Do you play Holdem and want to win more often? The secret is simple. Play better Holdem. That is all any of us need to crush games at whatever stakes we are playing. Oh, and put your Holdem books on the shelf too. Not too far back, but far enough back you are not pulling them out to restudy them after every session. Verifying you did exactly what the book said to do.

With the net and television saturated with, “all in” Holdem, it is hard to find a game where Holdem is played like the book(s). The throttled no limit games have changed the nature of the game at both limit and no limit Holdem.

Limit Holdem, even the lowest limits has become more aggressive, and plays more like bigger limits with minor differences. I see a lot more three betting these days preflop, with more callers, but the quality of hands has not not changed much. This makes for a great game, but also opens the door for expensive mistakes for anyone who does not change their playing style to match the game they are actually sitting in.

The most costly long term mistake I see players make other than not learning enough about the game itself, is expecting the game they are sitting in to play exactly like their Holdem book(s). Bad news – practically everyone sitting around the table with you has read those books and knows at least as much as you do.

When you play exactly as the books tell you, and it is not your truly lucky day, you are in for a rough ride, and probably a losing session. You watch your big pair crumble, your two pairs get crushed, and your sets ran down by stellar hands like 74o, J7, or even 52. Winning hands become so incredulous that you fully expect some piece of trash hand to win every round.

Then your losing hands starts playing on your mind. Instead of meeting aggression with aggression, you are now meeting aggression with passivity. What was a raising hand is now a limp and see hand. Overcalling is the table norm, and you are now right there in the mix, over calling when you should be raising. Minute by minute your stack dwindles, almost imperceptibly because it is only a few chips at a time.

If this sounds like your game, all is not lost. All the Holdem books in the world can only take you so far. After the books it is up to you to play correctly for the table you are at, not the table the author had in mind as he wrote his book. Holdem is not a game for automated play. If it were computers would hold their own in a Holdem game as they do in chess.

Holdem is ever changing and almost always a dynamic game. If you are not asking yourself, ‘what is the proper play’ each time you enter a pot, you are making a mistake. If you limp simply because they will fold if you raise, you are making a mistake. If you are not watching for small changes in the table dynamics, you are bleeding away chips.

The Holdem books are not wrong, but they may not be right at this moment of the game. Holdem books simply can not cover every possible thing you need to know at the moment. There is no Holdem book of checklists that tell you if there two drunks, one aggressive, and five average players use the technique found on page 172.

It is your responsibility to yourself to do your best to adjust to the game you are sitting in. A books author already has his money; he did his job the best he could for what you were willing to pay him. When you sit down and put your chips on the table, do not let your brain go to sleep along with your backside, or when you stand up, one of them will be a lot lighter.