Play Soft... Win Hard
You have spent some significant time playing poker with friends, at the local casino and now you are really going at it with some online poker. Enough time and trial has been spent at choosing your favourite site (if you haven’t found one yet check out our recommendations they are stellar!) and now it is time to start thinking about moving up in limits and overall strategy. The problem is that everything you have read online says to make sure you are really ready. Well, you are probably ready but you need to improve a few things before you head for the high limits room. Improving your online poker game leads up better results and bigger poker profits. This goal of any poker player should be an enjoyable and fulfilling aspect of the game. When even the top poker professionals are taking the time to improve their game it is easy to see how easy it is to be left behind!
Make sure you are having a deck full of fun. Seriously, there is nothing more important than enjoying what you do. You will discover that when you are excited and filled with positive energy that the winning hands will literally come your way. Now, we are not saying that you need to clown around, act the jokester or be too gregarious. What we are saying is that the happiest, most successful people are those filled with the most joy and elation about what they do as a hobby and professionally. Some of the things you can do to increase your happiness and as a result success is:
Slow down. Seriously, pace yourself and slow down. Far too often people feel like they have to immediately start grinding away at a table before listening to their own gut tell themselves that the time is right. Intuition is a great way to measure your own psyche. If you are not completely in the game then you will more than likely make mistakes. Find little tricks to help you get your head in the right place. Poker is not the type of game that you can just start throwing chips down and moving quickly. Pay attention to what is happening at the table and chill. You will have plenty of time and opportunities to develop into a winning player. It takes time.
Take advantage of the data tools that the best online poker sites offer. Seriously, the best poker players are students. They study everything and when they cannot find the answer, they go back to the drawing board. They will also take their hand history and analyse it until it makes sense to them. They learn by doing but they also learn by studying every bit of data that they can get their hands on. In addition, they will pick the brains of other players who have mastered that particular dilemma. Remember, hand histories and betting histories are part of a poker player’s tool chest. Use it.
Be poker ready! If you are not sure what that means then just bare with us. First of all, most people who play online poker play at home. It is close to impossible to be a player who is seeking ways to improve their game if they are also watching the football game, checking out a dating site, fixing dinner for the family or communicating on some social network site. Keep your focus on your game. Make sure you have paper and a writing instrument so that you can make notes to yourself as you go along. You have to be fully focused, attentive and poker ready. Also keep in mind that, as you progress on you will find that you can mildly multi-task as you get more fluid as you improve.
Start out single! No we are not suggesting that married people or those in a relationship cannot play poker. We mean start out at a single table. Multi-tabling is really a multi-tasking experience that should be relegated to the experienced player. Even those who are used to doing many tasks online at one time will find it difficult. It is very important to avoid throwing precious money away until you have a good grasp of the technical side of online poker. As you grow in confidence then go ahead and try some low-limit multi-table poker.
Start out low - low limits that is. Don’t be fooled into believing that because you can deposit a large sum of money into your new online poker account that you have to play high. Let it last. After all you aren’t going anywhere right. Longevity is the key. It is awesome to take advantage of welcome bonuses and other lucrative bonuses but really that has little to do with playing low limits. Equally, the fact that maybe you don’t have a lot of money to deposit should not deter you from getting started. Many of our highly recommended sites welcome low deposit players. The main purpose of playing poker online is to get really good at the game, take advantage of the many personal benefits of playing poker and then build up your bankroll.
Focus on choosing good poker positions. Many poker pros will tell you there is nothing more important that table position. Sitting in an EP-early position when you are not a skilled player could prove to be disastrous. Sitting in an MP- middle position might not be a bad place to play when you are starting out because you will get to see how both ends of the spectrum function. The best position to sit is the LP-late position for a wide variety of reasons. Most importantly learn from others. Watch the poker professionals and more experienced players. How do they use their seat position to take advantage of other players?
No matter how you choose to improve your game, improving your game is the name of the game. There is not a WSOP winner that is not constantly focused on improving his or her strategy and advancing their overall skill.
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