“Poker is a game of mistakes”

Some Frequent Mistakes

As players move from beginner to intermediate play, they are invariably confronted with a wealth of information: the plays that succeeded, those that failed, all the time they folded the best hand, and conversely the time they busted when they couldn’t lay their hand down…

Experience and analysis help figuring out what works and when it does, but till then the trial-and-error approach can be pretty damaging to one’s bankroll. This article explores some of these frequent mistakes, and hopefully you’ll be able to save some bucks if you’re still in the learning stages of the game.

Being Predictable

It could be said to be the root of all poker’s evils. If you are predictable, you make it extremely easy for your opponents to know where they are in the hand, whether they are ahead, or can draw, or should fold. In other words, they can play close to optimally against you.

Naturally, nobody thinks he’s predictable, since it’s obvious it’s a huge weakness. Nonetheless, you may follow some betting patterns without even realizing it. Suppose you raised preflop, and bet a mildly connected flop, say, with a possible flush draw (you don’t have it). Some predictable players would make their standard half-pot continuation bet if they missed it, but would resort to a full pot bet if they actually hit the flop, so as to “protect” their hand against the draw. An observant opponent could easily pick up this variation in the betting amounts, and act accordingly.

As a matter of fact, several of the following frequent mistakes can be seen as a consequence of predictability. Therefore, it is important to always ask oneself if a play tips one’s hand off. Try to imagine your twin brother is in your opponent’s shoes: could he figure your hand out?

To be seen as predictable is not necessarily a bad thing, if you manage to exploit this image to your benefit. This is called deception, another key concept of poker. As for now, try to avoid making automatic plays, and you’ll make life significantly harder for your opponents.

A Wedding And A Funeral

Good starting hands don’t come that often in holdem, so naturally you shouldn’t fold them at the first sign of resistance. Yet, it is absolutely crucial to realize that these are only two cards from a five card hand, chosen from seven if the hand goes to showdown. Yes, most of these cards are common, so this is very different from, say, draw poker — but it’s always possible to be up against two pairs, a set, or an even better hand. Therefore, it is essential that you be able to fold a good starting hand if things turn sour.

A mistake most beginners have made is the classic “AK Beginner’s Big Bluff”: you get AK preflop (wow, great hand!), raise it big time, then completely miss the flop. How cruel, your hand probably isn’t worth much now! But you won’t let it go at that, and decide to represent aces. After all, you could have them, right? So you move in, to make your opponents fold, and even if someone calls, you still have outs.

Unfortunately, this play is characteristic of many beginners, and it’s often not difficult for your opposition to figure what happens: you have AK, and you cannot lay it down. Of course, there are many other examples, like a pair of jacks on a K-high flop, for instance. At the other end of the spectrum, there are the “any ace” hands, and overplaying them generally costs a lot.

The bottom line is, many beginners put way too much emphasis on their starting hand, and fail to properly evaluate their hand after the flop. This is understandable, since so many books advocate a tight play, offer charts for starting hand requirements, and so on. Yet, most of these books deals with Limit HE, not PL nor NL. At Limit, hand selection is even more important, and furthermore it is alright to be much more stubborn with one’s hand than in big bet poker.

A last explanation relates to tournament poker. In this format, many adjustments are necessary, comparing to ring games. One of them concerns the blind structure: since the blinds periodically increase, the players don’t have the time to wait for the best circumstances, and the more pressure there is, the more chance they should take to stay alive. Consequently, playing it all on a dubious bluff isn’t always a bad strategy in a tournament. But in a ring game, you have all the time you need, so many of these moves aren’t justified.

Too Good To Fold

This is a variation of the previous point: beginners tend to fail to re-assess the value of their hand in face of action. This does not necessarily involve a good starting hand; it can be a very speculative hand, or even trash, that hit a favorable flop — say, it hit two pairs. While this is a good hand, it is far from invulnerable, and if your opponent bets and raises like there’s no tomorrow, you should start asking yourself if you really have the best hand here. Unfortunately, this is something beginners often fail to do, and once they make a hand they like, eg. top pair top kicker, they are often ready to die with it, even if the pot went from $20 to $400 in the meantime, and all alarms have been going off.

This is probably due to the fact that beginners are not used to play with deep stacks, especially if they mostly play tournaments. If you have a pretty short stack, like, big enough for three raises, when a player begins to smell a rat after strong action, it’s generally too late since he’s already deeply committed in the hand. But in ring games with decent stack sizes, it’s a whole different story.

Improper Short-Stack Play

This is again related to tournament play: some players either buy-in short in a ring game (i.e. they take only a fraction of the full buy-in), or they lose several pots and end up short-stacked. In a tournament, you are generally under severe pressure when you are short-stacked, so you know you’ll have to make a move sooner or later. Hands like A7 may well be worth an all-in raise, so as to grab some chips asap.

