Even the best poker players in the world make mistakes, and when these mistakes are not corrected, they can develop into "leaks" that can easily sink your game. There are two leaks in particular that I see all the time with regard to Hold ’em starting hands that people play but would be better off folding.
The first of these two leaks involves playing easily dominated hands. Domination in Texas Hold ’em is death, so you must make an effort to fold potentially dominated hands pre-flop if another player has voluntarily entered the pot.

We’ve all seen situations unfold on TV poker shows where a hand like 7-8 suited or pocket 5s manages to crack some big pocket pair like Aces or Kings. We sit back in the comfort of our living rooms and say, “Well, if they can do it, so can I!”

I tend to land on the other side of the fence in this debate. My pre-flop strategy is this - its raise or its fold, there's no in between. I'm not injured - I don't have a sprained ankle or a broken leg - so why would I limp? There's nothing wrong with seeing flops, but why let your opponents get in cheap with an inferior hand?

I went pretty deep in the first event at the World Series of Poker, a $1,500 No-Limit Hold 'em tournament. While I wasn't pleased with the outcome - I finished 45th in a 2,776 player field - I was happy with my play. For this tip, I'm going to share an interesting hand from the tournament - one where I made a mistake.

Say you're playing in a low-stakes poker game. The blinds are $.50 and $1, and it's folded to you in middle position. You find a nice hand - pocket Tens - and bring it in for a standard raise of three times the big blind. It's folded around to a player in late position, who re-raises the minimum amount, making it $5 to go.

When I'm thinking about my actions after the flop or turn, I look to the "texture" of the board - i.e., what cards are in play, and how might they interact with my opponent's likely starting hands - to help determine if and how much I will bet.

Let's say an early position opponent - preferably a loose opponent - raises and gets called by one or more players. Now there's a lot of money in the pot. More importantly, the poker players who simply called are unlikely to have a hand that would merit calling a big re-raise. If they had such a hand, they probably would have raised instead of flat calling in the first place.

Poker is not a game that is best played by the numbers. Poker is a game of situations.

Everyone makes mistakes. The thing is, a good player will learn from them while a bad player will make the same mistake over and over again. And poker players that can exploit these mistakes will win.