Common Poker Mistakes
Jan 2, 2012 Learn Poker Poker Tips
The best way to improve your poker game is to avoid the most obvious mistakes. Poker is about playing it cool and playing it with your head and not leaving your decisions with the luck. Successful poker players often try to conceal their weaknesses and take advantage of the weaknesses of their opponents. If you are not aware of these mistakes, you will be vulnerable on the table. Below are mentioned some common mistakes made by beginners:
Unsuccessful in Protecting Your Hand:
There are lots of beginner level poker players who play passively and unless they are cent percent sure about their hand to be the best, they will simply check or call. By this move, that is by not betting or raising it becomes easier for the opponents to draw out on them who may otherwise have folded.
Bad Stack Management:
I have generally observed the amateur players habitually neglecting their stack size when it comes to playing Holdem. In cash game around 20 big blinds should be with you at least in order to capitalise on your huge hands. Reload your stack immediately if you are falling short.
In a freeze out tournament, when you are between ten times the big blind to 5 times the big blind, you must end calling pre-flop. No alternative is left except to push all in with any of the following:
Any Ace
Pocket pair
Suited connectors
You are aiming for good amount of chips for maximising your big hands, otherwise in tournament situations to keep you alive. Players who are bad and whose stack reaches 5 to 10 x BB will flat call hands. Good players will reload their chips in a cash game and push all in. Players who are not good will not reload their chips in a cash game.
Your Own Gaming Style:
Playing cash games and playing tournaments calls for different strategies. In cash games when you know you will win more than you will lose, then your entire stack over the line has to be put, that is when a positive expected value is there. You can simply reload if you lose. Nonetheless in case of a tournament you should be more protective of your stack because if you are out of stack then you are out of the tournament too. There are fundamental differences between the two games, cash and tournament and you should be aware of these to play accordingly. Hence in a nutshell you should adapt your game strategy as per the game, as per the cash game and a tournament game. Those who are unable to adapt their strategies accordingly are unable to win the games.
Imitating The Pros:
Poker players that we see emerging today or amateurs, are mostly influenced by poker action on TV and poker shows. These players simply see their favourite poker player making big bluffs and seem to copy that. Television only shows edited highlights and hence a copy of those actions would be inappropriate.
As an amateur poker player you must first work upon your skills and gain an in depth knowledge of the games, the moves and different strategies to be applied in different kinds of games. Once this is acquired, only then should you move forward with the poker game for money. I hope this article has provided a good insight in to the kind of mistakes that could occur as a poker player who is just started out and you will avoid them in your game.
