“It’s not the cards that you have all the time that makes you a winner or a loser.” – Doyle Brunson.
Majority of poker players online today are those who have graduated from playing with play money and free rolls. As a result, when they gradually shift to playing with real money, these players tend to carry forth a style of play that is typical to play cash games – loose and aggressive. However, with real money tables, these traits will only lead to one’s downfall.
Before you move on to real money poker, ensure that you set up some guidelines for progressing through the game. If you are serious about moving up in poker, having a clear perspective on the evolution of your game is a key. Also, besides your long-term goals, it is wise to make smaller achievable goals along the way to curb monotony.
Below are the some of the best tips you can use to learn and grow as a poker player:
Volume
To be successful at any game, one needs to have a certain amount of skill, dedication, motivation, and willingness to learn from one’s mistakes. Besides these, volume is also equally important for new players to the game if they aim to progress in the game. Playing the game over and over again translates to the player getting familiar to that particular variant. While it is ideal to start playing at low-stake tables, you should move up to the higher stakes once you’ve got a decent hang of the game.
Time Management
Poker is an addictive game that can greatly affect the everyday life of poker aficionados. And before one realizes, the game can take over your life, to a degree where you start to lose your autonomy. You need to ensure that the time spent on poker does not have a negative influence on your everyday routine, your job, or your social circle.
Many believe that playing for the maximum time translates to earning a lot of money. However, this is far from the truth. Long session can be extremely gruelling, which makes it a challenge to stay focused on the game at hand. To tackle this conundrum, it’s best if you set a timeframe as to how much time you would like to dedicate to poker. After you’ve charted out the decided timetable, the next step for you is to religiously follow it.
Rest
Being well rested is crucial to play your best poker. The habit of continuing to play after a streak of bad beats in order to make up your bankroll should be avoided at all costs. By resorting to continuous play, especially when one is behind, can hamper the body’s natural sleeping pattern, which will eventually take a toll on your gameplay. Know when to take a break, when to stop for the day, and when to extend your sessions if required: timing is key to online poker.
Reading Your Opponents
As compared to live events, not only does online poker offer more action, but it also occurs at a faster pace than usual. One of the major advantages of online poker is that you can play multiple tables simultaneously. However, since online poker is faster paced, players have lesser time to gauge the situations and make sound decisions. To address such a situation, one needs tack and quick thinking to read opponents and then act accordingly. Do not sit idle on others’ turn, use the time to carefully analyse their actions and try to crack their gameplay.
Avoiding Tilt
Tilt, in poker, is a psychological phenomenon, in which a player falls into a mental state where he/she is no longer capable of making any rational decisions. In such a situation, a player on tilt tends to end up paying off weaker players out of sheer frustration and carelessness. If you want to take the game seriously, you have to realize that there will be days when you will still lose with the best of hands.
Tilts can happen to anyone: even the best of poker players have gone on tilt, and this has cost them dearly. Players can go on tilt because of a variety of reasons – events such as bad beats, long stretches of being dealt dead cards, and long hours of play can cause one to lose their emotional balance. In a scenario where you have an inkling that you can’t handle the stress anymore, taking a break from the game is the only cure. The worst thing you can do to yourself is to continue playing on tilt: doing so can hamper both your bankroll and your love for the game. Also, if you can educate yourself on what makes you tilt, devise a strategy to keep tilt at bay from your games.
