I have been working on a longer post, but wanted to post something worth your time. If you are a poker player who is losing badly, losing slowly, or simply frustrated by the game, this post for you. If you are not a poker player, use the ideas below and apply them to your life. In some areas of everyone’s life there is always room for improvement. Life and Poker need certain skills for success and generally they overlap.
Poker is very good once again in spite of what Card Rooms have done to tip the chips in their favor. All of the games I have access to are nine seat games. Nine seat games make it very difficult to impossible to play a sold game of poker and win over time. Internet poker generally being cut off from many poker players more than offsets nine player games as online players make the transition to live poker.
Overcoming the rake and the antes with only nine players means most average players are at a tremendous disadvantage. Playing solid poker at a loose table is losing poker over time, always has been. If you are willing to step out of your comfort zone, and come to terms with the new rules of poker, you can play a fun game and maybe even show an overall profit.
Some of the old rules still apply. If you are losing, throwing more money on the table is not going to make up for your earlier losses in most instances. Once a few hours of steady losses have gone by, if you can turn your game around and start winning, it is more likely the game will close on you than it is you will make up your losses. This is especially true if you play in the evening.
In the evenings, most players have a time in mind they want to leave at. For many it is between eight and ten o’clock. If you sat down at seven, and have been losing for a few hours, one of two things are going to happen if you choose to keep playing.
The game will tighten up, or the game will end up folding. The reason the game tightens up, is those words no one wants to hear coming out of the brushes mouth, “No list”. Those two words can tighten up a good game quicker than a maniac on a winning streak. The second reason is the time of night. The later it gets, the higher number of good players are sitting in the game with you.
Most poorer players have had their kitchen passes expire or they went broke (lost their daily limit) for the night. These poorer players, if the game keeps on going are placed by better players, who generally are not so willing to throw away chips on poor plays.
No matter what the reason, as the night goes on, the rake grinds down stacks quickly without the looser more generous players who think if they play right and tight they are going to win. So what to do in this situation? Look at your game.
How many times have you come back from behind later in the evening? How many times have you doubled or tripled your losses? You do not even need to open your book to know what the answer is. For most players a losing session is a losing session. Stopping when it is evident it is not your night, is the right thing to do.
To help you keep you out of this situation you need to be realistic about the game. Poker in most card rooms is no longer a game of solid play takes home the money. Solid play helps you survive longer, but eventually the rake wears down your castle walls to rubble.
I tried to explain this to a Hold’em Player who was both confused and curious. He was a good player, playing good cards. He started with 30 BB’s and his castle was crumbling as his frustration grew. I was stacking chips from from a win many players would not have seen the flop with. I am more realistic however. I know that hand values are no longer what they once were, and controlled loose play brings home the chips most nights.
The player of course was feeling the effects of bile rising disgust at my choice of starting cards. Good players do not play these cards. Good players wait for good starting hands and pump the pot. A few years back that was true. Today, good players take home some extra money, and the solid players go home broke and angry at how people play sh!t cards, have fun and win too.
Playing bad cards comes with experience. There is a wide swath between playing like a maniac keeping a balance of solid play and poor play. Unfortunately to be a winning player, like it or not, you are going to have to gamble occasionally.
What you think are semi junk cards when played appropriately does a lot of good things to your game. It is fun, it keeps the table guessing what you are playing, and most importantly you win bigger pots. If you are trying to play well and it is not working so well for you, work out a system for yourself where you can play any two cards once in a while and not hurt your game.
Substituting hands preflop means foregoing a better hand you may want to play to play for a hand no one will expect you to play in another round. This does take thinking and awareness of what the players at your table are playing and how strong the winning hands are. You must be in a loose game, not in a tough game ,or a game where three people are seeing every flop.
Clinging to the belief that good hands make winning poker is great. Playing strong hands wins pots. Playing only strong hands does not win large enough pots to pay for the gas to get to the card room and back home again. The choice is yours to make.
What are the goals for your playing poker? Would you rather have more fun and be able to keep playing, or play consistent good poker and eventually have to stop playing because it costs too much? Stick to losing boring poker, or give yourself a better chance of actually winning. If you still do not come closer to winning, at least you have some fun in the process. The object of Poker is to win money after all.
