5 Poker Tips

Here’s some stuff that has helped me put some extra cash in my wallet.

Tip # 1 Here’s a great way to tell if you suck at poker (in case your not sure), Keep a spread sheet!!! Starting now log your wins and losses, dates etc… Even who you played with if you want to really keep track of what’s going on with your game. If you play a lot It’ll be pretty clear if you need to adjust your game or not, or maybe find a group of friends who are playing on the same level as you (beginner, advanced etc), cause getting as good as those guys who are consistently beating you is gonna get pricy! The school of hard knocks sucks, which brings be to my next tip.

Tip # 2  READ A BOOK!!! No not “To Kill a Mockingbird” a book on poker by someone who seems to win a lot, your Daniel Negraneaus, your Phill Helmuths, Doyle Brunson, ANY BOOK!!! These guys aren’t winning consistently because they’re lucky. They’ve been there done that and you can’t put a price on experience. So take $20 bucks and go get a poker book! Daniel Negraneau says “The day you admit you don’t know everything about poker is the day you actually start learning something”.  

Tip #3 Practice!!! Go log on to Full Tilt and open an account, try to play tournaments with your make believe chips, why tournaments? People tend to play tighter if they know that in order to cash they have to finish in the top 2 or 3. On line for fake chips people are total idiots and it becomes Bingo not Poker in “fake cash games” if anything you’ll get sucked into playing like a donkey cause “Hey, that guy just pushed all in with 7-3 off suit and won, why can’t I?” Cause you unlike him are trying to get better.

If you’re generally playing a home game with 4 to eight people in your weekly game, then don’t get all crazy in a 27 man tournament. Simulate your weekly game, use what the Pro’s told you and what knowledge you have and develop your game.

Tip#4 Set limits for yourself! Hold’em is a sick perverted game in which you are constantly trying to take other people’s money, God I love this game! But if you walk into a friendly cash game with $100 dollars be prepared to walk out without it. At the end of the night you walk to your car, cry on the way home, wonder how much of that $100 your gonna tell the wife you lost, but hey nobody made you push all in with pocket 3’s, you lost, Accept it. Even if you think you did everything right, you still are gonna have those nights. Only risk what your willing to lose.

Tip# 5 No book can teach you this one…but it is soooo important. PATIENCE!!!  If you have it then your probably a better poker player than most of your friends so cheers.

So there I am, I’m card dead, I forgot what a face card looks like and I’ve had 4-10 no less than 6 times in the last hour, well I can do one of two things, Get up and walk out or, wait for some cards. I suggest getting up and leaving but that’s no fun!  So be patient and wait for a decent hand. It also puts people on high alert that if your in a hand you probably finally got something so play that K-Q aggressively.

May the Nutz be with you!