You are not afforded many advantages over your opponents. You have two weapons at your disposal to extract profit, an understanding of math and strategy, and deception.

We actually understand deception within poker well before we even understand correct strategy and mathematics. We however only understand just enough about deception to hang ourselves.

Here is what I mean. A player brand new to the game of poker with little to no experience will either be ultra aggressive, bluffing in the wrong spots making incorrect bet sizes, or he will be ultra conservative playing a lot of hands but never bluffing and constantly trying to slow play his big hands.