You can have all the best strategies in the world but it won't work if you don't understand how normal people play.
In the long run, you are taking money from bad players that eventually run out of luck, make the wrong decision, or try to bluff the wrong situation. Against even or better players, you are losing money. So what I made the biggest adjustment in to win is accepting that most players are "normal" and play badly.
Without getting upset at bad players hanging on till the river, you can focus on the situations where you exploit their weaknesses. That was my mistake for the first 5 years. I learned to play at a kitchen table for fun. When I went into it seriously I was no fun to play with, nothing irked me more than watching players play foolishly - and win.
The first factor you need to account for when playing normal players, is they ignore the math.
Pot odds is a generic example of ignoring math, but the most important one, that you can exploit.
I explain pot odds at length in my poker book, Superior Texas Hold'em, so I won't go into it here. Basically, it is the value of your potential odds( expected outcome ) versus the amount needed to call.
In any case, most hands are won with Ace High. I say again, most hands are won with an ace and the board.
The most common mistake is hanging on until the river with draws, most often flushes.
Or as they say in Las Vegas:
How do you exploit that? One way is position and read based bluffs.
Bluffs in position (CAVEAT BELOW): if you are the first aggressor ( explained in my book ) and you have labelled a player as weak loose player AKA Fish due to observing his/her playstyle - is out of position to you, then you can bet flush boards confident that more times than not that person has flush cards and not top pair. This requires the resolve to bet 2 or 3 times and especially on the river when a flush card doesn't arrive. When the board doesn't hit a draw, you bet the river like I talk about in the book and you take down the pot.
In micro stakes tournament poker, this is your bread and butter move to acquire chips and present a loose table image. I discuss loose versus tight in the book if you want my definition. You aren't playing loose per se, you are making a calculated move to get chips; you are playing poker. You can exploit more situations when sometimes you get called. Sometimes, this move will bust you out of the tournament. But you aren't going to win every tournament, you are playing in your longer term best interest by taking more chips than you would waiting for the best cards.
Of course, this advice must be taken with mountain of salt as with all poker advice. The poker hand space is over 4 BILLION hand combinations wide. No advice is ironclad, anyone claiming that is insane. There are lots of ways you will lose doing this. If the board is both straight and flush rich - lots of poker hands with both straight and flush combinations - then those normal persons will probably hang on and have lots of hits you can't see.
Players are better than they were many years ago, lots of people will defend top pair with their life. That is the biggest caveat.
In the long run, you are taking money from bad players that eventually run out of luck, make the wrong decision, or try to bluff the wrong situation. Against even or better players, you are losing money. So what I made the biggest adjustment in to win is accepting that most players are "normal" and play badly.
Without getting upset at bad players hanging on till the river, you can focus on the situations where you exploit their weaknesses. That was my mistake for the first 5 years. I learned to play at a kitchen table for fun. When I went into it seriously I was no fun to play with, nothing irked me more than watching players play foolishly - and win.
The first factor you need to account for when playing normal players, is they ignore the math.
Pot odds is a generic example of ignoring math, but the most important one, that you can exploit.
I explain pot odds at length in my poker book, Superior Texas Hold'em, so I won't go into it here. Basically, it is the value of your potential odds( expected outcome ) versus the amount needed to call.
In any case, most hands are won with Ace High. I say again, most hands are won with an ace and the board.
The most common mistake is hanging on until the river with draws, most often flushes.
Or as they say in Las Vegas:
Folks that chase flushes arrive on planes and leave on buses...Flushes are so hard to hit that playing flush cards to the river is a long term losing strategy. That's how normal players drop their stacks to the danger zone. I will chase one for the turn, and in some cases to the river but only if I am a large stack and that's when you are paying to eliminate players.
How do you exploit that? One way is position and read based bluffs.
Bluffs in position (CAVEAT BELOW): if you are the first aggressor ( explained in my book ) and you have labelled a player as weak loose player AKA Fish due to observing his/her playstyle - is out of position to you, then you can bet flush boards confident that more times than not that person has flush cards and not top pair. This requires the resolve to bet 2 or 3 times and especially on the river when a flush card doesn't arrive. When the board doesn't hit a draw, you bet the river like I talk about in the book and you take down the pot.
In micro stakes tournament poker, this is your bread and butter move to acquire chips and present a loose table image. I discuss loose versus tight in the book if you want my definition. You aren't playing loose per se, you are making a calculated move to get chips; you are playing poker. You can exploit more situations when sometimes you get called. Sometimes, this move will bust you out of the tournament. But you aren't going to win every tournament, you are playing in your longer term best interest by taking more chips than you would waiting for the best cards.
Of course, this advice must be taken with mountain of salt as with all poker advice. The poker hand space is over 4 BILLION hand combinations wide. No advice is ironclad, anyone claiming that is insane. There are lots of ways you will lose doing this. If the board is both straight and flush rich - lots of poker hands with both straight and flush combinations - then those normal persons will probably hang on and have lots of hits you can't see.
Players are better than they were many years ago, lots of people will defend top pair with their life. That is the biggest caveat.
