This is our third article on what makes Texas Holdem so hard to master. This time we will continue the discussion from a slightly different perspective. What if we never master Texas Holdem? Does that mean that we should stop playing the game? Our answer, of course, is a big fat NO!
Complications Wrapped in Uncertainties Immersed in the Unknowable
Well, that is an odd paraphrase of a famous quote from Winston Churchill who never played Texas Holdem online and probably never played the game at all!
On every hand and with every bet, you have to evaluate the hand from so many perspectives from the known past behavior of your opponents to the plain math of the hand.
Every analytical aspect of a Texas Holdem hand is rife with uncertainties. Some of the uncertainties point irrevocably to unknowable “facts”. Taken together, these form a large body of complications on every hand.
Is the Rake an Important Area for Consideration?
Some players do get bogged down in thinking about the poker rake instead of thinking about the hand itself. To be sure, the rake is that last thing you should ever consider when you are evaluating a hand! The rake at Juicy Stakes Poker is limited by a maximum rake on every pot.
There is so much else to consider in a Texas Holdem hand that thinking about the rake will likely cause a player to miss an important clue that might have given her or him better insight into the hand.
So, the first thing we can tell you here is to fuggetaboutit as far as the rake is concerned!
Hitting the Proverbial Wall
What happens if you “hit the wall” in your Texas Holdem abilities? Should you find a different card game to play instead—perhaps WAR or a different game that involves no analysis? Maybe you should take up coloring for adults, jigsaw puzzles, needlepoint, or another pastime that requires close attention but no deep analysis.
As we said above, our answer is a resounding NO!
What is the Key to Playing Texas Holdem at One’s Skill Level?
There is nothing wrong with playing Texas Holdem at less than master level. The single most important element in playing Holdem for fun and enjoyment is to find games with players of the same or similar skill levels as your own.
Then the game becomes a fun pastime in which you can win some and lose some and enjoy every winsome moment.
How Important are the Stakes?
At higher stakes, you often find players who are learning the game and moving up. You can also find players at somewhat higher stakes who have reached their skill limits and are playing at the stakes level best suited to their level of skill.
At higher stakes, it is important to be aware of whether the players are serious poker players who intend on playing at even higher stakes or are contented amateurs who have risen to their utmost level of skill and stakes.
If you are also a contented amateur, aware that your poker skill has plateaued, you can still have a great time playing as long as you play against similar players.
The Importance of Playing Poker Online
This is one of the many reasons why online poker is superior to poker at a land based poker room. At a land based poker room, you might not have the flexibility of being able to play against people similar to you in both stakes and skill.
Many poker players at land based poker rooms get caught up in the game to the extent that they accept playing in a game that is in truth above their skill level. This should never happen at Juicy Stakes Poker online! At Juicy Stakes, we offer so many ways to play poker that no player should ever find herself or himself in a game above their skill or stakes level.
Playing Poker Online Lets You Treat Poker Like Exercise
Everyone knows that when we begin an exercise program, we are embarking on a journey of “a thousand miles”. Real exercise starts out slow and advances as we are able to advance.
Even walking and slow jogging require a getting used to it period of time. Shin splints ae a painful reminder that you haven’t used the muscles that support your legs in an exercise mode for a long time. So, when you begin to walk or run for exercise, you start out by walki8ng one mile or running one block and building up from there.
Playing Poker is Like Lifting Weights with Your Brain
The same approach works well in poker. That’s one of the many reasons why poker at an online poker room is advantageous over poker at a land based room. When you play online, you can set a short period of time for those first few sessions as a way of getting comfortable with playing poker with strangers.
We all started out playing poker with friends. The kind of poker you will encounter in a poker room is far different than a Friday night game with friends with beer and potato chips on the table. In recent years, the wives and girlfriends have started to join in on these friendly games. Competitive poker has few of the characteristics of these friendly games.
So, playing online allows you to play for 20 to 30 minutes taking notes all the while and then evaluating the hands more at your leisure.
Playing poker in this milieu can also induce tension. Playing in short sessions at first will help a lot to teach you how to reduce the tension of a poker match.
I Never Get Bored Playing Poker
Finally, and this is a believe it or not type of insight, but poker can get boring. We all have to learn how to push through the boredom. If we have not yet learned how to push through the boredom, we will enter hand that we should fold out of before the flop.
We might stay in hands after the flop as well “just to have something to do”. In poker, we always have something to do even—some might say especially—in hands that we have already folded out of.
In politics, there is a concept called the “low information voter”. These are people who plan on voting but have very little knowledge of issues or the candidates. In short, these are voters who don’t pay attention to political matters until just before Election Day.
In poker, we have “low information players”. These are the players who don’t pay attention after they have folded. These are the people who seemingly have nothing to do so they end up betting wildly just to have something to do!
The upshot here is that poke ran get boring and by playing online, we can train ourselves over time to get used to paying close attention for long stretches of time.
All of these reasons are why we say that poker is like exercise in some very important ways.
Juicy Stakes Poker and Texas Holdem
We have reached the end of Part 3 about why Texas Holdem is so hard to master. As you can see, getting really good at Holdem or any other of the many variations of poker we sponsor here at Juicy Stakes Poker is far more than just knowing which hands beat which hands.
Poker players at Juicy Stakes have “all the time in the world” to improve their skills at their own pace. We offer poker in many variations and many stakes levels.
If you are not yet a member of Juicy Stakes Poker we urge you to sign up NOW for the finest in online poker!
