Being able to control the size of the pot is a skill that is very important in Texas Hold’em. In order to maximize your profit and minimize your losses, you want to play big pots when you have great hands and keep the pot smaller when you have only slightly good hands.

In the case you have a marginal hand (for instance, just a pair), you can deduce, based on how the betting went so far, that your hand is good enough to win the PokerStar pot. You could be right and win the small pot with your hand and that’s okay, but you could be wrong and that’s why, you should risk much when you have such a mediocre hand.

If you have an excellent hand, for instance a full house, you might want to bet your whole chip stack right away, because it’s very likely you would win this game. Even with such a great hand, you can still lose, but happens so rarely, that the best strategy is to play it and have confidence in it. More often than not, you’ll win against another full, a flush or even a bad hand that was played foolishly.

Keeping the pot small is easier if you are in late position. The main trick for this is to skip a betting round. Usually, the pot tends to grow exponentially on each betting round. So, you could bet 2BB at pre-flop, 4BB at the flop, 20BB at the turn and 50BB on the river. As you can see, the bulk of the bet is on the river, so if you are able to avoid it, it’s in your best interest.

So, if you are in late position and you raised the bet pre-flop, the opponents will tend to wait for you, and they’ll check whatever you raised. They’ll do this at the PokerStar.com flop and on the turn, but they won’t be able to do this when you’ll simply check.

However, if you have a premium hand, then you want to have as big as possible. If you are in early position, it’s a bit more difficult, because you don’t know how your adversaries will play, and that’s why you shouldn’t slow-play it. If you check, the opponents might check too, and no chips will be added up to the pot.

In late position,  it depends on what the opponents behind you did. If they checked, it’s time to raise, but if they raised already, you might think about what’s the best strategy: you could simply call if you are afraid that the opponent will simply fold. This call will make you appear weak, which will encourage the opponent to raise the next time he has the opportunity.