When participating in a poker match, numerous gamblers--even some professional ones--make the assumption that aggressive playing ultimately leads to winning the pot. They think that if a competitor is passive or more sensible in his playing style, then he can easily be chewed up and spit out right there on the table. This way of thinking makes sense to a certain degree because giving up a hand goes against our instinctive survival abilities. Someone must persevere, as the saying goes, despite the odds clearly not being in their favor. As you can imagine, this assumption is terribly wrong.

There certainly are circumstances when folding in poker is the single best move to preserve the integrity of your future hands and also to protect your mounting bankroll. In online games and tourneys where action is heavy and intense it is vital to have the intuition to pull away and make a decision that all opponents must make at some point in order to minimize outright losses.

From the jump start, It needs to be determined if you will give in during the pre-flop or at some other point in the hand. This question is not as integral to your future survival as the next, but it still should be considered with much thought. One way to answer it is to refer to the current pot odds, which enables you to place a numerical computation on the amount of risk or reward of a certain move. Most good players will want to achieve a few of the loftier hands before initiating an action and bets should remain small and reasonable. If it is a multi-way pot, go for the pairs as your best option. Go for the suited connectors in the instance of a less than decent hand of cards.

In No Limit Texas Holdem games, for instance, the rules for folding in poker are grounded in the player asking himself some honest and straightforward questions concerning the dynamics of the current hand. Regardless of how these questions are answered, with them, you can make some great choices about your pre-flop poker strategy. The second burning question to decide on folding in poker is based on the best time to initiate the act. Suppose the current pot amount has increased pre-flop and only one bet remains for post-flop. Now, is the best opportunity for taking the action because a loss in this stage of the game will prove to be significantly less disastrous than if folding had taken place in the middle of a showdown.

Just as a good player knows a basic strategy for when give in, he should also have an approach in mind for when not to do it. Sometimes it may seem appropriate to fold after calling the river, but an action like that should occur only if the draw was missed. Another reason to avoid giving in is merely because you feel exasperated due to a heavy wagering session.