When in doubt, bet 50% of the pot
Most raise or fold, don't call
50% of all profits come from AA, KK, QQ, JJ, or AK. If you hold out for these, then you'll do better than most players (on average)
- However, you also want to play hands w/ high probabilities of improving during later rounds, so your opponents don't figure out what you're doing. These include 67, 78, 89 w/ same suit (can go into straight, flush, etc).
- Play all of these hands hyperaggressively
"Pot committed": putting so many chips in that you're committed to the pot.
- This is a bad idea, the odds change as new information is revealed, act on that; the chips are a sunk cost (remember finance!)
Avoid flaming out; if you lose 50% of your wealth, you need 100% returns on the remaining wealth to get up to the starting line, and 400% if you lose another 50% and so on (logarithm of death)
If you have chips left, and you know you're beat, just take it on the chin and fold. (This also applies to life in general)