The Four Principles of Poker

From "Action Dan" Harrington

Principle No 1: The Strength Principle
In general, you want to bet your strong hands, check your mediocre hands, and fold (or sometimes bluff) with your weakest hands

That souldn’t be too hard - NOT?
Obviously you want to bet your very strong hands to build a bigger pot when you’re likely to win. With your middle hands you better check because it’s harder to make money when you bet these. Better hands than yours are likely to call or raise, while weak hands probably fold. Folding your weakest hands is quite obvious. Bluffing with your weakest hands might be not so obvious, but then again if the bluff works you’ve gained value from a hand that had none.

Principle no.2: The Agression Principle
In general, aggression (betting and raising) is better than passivity (checking and calling)

Aggressive actions have two possible outcomes:

1. your opponent could fold to your bet, or 
2. he could call your bet and you can win at the showdown. 

Passive actions in contrary have just one, at the showdown. 

2 options are better than 1.

Principle no.3: The Betting Principle
In general, a succesful bet must be able to do one of 3 things:

1. force a better hand to fold, 
2. force a weaker hand to call, or 
3. cause a drawing hand to draw to unfavorable odds.

A bet can thus make money in three ways.

1. If you can chase away a better hand, you won a pot you normally would have lost. 
2. If you get a weaker hand to call, you've got more money into the pot. 
3. The same goes if you let somebody call a draw at unfavorable odds

     If you don’t think a bet could accomplish one of these things, just don’t bet. 

Principle no.4: The Deception Principle
Never do the same thing all of the time.

This is quite clear. Be surprising, don’t act predictively! In order to be succesful at poker, you need your opponents to keep guessing about your bets.