Poker is an amazingly complex game. While it can be played at a lower level of strategy, the depth that can be reached in the strategy is astonishing. When professional poker players play (especially in tournaments), they take into consideration all sorts of factors before they ever play the game. Here are just a few of those factors:
The different variants of poker are all too numerous. Hundreds if not thousands of variations exist, though they all have the same basic principles. Before you play it is wise to think about what variants will be played and to brush up on the probability figures for that particular game.
This is often not a very large concern, but it may help to think about where you will be playing. For example, there is a very large difference between playing in casino with people all around you and playing in a private home where it’s much easier to conceal your cards.
This is by far the most important and difficult of the factors to consider. Thinking about the play style, betting habits, and background knowledge of each of your opponents is both complicated and crucial. Also, this concern continues during the actual game-play and cannot always be thought about ahead of time.
During game-play it is important to recognize “tells” in your opponents. Tells are the small and usually involuntary movements that reveal when a player is thinking a certain way. The most classic example of this is unintentional movements that reveal when a player is bluffing. These tells are generally different for each person and should be searched for on a continuing basis.