You'll often read about how making the right bet is your most powerful poker tool. To illustrate this, I want to propose a little exercise that you can try out. It will really give you a better understanding of when to bet, how much to bet, and why.

Play Poker Without Calling

I want you to play a few poker games, even tournaments, without ever calling once. Make sure to use play money for this! That means you either fold, or you raise. Let other people call you. This is simply an exercise and the objective is not to win, but to learn about betting and how others react to it.

Establish a Conservative Table Image

For this to work well, your opponents must not perceive you as the crazy poker player who raises all the time. Part of the challenge is to remain believable when you decide to raise. That means you'll play conservatively most of the time, raising when you have good cards, and once in a while you'll try and steal the pot with the right raise. It also means you'll fold a lot. In fact, most of your hands will be folded and this is to be expected. The key of this exercise is to know when to raise and when to back down against an aggressive player. That decision depends primarily on your chip count, on your betting position, on your opponent play styles and their own chip counts, and on your ability to read them. Experiment with the fold/raise plays and move to different tables if you are playing the same opponents for too long. You want to try this play against a wide variety of opponents so that you can be exposed to how the same betting pattern or action on your behalf generates different reactions against different players. This is due to their play style.

Learn to Read Opponents by Raising

In the end, what you'll learn from this exercise is to be able to recognize the various play styles, when players change gears, and how a specific style usually reacts to a situation you create by making an appropriate bet. Of course, try this out with play money! PokerStars is a good software to use, or try it out using any of the other poker rooms.