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Many beginner and inexperienced poker players tend to make the same mistakes when playing poker. Understanding these mistakes and making the necessary adjustments are keys to improving your success at the tables. Simply knowing the rules of poker can eliminate most mistakes.
Many players think that they need to play a lot of different poker hands in order to have a chance of winning at poker. This is simply not the case. Consistently playing bad cards is a good way to lose on a regular basis. Choosing to play good poker hands - quality over quantity - is wise poker strategy.
Gambling can get to a player. The thrill of gambling and making money tends to overwhelm some players. They try to move up to higher-limit games with stiffer competition and then find themselves out of their depth. When they start losing, they try to increase their poker bets to win back their losses, and they then end up depleting their bankroll in a short period of time. Stick to the low-limit games and build up your poker skills (and your bankroll) so that you can become a better poker player before moving up to the higher limits.
Poker is a game of reason, but emotions do get involved. Learn to deal with your emotions. You will lose in stretches. You will face bad beats. You will face annoying opponents. Once you accept these facts and learn to deal with the emotional results, you can overcome the emotional highs and lows of the game and play a better brand of poker.
Many beginning poker players do not understand the concept of pot odds, or don't know how to calculate them. Therefore, they call more often than they should and get involved in more hands than necessary. Being knowledgeable on poker rules and being able to calculate pot odds, and then make appropriate poker bets, are keys to making more informed decisions and playing better at the table.
Many poker beginners overlook common betting basics, especially when they play at real casinos for the first time. For example, when you want to raise, you cannot say, I want to call the bet and raise& The first action (call) is the final action, so this is considered a call. If you want to raise another player's bet, then say I want to raise& and then the amount of the raise. This is not a problem at online poker rooms because calls and raises are handled by pressing the appropriate button.
Having suited cards in your hand is good, but that does not mean you should always play suited cards. You have to consider hand rankings and hand probabilities, which includes determining whether the cards are paired, suited or connected. For example, although 8d3d [show picture] are suited, they are low in rank and not connected; a much better hand is AdKh [show picture], which are highly ranked and connected. The former hand should be tossed; the latter hand is a good starting poker hand. Many beginning players make the mistake of calling to see the flop just because they have suited cards. The probability of flopping a flush or a flush draw is relatively low (about 12%), so having suited cards in your hand is not a good enough reason to play this type of hand.
Watching and trying to imitate professional poker players may seem like a good idea, but it is the wrong way to go about learning how to play poker. When watching a poker tournament on television, each decision made by the poker pro is based upon their read of the situation. Those decisions have nothing to do with whatever game you may be playing at any given time. Each player has their own skill level and reasons for making specific decisions. Copying what someone else did in a similar situation will not necessarily lead to the same results, because everything is different - the cards, your opponents, the situation, and (most importantly) you. As your own poker player, you have to understand how to make decisions based on your specific situation.
Gambling is based on luck. Over the long term, luck tends to even out. However, people tend to pay attention to the short-term ebb and flow of luck and how it affects their poker game. Some poker players base their play on superstition - wearing a lucky shirt, sitting in a certain chair, changing their patterns when their luck changes, etc. Luck cannot be influenced, and you cannot influence the cards you're dealt. You can influence your results by making sure that you play well. Over the long term, your poker luck will depend on your skills.
When you can identify your mistakes, you can learn from them and become a better poker player. Read the other poker articles and then learn from experience by joining an online poker room to play some real poker. |
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