Winning at poker – the key ingredients
Winning in poker is entirely possible, but the inevitable fact remains that the majority of players are long term losing players. In order to be a winning player at poker one must have a number of factors in your favor. We’ll take a quick look at some of the key factors here.
- Have a good understanding of the math of poker, i.e. your odds for hitting a flush, making a straight, your chances of hitting a set etc. It doesn’t matter how you acquire this knowledge, be it purely through instinct and experience and/or have made yourself aware of it via book learning, just as long as you understand the importance of math to the game of poker.
- Not going on tilt or becoming otherwise emotionally unbalanced, if you are prone to tilting, then all the good work you might have done over the previous hundreds of hands can be laid to waste in a few hands or less.
- Being selective vis-à-vis game choices These days of online poker there are countless games running across a big selection of poker rooms. If you find yourself in a game with tough opponents and no weak player(s) then ask yourself why? Are you really that good that you can come out on top against 4 or 5 other good players?
Be realistic, even if you are the best player there, your edge over the others might still not be enough to beat the rake, and even if it is why play this table when with all the games available to you online there just has to be a better game out there somewhere!
Now these days with people using Table Scanning software to find the weaker poker players, it can mean that there is a big waiting list on the juicy poker tables, there are alternatives though to getting a juicy game together, table scanning software doesn’t usually pick up players on waiting lists, so why not check out waiting lists yourself to see if there is any fish waiting there.
If checking out waiting lists manually is too time consuming for you, you could always start your own table, and see if you land any fish on there, enough times you’ll find that is exactly what will happen, and again there’s nothing stopping you from leaving the table if it gets the wrong sort of player joining.
Of course it can also be advantageous to be able to play more than one type of poker, that way if despite all your efforts, you are finding it difficult to find a juicy Hold Em game in the rooms you play, maybe there’s a good Omaha game somewhere or some lucrative Sit N’ Gos running.
- Bankroll management It’s really hard to be careful with your bankroll. Many players are eager, overly eager to progress to bigger games, when really there’s no rush whatsoever to be doing this. Playing within your bankroll, means you can play more effectively as you will never be putting yourself at the huge disadvantage of playing with ‘scared money’. if you are the guy who is adequately bankrolled for the game you are playing you will have a big edge over any player at your table just giving the stakes a ‘shot’.
- Knowing your poker game inside out Of course, no matter how sensible you are with not going on tilt and good bankroll management, if you don’t fully understand the dynamics of the game you won’t be a winning player. It’s important to study the game, seek poker players whose opinion you respect to review hands you have played, study the game via books, online poker strategy sites, online poker forums. Get coached at the game, use poker videos. all these activities help you to get and stay on top of the game. Remember, even if you are an experienced poker player, there is always something to learn and/or relearn.