But again, in a ring game, this is completely unnecessary, since the blinds just won’t increase. When you overbet the pot all-in with a hand like Ax, you give a cheap chance to your opponents to call if they have you beat, and fold otherwise. If you do this on a regular basis, you are a strong favorite to lose your stack!

Depending on the room, you’ll see more or less short stacks at a given stake: they are often players from smaller stakes who take a chance for a quick “hit-and-run”, since doubling up would mean a lot to them. Just make sure to identify the “tourney players” at your table…

ScaredFace

Poker is also a game of intimidation, and beginners often fall short in this area. Raising preflop when it’s possible to miss the flop, betting on the flop when you don’t know what you’re up against… There are almost always risks in poker, and this scares many players. Scared players hardly ever raise, or make small raises, sometimes of the minimum allowed amount. On a $.5-1 NLHE table, they would raise to $2. On the flop, they would bet $1.

There are many problems with this strategy. First of all, they give great odds to everybody. This is a shame to lose with AQ because you failed to make a hand like 95 fold. Second, they actually play fairly passively, even if they believe that they bet and raise as they should. This means their opponents are in the driving seat to make the pot bigger or smaller as they need, depending on the situation.

Third, when these players are raised, they don’t know if this is a simple epidermic reaction to their small bets, of if this means they are beat. Thus, they are often going to call to see that you have the goods, and this is terrible poker.

Poker is a game you can’t play if you’re afraid to bet, or afraid to lose. Make sure to play for stakes that don’t intimidate you, and be ready to bet convincingly each time it’s necessary.

Busted Draw Bluffs

This is somewhat the antithesis of the preceding flaw: some players are too liberal with their bets, raises and bluffs. They generally picked that habit playing against scared players, as they noticed that throwing chips at their opponent’s face can be quite effective, whatever they have themselves.

However, what works against some players doesn’t work against everybody. A classic example is the full pot bet on the river, when a possible draw failed to complete. The bluffer played pretty passively up to then, and suddenly wake up with a big bet at the river. This can mean several things, like a lucky two-pairs, but this can also well be a pure bluff, depending on your opponent.

You have to be observant to know who likes to bluff at your table, because some players will almost never try to bluff in some spots, while some others will try to rob you very frequently. This is the first criterion. Then, you need to assess if the betting makes any sense. This is often a weakness of the frequent bluffers: they throw chips without paying attention to whether their actions make sense as a whole. Sometimes, there is almost no hand your opponent can have that justify a final pot bet.

There is definitely a touch of satisfaction in winning a pot with nothing, and some beginners overindulge once they have tasted it. Don’t fall for this trap, and be sure to make the percentage calls when playing against them.

Chasing Without Odds

Knowing the fundamental odds is vital at poker, whatever the game. Some players seem to ignore them, arguing that poker isn’t about “maths”, while some others do know them, but fail to play accordingly.

Straight and flush draws are the most frequent cases. With two cards to come and no further betting, the draws are about 2:1 to complete. This doesn’t sound that bad, and a chance to make a strong hand can be quite enticing. Yet, it is important to understand that if there is money left to bet, you are probably going to face another big bet on the turn if the draw didn’t complete, so you won’t see two cards if you call on the flop, but just one. In fact, you’ll have 2:1 pot odds (supposing full pot bet) on the flop and the turn, for a 4:1 shot each. Losing proposition.

If you go all-in, you’ll see two cards for sure — but at what cost? If you raise and reraise all-in, say, for $50 in a pot initially containing $6, you are effectively getting 1.1:1 on a 2:1 shot. Not good either!

Sometimes, you can make a dubious-looking call, if you suspect you can win an even bigger pot if you complete your hand. This is called implied odds. For instance, you can call a bet on the turn with a concealed draw if you believe you’ll win a huge pot if it gets there. But if your opponent wouldn’t call any significant bet against a possible completed draw, or, even worse, if you or he don’t have enough money left for a big bet, you “mechanically” don’t have enough implied odds to justify a call, and this is a losing play.

Similarly, if you call preflop raises with speculative hands, like suited connectors, you need to make sure the respective stacks are deep enough so that you can win a nice pot if you hit — and since you are a good dog to hit, you have to be able to win a very nice pot when you do. Winning three times your initial call when you hit trips isn’t going to cut it!

Final Words

These mistakes are naturally only the tip of the iceberg, since “poker is a game of mistakes”, as some say. However, it is logical to plug the biggest leaks first, and these ones are certainly in good place in this regard.

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