To Improve Your Poker Game, Do What You Hate

• Author: Thomas Kearns
• Filed under: Casinos
• Date: Jan 3,2010

Any creative art requires a philosophy. The game of poker, with all its complexities, is an art form. If you are a droid, all you need is an on-off switch to get you going. If you are not, you will need certain human qualities to motivate you to achieve your purpose and that which you love. Obviously, few of us would consider ourselves philosophers. But that isn’t required – what is required is a creative imagination and powers of perception.

You can learn to force yourself to do whatever it is you dislike and improve exponentially by tapping into the imagination and perception within you. For instance, compare developing your skills of communication with taking a cold shower, an unpleasant shock to the system at best. But that feeling can be ameliorated over time and after a few months of cold showers once or twice or week, you may begin to look forward to them. They have certain advantages, like waking you up and making you feel so good when you get out.

This is true of almost any new skill that is humanly possible to acquire and that is why some people like to learn “new things” even though the initiatory stages are always necessarily stressful to a certain degree.

So with the analogy of the cold shower in mind, take the plunge and dive into those areas of poker that you would really rather not venture into.

Okay, no more lessons on philosophy, it is now time to consider more pragmatic advice. A good way to acquire meaningful expertise is by hiring a professional trainer to give you private, hands-on lessons without the embarrassment to you caused by onlookers. The coach will point out your weaknesses, most of which you are probably unaware of, so you can learn from them and move on. A good trainer will have you make notes of your play so you can continue to learn from both your strengths and weaknesses.

If the cost of a professional trainer is too much for you, the alternative is to acquire poker friends: sincere and frequent arguments even between average players significantly improve logic and perceptiveness. You may also want to be a member of poker forums. Very good players often post and share valuable experience via online forums.

Don’t forget to take notes. Whether on or offline, while playing the game, record your play to enable you to review the hands later and learn from this as to where you went wrong. Notes can reveal all the choices you could have made but didn’t, putting you on to greater possibilities of alternate moves in the future. They will also help your self-introspection and will lead you to ask yourself why you made the moves you did. This skill at introspection also applies greatly to your opponents moves. You want to reach the point where you can ask these crucial questions of yourself before you make that bet or play that card.

Did your opponent react the way you thought he would? Is his reaction in keeping with what you expected after learning the ways of your opponent? Did he bet or raise according to your expectations? What cards do you want him to think are in your hand? At which point in the hand to you want him to call or raise?

If you continuously ask yourself questions like these, while cumbersome and difficult at first, they will become second nature. After a while, this questioning process will become a welcome challenge and this is when you become a genuine player of the game of poker.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Players Only Rakeback and Paradise Poker Rakeback.

categories: poker,online poker,gambling,games,recreation,entertainment,sport,sports

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