I’ve been thinking about this recently and I was wondering in your opinion what is the most important thing to remember about playing poker? For example for me the most important thing about playing poker is to never get emotionally invested in a Ring Game, MTT, or SnG that your playing, If your mind is emotionally invested in results you’ll generally and likely not get the expected results your looking for. If your thinking “I’m going to cash every MTT or SnG or make a profit every ring game.” Being 100% successful is an unreasonable expectation in poker. In poker you won’t always be successful. You’ll have your upswings and downswings. It’s just part of poker
The Important thing to remember is to not be discouraged if your having bad results. You’ll have some good games and bad games. Just don’t get emotionally invested in them because in general you’ll start having bad results. Try to keep a positive attitude to get the best results in poker.
I think yours is the most important thing because if your emotions get the better of you, it throws off the rest of your game. I have made so many decisions where I later wonder what the heck I was thinking just because of frustration, tilt, boredom, banter, fatigue, or hunger.
Just to add something new, another important thing to remember is to play the opposite way the table is playing. If everybody is playing wild and loose, you can tighten up and crack someone. If everybody is being passive and nitty, you can capture the initiative and a lot of dead money by loosening up.
I agree getting you emotions involved will only make you play worse and make it less enjoyable. Dont get down when you lose a couple all-ins and cant get any good cards just grind it out and enjoy the site.
Yeah not beeing emotional its very important, but I always remember to myself, just raise or call the nescsary for my hand! I mean in the game you play with your hand and the players, but overbet could get you in to truble with only a pair or two pair, someone allways culd have something better, and if you raise too much probably make another player raise a lot more what you spect, causing you to fold or call and loosing a lot!, or not bet with a good hand expecting someone else to overbet, but not happend making your nh ends with a few chips of earnings.
I think that it is important to realize that you may sit for 50 hands and only play 1. If I’m really on my game, I wait for the cards. I try, but not always (I get bored) then I play crap cards. For the most part I don’t bluff. Just play what I have. The games change all the time, but most of the time it’s the same. Sit and wait for that good hand.
So what I am trying to say is. That in my opinion…
Poker is not just the luck of the draw, it’s the skill of knowing what to do with that luck when you get it.
Focus on trying to find the highest expected value plays on every street, and ignore the results. You can’t control the results, and in individual hands they don’t matter. Everyone will get both bad beats and also get incredibly lucky. But if you find plays that will win 5% more than they lose, over the long run your winnings from those plays will pile up.
Another way of describing essentially the same thing:
imagine your opponent has every possible holding, but spread out over a probability curve, so that some holdings are there more often than others (since most people will continue further with AA than they will with 72 off)
think of different actions you could take, and then multiply that over tens of thousands of hands where your opponent has every possible holding you visualized earlier
think of your possible losses in terms of bets (the money your are possibly parting with because of this decision), and think of your possible winnings in terms of the current amount of the pot along with any calls
Thinking about the game this way will likely get you searching to find thinner value bets, looking for more spots to bluff, trying to assess proper defense frequencies, and in general how best to carve up your range between folds, calls, bets and raises.
Oh, one other thing I think is very important: pay attention to other players frequencies. There are some players who bet close to 100% of the time on every street, and so their bets do little to contract their range, and I need to really defend against a triple barrel bluff with a pretty huge part of my range. Against a player that bets 5% of the time (and consistently shows down strong value with those bets), I need to over fold, and only defend with some very strong hands.
Waiting for the right cards, the strong hand is learned. Patience generally pays off. Of course luck plays a role like when you have a straight and someone else has a full house or flush. I’ve had so many great hands and lost… luck still is an element and that keeps the game exciting. If it was all skill we would all have 5 million chips…
I agree completely JohnW49. I remember being given a hard time by another player a few months ago for consistently folding and “not having a go”, he was commenting in that vein consistently on most of my folds but, patience won out in the end when I walked away with most of his chips on a lazy bluff he made for the umpteenth time, He was a persistent bluffer bidding up most hands and those guys usually loose in the long run.
I knew I had a good chance of winning with a hand I’d been waiting for. Patience is key. Wait for the right cards!
I think your title should have been “The Most Important Thing to Remember About Free Poker”
Let us be honest, a good majority of the players on this site, would not play money poker the same as free chips. When my husband was alive, he and I used to be a part of the British Race Club. It was a vintage race car club. We would travel all over Europe and the US, with other members, and attend racing events. It was absolutely brilliant fun. The five day events would be a lot of time socializing, and less racing. Some people in other clubs would race million dollar cars, others like our group would spend 500, and rebuild a shell of a car. My point is, at the end of the day, the winner would walk away the same as the loser. There was no prize money. Most races didn’t even give out trophies. Just time sheets. Our group was always looking to better their own times. The only difference between this an free poker, is that risk taking in racing could, and sometimes did, end up taking someone’s life.
If bragging rights are so important that you constantly try and “take someone out” then so be it. For me, alone on my mountain top, it is just a way to spend my down time, enjoying human contact.
Patience is the key and to having fun . I know when people are raising high amounts or all in pre flop can be frustrating , and I just fold and most get the idea the table is not going to play that game. However it is a game and if some wish to play that way we can not stop them or abuse them. I always go in with a plan and I do play like it is my money to win and loose. I have 3 game plans and once I get a read on the table I will adopt the first plan and keep to it until there is a massive player turnover . I do like to keep calm while playing those that go all in from the out set and I will admit there are times I drop the ??? after those players have been beaten on 5 8 off suit. But it is a game and I love the thrill of the table and trying to read the other players.
