It sounds easy, but it's not. And yet, it is the most important aspect of poker play for beginners.

The more you fold, the less you lose. It's as easy as that. But wait. If I fold, I can't win, right? That also being true, you have to discern situations when folding is best.

Every time you think, that you might fold, yet you don't. 90% of those hands you should have folded. Even thinking about folding, probably means you should do it.

Beginner players tend to fall in love with their hands. The easiest example is when you have played for an hour or so, and nothing worth mentioning has happened by far, and you are pretty bored, but still waiting for your monster. And maybe the situation is even worse and there are many fishy players around, and you just know, that if you hit the nuts, you are going home with a huge pot.

And here it is at last. you get dealt KK on button. Could life be better? And you hear a raise before you and two people call, and you re-raise and they all call. So it's four people on flop which comes A Q J. Everyone checks, and it's up to you to bet, which you do. Two people fold and the last one goes all-in. This is the situation where you just have to fold. Without blinking or thinking too much about it, you just fold.

Any ace beats KK. QJ beats KK. He could even have QQ JJ or AA for all you know. But beginner players tend to be dependent on luck at this moment and think something along the lines of - Even if I am beat now, I still have some outs, right? Like, the 10 could come up to save me, if he really has the A. And maybe, just maybe he doesn't have it. And I could have the best hand. And anyway it's the first decent hand I've had for all evening, I can't fold it, right?

Wrong! Against any hand that he may have, you will have at most 15% winning chance. And the more you call, the more you lose. And for heaven's sake, don't get agitated, if indeed you called in this situation and he showed Q10 or KQ or any other drawing hand.

First of all, you need to understand that calling was wrong. And winning once or twice with this kind of call, will never get back the money you will frequently lose by playing this way.

As I have pointed out in my previous post, the long term is much more important in poker than short term.

So the first tip, I am giving you, is - Learn How to Fold. There is nothing wrong with folding. No one will laugh at you or think you're a coward. What is more important, you will definitely see an increase of your poker account balance by just simply reducing your losses.

Making a great fold in certain situations can feel as good or even better than winning the hand. You just know that you did the right thing, and that's what poker is about - making good and profitable decisions.