Poker Patience
To often people who play poker think poker is about gambling. What they don't understand about poker is a calculated gamble vs straight gambling.
Calculated gambling is understanding the odds of drawing the right cards, playing the position, your opponents stack and your image that you have created at the table.
Everyone knows how to bang up a pair of rockets but not many people know why the pro's seem to always win in a session.
Poker is about being right most of the time and betting consistenty to the pot odds. Then there's the added factors like what position your in, how do people perceive you.
One of the most underrated factors in poker is the table image that one creates. For instance people generally focus on getting an aggressive image at the poker table as they like their opponents to call them when they have good hands.
Now the reversal to that is if you would like to cultivate an image of being tight and only playing winners. If you can cultivate this image which takes longer by the way to do than the other more aggressive approach you can then bluff and be called far less. This is Dan Harringtons technique in which people believe him to be very tight, while in fact he exploits this image usually later on to pull off some daring bluffs.
The problem most players in poker have is patience or the reversal of this boredom. It's not fun laying down semi good cards in bad positions because this way you stay out the action. People think poker is about the bluffs and the action and while they are right, they often miss out on the most important factor. Actually having the cards and being in position to pull off those moves you see on ESPN.
The other big problem people have in poker is being to greedy. Yes, it's ok to be beat occassionally and lay those rags down, or even those cards you are pretty sure only have an outside chance of winning with.
The main factor in poker is playing your opponents hands and position. This means understanding what the likely cards are that your opponent is representing. You do this through experience and watching your opponents type of cards that they play, it also comes with situational awareness. Very often players will vary their games according to the stakes and blinds.
Pokernex will bring you more information on this in the next Poker Strategy article.
