In poker, and life, you will be dealt both winning and losing hands. The goal is to extract the most value from your winning hands and minimise losses from your losing ones. This is known as the “min-max” strategy.
Professional poker players are experts at assessing and utilising their opponents’ behaviour and betting patterns, as well as analysing their own play. Moreover, they have a wealth of information available to them, such as online player histories and their own betting history with a particular site or operator.
They use this data to exploit their opponents and to make informed decisions. Often, they also make decisions without knowing the exact outcome beforehand, such as choosing to call or raise a bet from their opponent. In addition to this, they also use other information, such as the probability of certain cards showing up on the flop, turn and river.
There are 169 different starting hand combinations, assuming you receive two cards each time. It is important to play a smaller number of hands, so that you can wait for good starting hands and give yourself favorable odds against your opponents. Playing too many hands will bleed you out and leave you vulnerable to being exploited by big bets from stronger hands.
Practice and watch experienced players to develop your own quick instincts. Study their mistakes and challenging situations to learn from them, but also pay attention to the things they do right. This will expose you to a range of strategies that you can then adapt to your own game.