A YouTube channel has a clip about tips for men over 50 to lose weight. They say something so profound that we simply had to share it with you: The most important thing for weight loss is good sleep. This is also the number one tip we have for poker excellence: Get enough good sleep!
Why is Sleep So Important?
Before we get inti the importance of good sleep, we would like to put something to rest once and for all: stop obsessing about the poker rake! It is true that if you play for low stakes at Juicy Stakes poker, the rake will be a higher absolute amount than if you were playing higher stakes poker. Nevertheless, we impose a maximum rake on every pot. In addition, we recommend taht all new poker players start out at low stakes. We will talk about playing at low stakes in just a second!
Now, let us talk about sleep.
If you play poker when you are tired, you will make mistakes that cost you hands and money! We need about seven hours of good sleep every night. If you get less, you probably shouldn’t play poker that day! Good sleep regulates a lot of internal systems that we don’t feel. All of these internal systems affect our ability to think through the challenges we face when we play poker.
Start out Playing Low Stakes Poker
A lot of poker players who are new to online poker think that low stakes poker is just like the poker they play with their pals once a month. It is not! Online poker may have a lot of amateur players but a lot of amateur players are studying the game every day.
Many low stakes players are planning to move up to higher stakes as soon as their game is advanced enough to justify moving up. You should also feel that way! So, low stakes poker at an online casino like Juicy Stakes Poker is the best way to get started on a poker “career”.
Study, Study, Study
Whichever variation of poker you like playing, it is a lot more complicated than playing in your dining room with your pals while munching on potato chips and peanuts and drinking some beer!
When you play online, we suggest staying away from all alcohol while you’re playing. The alcohol will inhibit your thought processes and will lead to mistakes. You can drink when you are finished playing for the night.
Everyone is studying poker! You have to study just to keep up. Look at poker as a graduate course in which everyone is working extra hard to stay ahead of the curve. There is so much to learn so you will have to stay at low stakes for some time. This leads to...
Develop a Large Amount of Patience
If you are playing a board game such as Risk and you want to get on with it you might attack with a large army against another large army even if you know that you are at a disadvantage. You cannot attack in poker when you are at a disadvantage!
You can bluff but bluffing is designed to put you at an advantage with a weaker hand. In other words, a good bluff forces the better hand to fold.
There is so much “dead” time in poker that you need to have a mountain of patience to scale the hillock when you do get a good enough hand. Impatience leads to boredom and boredom leads to even more mistakes than drinking some beer during the game.
Pay Attention to Every Hand
This is good advice for playing poker whether on land or online. However, there is a twist when you are playing online. You can’t see your opponents and they can’t see you. You can write down anything interesting you “observe” while other players are playing a hand.
You can also write down your observations on hands you are involved in but it is of utmost importance to learn as much as you can from the hands you have folded out of. That’s because you will fold even before the flop even at low stakes in a very large majority of hands!
You have to pay attention to more subtle indicators like how quickly a player bets, who is betting out of position and with what kind of hand, how are the blinds handling the pre-flop situation, and many other subtle indicators.
Play Mostly at Juicy Stakes Poker
There are some benefits to actually seeing your opponents at a land based poker room. We feel that for most players, especially beginning players, playing online is far better,
First of all, you don’t have to travel to get to the poker room. When you travel to play poker, players tend to play too long; they tend to play when they are tired; they tend to play when they are hungry; and they tend to play because they have nothing else to do.
When you play at home, you can play for as long or as short as is comfortable. The poker room is available every day around the clock. So if you get tired you can simply close out your participation in the game and rest. You might just want to go out with friends. You might want to chill out by streaming a good stand up comedy routine.
When you play at home, you are under no self-imposed need to keep playing beyond your limit.
Play Slowly but Not Too Slowly
You will need time to think through a hand. At a land based poker room, many players are intimidated by the other players putting you on the clock for your decision. You might be on the clock online as well but the intimidation factor from the other players reduces to zero.
However, if you play too slowly it will give your opponents some insight into your decision making. So, you have to learn to play patiently, that is slowly, and to play expeditiously, that is, not too slowly.
You also should try to think how an opponent will play the hand especially in hands that you aren’t in. It will help you understand your opponents if you find one that plays too quickly for you to think thorough the hand or another who plays too slowly and makes you wait for his or her decision.
Be Sure to Respect Your Opponents
This may be the common thread in all of the categories we have covered here. If you disrespect your opponents, they will shock you by bluffing you out of a pot, by causing you to bet much too high for the pot you are in, and in many other ways prove by taking your money that you really should respect their poker game more!
Make Juicy Stakes Your Go to Online Poker Room
Juicy Stakes Poker is the perfect online venue for poker that you can control in terms of time spent playing and bankroll management. Juicy Stakes eliminates entirely the tendency to stay and play that is so common at the land based poker rooms.
We offer poker in many variations and at several stakes levels. Join Juicy Stakes NOW and discover a wonderful world of online poker!
