Juicy Stakes Poker has published many blog posts aimed at new poker players. We have explained how online poker has major advantages over playing poker at a land-based poker room. But it all usually comes back to tips and advice for new players. So, here we will go in a 180° change of direction and talk about tips for experienced poker players.
Some of these tips may sound like tips for new players but we will show how they can apply directly to players with a few “miles” of poker under their belts.
Develop Powerful Observational Skills
We tell this to all players. New players really struggle with this one since they have very little experience observing people within a context in which the person might try to bluff them. Figuring out a bluff is very much a learned skill.
The key word here is “powerful”. We can try to observe but it is the experienced player who can develop powerful observational skills.
Paying Attention Can Enhance Observation Skills
Powerful observation requires concentration. You can actually practice concentration. In poker, concentration means being able to remember hands after they have been played. Unless you are a truly great observer, you won’t remember every hand or even a large percentage of them, but you will remember the educational hands.
Try to concentrate on the lyrics of a song. Try to recreate in your mind the supermarket you go to most often. Try to list all of the ingredients of that super tomato sauce you love. Strong concentration is hard. M. Scott Peck wrote about this in “The Road Less Travelled” when he said that it takes a lot of concentration to have a conversation with a six-year-old kid.
So, find a way to have conversations with young kids.
Play at Your True Level in Money and Skill Terms
New players are happy to play at low stakes since they usually do not want to lose a lot of money at higher stakes. Experienced players may have played hundreds or even thousands of hands and still not be ready to move to higher stakes.
The ability to move to higher stakes is not a function of experience; it is a function of objective readiness. You are ready when you are ready. A teacher once told his class, “You should know what you know and you should know what you don’t know.” Truer words were never spoken to poker players.
Stay Calm
This is also advice we give to the newest of new players. It applies to everyone. The opposite of staying calm is tilting. You never want to tilt in poker or on the road or anywhere.
A player who succumbs to tilt ends up in the unhappy place where a very famous poker player (unnamed) resides. No one wants to end up like him, blaming opponents for winning hands he feels that he should have won.
There are modern terms for people who tilt in average everyday situations. Those terms are grossly unfair to people who actually have those names but the terms are fair in the way they describe everyday tilt.
Do your best to see the bright side of every situation. There will be some situations that have no bright side. Then it is good and favorable simply to cry. Crying is an emotional way to avoid tilt which is undeserved anger.
Study
There is a world of literature about poker out there. We suggest spending as much time as you can studying poker. Keep in mind that experts in any field never stop studying. James Jackson Kilpatrick was a well-known constitutional scholar. He once observed that he reads a dozen books on the Constitution and then a dozen more and then a dozen more.
In other words, there is no end to the length and breadth of study in any field and that includes poker.
Be Confident but Not Overconfident
Confidence is a great quality to have in any situation. Overconfidence will see a person fall hard. An overconfident poker player will tag an inexperienced opponent as a chump only to see the chump win a big pot by fooling the experienced player.
Confidence means being sure that your analysis of a hand is correct. Then whether you win the hand or lose it, you can say that you played the hand well and perhaps the opponent played it better. Being able to acknowledge excellence in opponents is a sign of maturity in poker.
Confidence means not second-guessing yourself. Confidence means being happy with your choice at a restaurant even though you were also considering a different menu item.
Respect Lady Luck
Let’s say that you played the hand we’ll. Let’s say that you are a 99% favorite to win the pot. Let’s say that your opponent’s one out comes up. That’s bad luck on steroids. A disrespectful player might tilt. We know of one famous player who would be certain to tilt in that situation.
A player who knows that luck is a major part of poker will simply roll with the punches. There is only one alternative: to not play. The computer password in the movie War Games was Joshua. That computer played a series of simulated nuclear war games. At the end, Joshua said that there could be no winner; that the only good choice was not to play the game.
A player who does not respect the major element of luck in poker is a player who should play games of pure skill such as chess or Sudoku.
Know Poker Math
The old timers didn’t use poker math formally but they did know at least some poker math instinctively. When to call, raise, fold, bluff, and so on is often seen more clearly when you use poker math to understand a moment.
What works in one hand might not work in another. Still, knowing the math behind the moment can lead a player to either call, or raise, or fold a very good hand that the math shows him is not the best hand.
Poker math cannot work its magic alone. You need to analyze and observe. You need to see enough poker that you can almost rely on instinct in making a decision. Poker math often confirms your previously considered decision.
Be Grateful
Here is where being humble comes into play. Anyone who plays online poker at Juicy Stakes or at any other poker room should be very grateful to have the time and money to play this exciting and challenging game.
Playing games has been a major human activity for thousands of years but it is only in the relatively near term that a lot of people have the time and means to play games often and at length.
We should be grateful for the good health we need to play happily. We should be grateful for being able to have fun at a moment’s notice. In human history, fun has eluded many people for their entire lifetimes. So, be grateful.
Juicy Stakes Poker is Also Very Grateful
We are in the business of providing an online venue for people to play poker. As we tell players to be grateful, we have to acknowledge our own gratefulness to everyone who plays here at Juicy Stakes and to all of you who will….
