Most of us who started playing poker online had little idea as to what the game was really about. It is not having the best hand. It is not betting the most chips. It is not playing every hand.
If you are like most of us when we started, you found that you were not doing well and you continued to play the same way thinking that you were just not getting the cards, but they will come.
To cash (make money) or win a tournament in poker, requires skills AND making fewer mistakes than the other players at the table.
So let’s make fewer mistakes!
Overwhelmingly, the biggest mistake is to play too may hands. There are over 150 possible starting hands (actually more if you count all variations) and very few are worth putting chips into the pot ‘just to see’ what comes on the flop. I find that to cash or win more times than I lose, I am tossing around 80% of my hands into the muck before the flop. PATIENCE is the key.
Playing by an ‘emotion’ rather than by odds and outs. So many new players get emotionally involved with their hand and ‘feel lucky’ that the cards on the flop will bring them the winner. his hardly ever happens and you will have to give this up to be a consistent winner. You will have to know things about the odds of you hand being worth playing. We will discuss this in other strategy lessons. You will have to learn to play by POSITION more frequently than any other method.
Playing on TILT or letting your emotions overrule your logic. The SINGLE hardest thing to overcome in poker is playing while angry, frustrated or overwhelmed by a ‘bad beat’ or loss on the previous hand that you just KNEW you would win. Get rid of these feelings. Each hand should be a new game and the past is just history, not part of this game.
Playing your hand too long waiting for that ‘winner’ to hit the table. Again logic and odds MUST prevail. If, after the flop, the odds are not with you, FOLD. Get rid of the idea of ‘well, I am in it this far, I might as well stay to see just one more card’.
These are the most common mistakes made by all of us when we are new to the game.
Poker is a game of odds, skill and luck. Luck can beat you at any time, but in the long run (which is what we must play for) you will come out making money if you make fewer mistakes and understand the concepts of:
1. Odds
2. Patience
3. Information
4. Position
5. emotion.
Look for lessons on all of these things in more detail by using the search box in the blog section.
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