Profitable Hold'em Poker Isn't Just Luck
Playing profitable hold'em poker involves two important factors: skill and luck but these factors are certainly not of equal value
. In fact, luck, while important, is really nothing more than the negative side of probability showing up. If, let's say, you are dealt pocket aces. Great hand, right. You bet, but your AA will lose roughly 15% of the time. What appears to be a lucky draw to beat your aces is nothing more than the expected 15% showing up. So that leaves skill as the most important factor leading to winning hold'em play.
Play your Best Poker
Play your best poker is so obvious that it really doesn't need to be said, or does it? I think it does. What does playing your best really mean. It means playing as close to mistake free poker as is humanly possible. It means careful analysis of your hand relative to the hands of others. It means accurately calculating your odds of success and laying down hands that don't meet a mathematical standard of profitability. It means carefully observing opponents and yourself as you play, a skill requiring concentration and purpose. The simple fact is that if you leave the table and you are able to say that you played the best poker you can possibly play, that is enough.
"But, I lost money this session," you complain. So what! Whether you win or lose is not the issue. If you play your best then, over time, you will emerge a winner, however, winning is not measured hand by hand or even session by session. Hands and sessions merely represent the data in a long-term statistical pursuit, a big probability curve. Statistics are a funny thing, they always seek middle ground, the mean or average is the central point of statistical analysis. You will experience both bad beats and you will suck-out from time to time. Not only that, but for every bad beat that occurs on one side of the equation, the other side experiences the suck-out. To get crazed over the suck-out causing your bad beat is as ridiculous as celebrating your suck-out that caused your opponent's bad beat.
When stuff happens and you let it put you off your game, you start to steam or go on tilt, you give up the advantage of playing your best game. The point is, of course, that you simply can't let that happen. You can't plot to get even. You can't allow yourself the luxury of revenge or of anger. You simply play on or leave the table for a while. This happened to me just yesterday. I held a set of aces. I was playing them quite aggressively against a reasonably loose opponent. On the turn the board showed A-T-6-3. I bet the size of the pot pricing out any draws and my opponent called. I figured him for an under set or possibly two pair. The river paired the board with 6. My opponent went all in. I thought for a while. I put him on maybe a T-6, or 6-3. I even considered that he had 6-6 underneath but not for long because of the rarity of quads occurring. I decided to call with the nut full house. Oops. He had the quad sixes. I started to steam. My solution was to simply stand up. I would have cashed out had I any chips left but I didn't. I waited for a while to calm down and then returned to the tables when my concentration was back.
You don't have to Play at that Table
When I decided to quit playing I made a decision that I have learned to make over the years. If the table isn't right for you or if you are not right for the table, whatever the reason, it is time to get up. You don't have to play here. Nothing is keeping you there. The poker table is merely a place where you make an investment in order to achieve some kind of return on that investment. In many respects it is no different that investing in stocks where there is significant volatility on a daily basis. If I hold a stock that suddenly begins to tank, I am perfectly willing to sell in order to minimize my losses. The same is true for poker. I start to tank when I lose concentration, when I steam, when I am tired, when I am distracted. When any of these things occur I have learned to either take a break or simply quit and do something else.
Sometimes, especially when you decide to step up in stakes, you find your skills outmatched by the skills of players at the new level. When this happens to me and I find that I am being outplayed and losing money I remember that I don't have to play at that level and I step down to a level I know I can beat consistently. There is no shame in finding the right level for you. As your game improves you may want to step up again and find that you can now compete effectively at the higher level. Playing at the right level, the level you can beat, is something learned.
Whatever your reason for deciding not to play at a specific table, whether you are not at your best or the table is simply better than your skills allow for, by learning to step away, to make this important decision, you will improve your profitability.
by: Roger Fischel
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