Long Run Mind Set: A Must In Poker

Success in poker is sustained if you know how to distinguished a good from a bad decisions. If you are good in making better decisions then you will conquer your opponents, if not you will lose a lot of chips and of course money.

Decisions in poker has a long term expected value or what they called EV. A decision has an expected value of winning or losing in the average of playing poker. An example would be playing in a limit Hold’ Em poker with $10/$20 limit. When you bet your nuts on the river you’ll expect to have a positive expected value +EV of $20 each time you made that move. Nevertheless, Folding your Big Blind will make you a negative EV (-EV) of $10 and you will lose $10 every time you make that decision.

But that’s not all. The -EV$10 example is not that simple. In case you lose $3 in the big blind every time then your expected value of folding any hand is -$7. But if you lose $12 a hand in the Big Blind then your EV everytime you fold would be +$2.

Why do a lot of poker players make bad decisions? This is because they focus in their short term success rather than the long one. They assume that luck is the force behind their winnings and they never thought that EV is an important component in poker. What they don’t know is that fortune is a fickle mistress. One moment, you are extremely lucky and you race ahead and the next moment, you could be the least fortunate person under the sun.

Are you aware that even the most excellent poker player has mistakes? This mistakes are not really visible but they are there. There are some players who have a tendency to place heavy bets after tasting a bit of luck and great hands. There are some who only use one sort of strategy that their opponents are already familiar with it. And others don’t understand the importance of tactics in playing at all.

The most important thing to do while playing poker is to make good decisions. Bad decisions will only make you lose in the long run and you don’t want that to happen.

But this idea has been misunderstood by some. They think that luck has everything to do in their winning and they think that when they win , they have already made a good judgment. But they are wrong. Having won a hand does not mean that you’ve already made a good decision. If you have a positive expected value in the long run then that’s what you call making good decisions.

Poker should be approach as a long term game where in a player should not focus on what they win or lose in the short run. Luck is a good distraction so you must try to focus in making the right decisions a little bit harder. Don’t let bad luck ruin your concentration. You only need to have a purpose in playing and that would be sparing your money for the hand that you have a good chance of winning.

When playing poker don’t depend on hunches. Don’t forget the game’s strategies. People who focus on the results and not on the decisions made in making a good result are called results oriented and that’s not a good thing to do. They think that their winning can justify the way they got the money.

Another thing to remember is that your opponents mistake will make you more money that the way you play.

This concept is very important. The more your opponent make mistakes, the greater the chance that you are going to win the game. You’ll going to be a champ in poker if you make the least mistakes. So if I were you, I’m going to play with poker players who are weaker than me.

This example is not limited to Hold Em but to all other kinds of poker games. If a person plays with people who have limited skills then he only commit minor mistakes its a probability that the player will win more.