For whatever reason, new poker players tend to gravitate towards making the same general mistakes. When you teach someone poker but don’t give them any strategy tips, it’s fairly predictable that they’ll make some of the following errors when left to their own devices:
Playing Too Many Hands
New players almost always overestimate the strength of their hand in poker. This is particularly the case with small Ace hands (such as Ace-Six). The problem with these hands is that they really don’t lend themselves to creating the scenarios needed to win a big pot. Most often, you’ll completely miss the flop with these hands. When you do hit the flop, it will be on a flop like Ace-Ten-Five where you’re liable to either win a small pot or lose a huge one by getting too involved against someone who has an Ace with a better kicker.
Other commonly overplayed hands are suited hands (Jack-Three is still junk even if it is suited), and hands with a face card and a large-ish number card (like King-Nine or Queen-Eight).
It shouldn’t suggested that these hands are always bad or that they should never be played; another thing beginners would be wise to learn is that poker is a game of scenarios. A hand that should be folded in one scenario can be played for all of your chips in another scenario. The point is that these hands are overvalued by beginners generally speaking.
Not Betting for Value
Many new players gain a perfectly decent understanding of hand values but have no idea of how to extract the maximum amount of money for their hands via betting. For this reason, it is generally recommended that new players play games with limit betting rules. Limit betting allows for a fairly cheap education on hand values while only having to make simple betting decisions (”bet” or “don’t bet”). No-limit betting games are quite a bit more complicated. Not only do you have to determine if you should bet, but you also have to determine how much you should bet. The problem many new players have is that they have no clue how to answer that second question.
The knee-jerk response to the question of “how much to bet?” is to bet according to hand strength (ie: if you have a big hand, make a big bet, if you have a mediocre hand, make a small bet). However, it should be remembered that poker is a game of relativity. You could have a sure-thing winner, but you’re only going to win as much money as you’re able to get your opponent to put into the pot. If your opponent doesn’t like their hand, they’re not very likely to call a huge bet. So in no-limit betting games, it’s not only important to have a good sense of the value of your hand, it is also important to have a good sense of your opponent’s likely holdings so you know how much you can try to extract from them.
This isn’t really an exact science that can be taught easily. Mastering the game takes a lot of practice, patience, and studying quality poker strategy advice books and articles.