If you read about poker these days, sooner or later you will read the same story only with different words. The games are getting tougher. The games are harder. The games are impossible to beat any more. Depending on how badly you want to play, this may or may not be true. There are beatable games around, and they are as soft at times as they were when the poker boom was starting.
I can’t speak for online games, because I am not an online player, but I imagine the same general problems are online as they in Brick and Mortar (real cards and table) poker. Those softer games are there, you just need to change what you are doing.
First and foremost is game selection. Everyone who has read more than one article about beginning poker knows game selection is one of the key points. Let me say that again, GAME SELECTION is critical to poker success. Many players with a year or more of play B & M time under their belts are already wondering if they should quit reading right here. I hope they do.
We don’t like change. We like things to stay the same. Even if we are miserable we usually do not change what we are doing. It is no secret and every poker shark after your money knows this.
What is your normal poker playing routine? You work all week, go out on a Friday or Saturday night and play some poker? If this is you, you are probably doing this because you started playing poker this way. The best games were on the weekend nights.
The bad news is the best games are no longer happening at the times you decide you want to play. If the best games were when you normally play, you would not be reading this. You would be out spending your winnings on something more fun than this article. Think about it. It’s Friday or Saturday night and the poker tables are full, and hopefully there is a waiting list of people ready to give you there money once you get on a table.
Maybe you get there a little early to ensure you are there when the crowd arrives. maybe you get there in the middle of the surge. Perhaps you are one of the players who like to show up when the crowd starts thinning, as part of the clean up crew, waiting to feast on tired players and fat stacks.
The fallacy in this thinking is for the most part, with few exceptions, almost every player at the tables is there for the same reason you are. When was the last Friday or Saturday night game, or whenever your favorite to play, you showed up and were seated at a table full of beginning players? It rarely happens any longer.
When the poker boom started, there were a few books out there and very little on the net for beginners to actually learn from. What was there to read was some pretty heady stuff and a lot of disagreement on whether it was true or not. Today when with a few dollars for software and a local library, and a few months of serious poker study time, almost anyone can learn to play well enough to make it difficult for you to take their money.
Almost everyone at the table you usually play at, is at least close to your level of play. This makes for a pretty hard game. Everyone (almost) makes a few fundamental mistakes per hour as they play. It may not be noticeable by you or I, but they are making them. So are we making those same mistakes.
It is a hard game to actually make a profit in because those few mistakes are actually made that are exploitable for any real gain. They are mistakes such as calling a small bet when really the starting hand is not correct for the situation. Calling or making a small bet will cost a fraction of that bet over time. Nothing really noticeable except when you notice your stacks are shrinking.
If you are not happy with poker as it is, it is you that has to change. Try playing at different times, maybe early Saturday, or Sunday mornings. Another morning when the other weekend Sharks are sleeping off their feeding sessions. Learn to play better short handed. Learn a different game. Perhaps the best changes may be to play at stakes that have a better possibility of showing a profit for the same amount of play time.
