It is true for all sports that discipline is a key factor for consistent success. Despite the common understanding that poker is a game of chance, you need to realize that if you ever want to become a profitable professional, you will have to establish a sporting discipline of learning, understanding and unceasing practice. “Talent” is certainly essential, but even the greatest talent needs a method, and the method is acquired through careful study.
In fact, there is no such thing as spontaneous talent: music didn’t “just make sense” to Mozart – where would he be if he hadn’t spent his childhood practicing? It can be said that talent is a well-practiced potential. But don’t expect a crazy parent to hit you with a stick over your fingers every time you play the wrong card; impose your own discipline.
Amateurs play for fun and excitement about risk against blind chance. That’s what keeps the business alive Judi Online. Professional players leave no chance: the professional knows what his basic chances are and takes advantage of each opponent’s slip, remembers repetitive patterns and calculates the current chances. The serious player does not expect to have fun with the simple mind: instead, he takes pleasure in emptying his pockets efficiently as a profession. Chance only enters the world of the professional as one of the elements with which he compares his intelligence and ability. The idea is not to play blindly, but to launch yourself against the other’s method and win.
It is vital to be familiar with the varieties of poker games and to know which one best suits your skills and predispositions; not only to understand what your weaknesses are, but also to know which game incites you to your best effort and involves your intuitions better. Players who are not in the habit of self-introspection continue to taciturnly play a game that does not involve their best faculties. Sometimes, a benevolent professional looking sideways can advise the person to try another type of game and the player is surprised to find that they are much more talented than they thought.
There is a big difference between limit and limit poker. A disciplined player will not give in to temptation and will prefer the game in which he feels completely in control. In limit poker, disciplined players tend to play cautiously, act calmly, taking the opportunity to collect information secretly about opponents, with the intention of exploiting them with small movements. They will only play the hands that are worth playing: the best play only about a quarter of the hands they are given.
A disciplined no-limit professional will highlight the opposite of the reserve, will be aggressive before the flop and will play hands that to the limit specialist would look like reckless stunts, always knowing, however, what exactly he is trying to achieve with each aggressive move.
In both cases, no less important than the right move is the ability to hold back and give up when the situation is desperate or when you feel like you are losing control: it happens to everyone, but the disciplined player dedicated to consistent performance does not chase the ghost of growing frustration.
On better days, never rely on the chance to keep your good fortune forever – learn to leave before you lose your advantage. Good players learn to establish not only the limits of their losses, but also the limits of their gains during each session.
The author is a cash game player with limited success. He plays poker online and receives Full Tilt Poker Rakeback and Cake Poker Rakeback.