent losers have played enough to improve their game or else simply quit playing which has made the game relatively more difficult.
For starts we will talk about hand selection. When we're talking about hand selection it means that we are going to narrow down the type of hands you are going to play to only the premium ones. This will generally give you a decent edge over poker players that don't use hand selection and could possibly even turn you into a consistent winner.
Do you know what I'm talking about when I say only playing premium poker hands? I'm talking about AA, KK, AK, QQ, JJ, 1010, KQ....etc. You want to only play the premium big pairs and also large suited connectors. You also will want to consider thinking about what the other players are playing as well. If they fold a lot if they almost never call a raise unless they have a large starting hand. This will help let you know that if you raise with a couple of 10's that they are likely to have you beat already and it's very likely that they will have you beat if any over cards hit the board.
Alright that's enough about hand selection. Lets talk about poker game selection. When you are looking for a poker game to play in you don't want to find just any game. You want to find a game that's not too loose but not too tight. You aren't going to make any money if the game is full of rocks that won't bet unless they have the nuts. At the same time you don't want to jump into a poker game that's too loose because it's likely that unless you get lucky you're probably going to end up losing. You are going to want to find something that is in between the two extremes of loose and tight.
Now all you need to do is get out there and find a poker game and test out your new strategies and see If they help you out. If they don't you shouldn't worry. It takes a lot of time to develop mad poker skills and be able to become a consistent winner so don't let that get you down. Practice makes perfect and that Is especially true as far as poker goes. Just look at the great Doyle Brunson he's practically a god when it comes to poker and that's because he's been doing it for almost all his life.