What is the key to being a good poker player?

This "golden question", may seem like the end all be all in poker.

So many players want to know if there is some sort of insider strategy for universal success and sets you apart from the free poker online donks and hapless grinders forever.

The answer is very simple and in this how to win poker games guide I'll tell you right here and now.

The secret, or insider strategy key for successful good poker play at all levels from free to huge stakes is to be able to make cool headed, logical decisions at every decision point.

In other words, to "use common sense at all times" and win, sorry it's not more profound than that.

Common sense you screech? "I have plenty of common sense and I'm not winning much at all!". Ah, but common sense, in the context of poker is not very common at all.

The failing most people have in this area is how they view poker. Too many people reply too much on luck. But in reality poker is totally about skill and common sense decision making has a direct correlation to long term success.

While short term results are subject to a degree of luck in the long run skill wins out and the players playing a profitable style profit! When you view poker in this way, you see that "common sense" really is the key to winning at poker.

But what about those huge crazy bluffs the TV pros make? They have solid (often complex) reasoning behind them.

The internet pros making tens to hundreds of thousands per year?

They make their money by grinding out a high volume of hands playing a style more solid than their opponents'.

Even on free poker sites superior poker players make more than the common herd..

So how do you win at poker? Basically by structuring your game around sound fundamentals and a solid foundation of poker knowledge.

My "key", to use "common sense", is really just a more general way to say patience though it expands much further than just "patience"

So how does common sense equal "patience" in poker?

> Well in a standard no-limit Holdem hand, each player gets 2 cards facedown before any betting (apart from posting blinds) takes place.

> We apply standard patience logic and wait for hands that we know are profitable long term.

> There are not so many such hands so basically we are playing tight preflop.

> Adding common sense into this mix we will now say that the idea of poker is to take money from the other players.

> If we invest money with stronger hands than them, we'll profit.

> So to make a profit we should only play better hands preflop and this means playing tight is the best strategy.

Where the "common sense" concept outstrips simple "patience" is in the fact that the "common sense" line of thought is more logical in the reasoning it lends to your decisions.

What we are saying if playing vanilla patient is "I play this hand as it is profitable" whereas when you play with common sense you are saying "This hand is profitable because…so I will play it", this is a step above just playing with patience, with preflop hands it is not so different as you have a known list of hands to play or not play but in more complex situations this reasoning process sets you apart.

You have to know what you're doing at all times and WHY you are doing it beyond some set in stone rulebook.

The easiest application of this is playing tight (no trash hands!) preflop.

While the patient approach says to play certain hands only as they are profitable your logical approach goes a step further saying that when you play good hands preflop you will get more good hands postflop and make more money, therefore only play tight preflop and fold all trash.

This extends to many other basic poker concepts, such as value-betting "we should bet when we're ahead of our opponents to make money", bluffing "we should bluff when we can't win the pot unless our opponent folds and our opponent is likely to fold", and beyond.

These more complex areas will be looked at in depth later on this free poker online games training series.

I hope this free poker online games how to win poker games lesson was useful, for many more lessons and to play free poker online games against real people go see NoPayPOKER.com