Poker Strategy: Poker Psychology
The power of the mind in poker: There is no spade.
It’s well-known among poker enthusiasts that using psychology to get inside the head of your opponents can really give you an edge over them. What some people forget though is that it’s equally important, if not more so, to understand how your own psychology plays a role in your results. Many people who have solid overall strategies nevertheless fail to live up to their potential as players due to a lack of emotional control. Tilt – including “winners tilt” – the desire to get “unstuck” while in the midst of a losing session, playing while tired, and off-table habits can threaten your ability to earn a profit from poker. The articles below discuss some of the psychological problems that affect poker players and ways of dealing with them. Before long, you’ll be able to make calm, dispassionate decisions, and you’ll therefore be able to play your A game for extended periods of time.
Featured Poker Psychology Articles
Most Recent Poker Psychology Articles
Bust-Out Blues
It’s happened to all of us at one point or another. Even the great Phil Ivey went bust several times before hitting his stride. Rather than beating yourself up over it, take your bust-out as an opportunity to learn. But before you leap right back into the action, take a few minutes to consider how you want your comeback to go down. Will you make the same mistakes you did the first time around?
The Principles of Performance for Poker
You can make it much easier to improve your poker game by following a few easy guidelines. Your problems as a poker poker are but a reflection of your problems in life and vice versa. With the proper level of self-awareness, you can set about successfully improving your play.
The Psychology of Losing
You can’t win every hand or tournament when playing poker. But an extended losing streak can often have severe emotional repercussions that may compound over time, causing you to lose even more. Learn how to break out of the cycle and start winning again.
Finding the Motivation to Improve at Poker
Poker motivation can be difficult to find to say the least, and having a strong support system is one of the best ways to keep pushing forward.
Your Bankroll and You
There are many things that are important in Poker; your position during a hand, your starting hand (cards), your opponent tendencies, the odds for a certain draw to hit, how that draw fares versus your holding, bluffing opportunities, recognition and exploitation of...
The Greatest Obstacle in Poker
I really do not think that reading poker books or watching coaching videos can prepare you one hundred percent for the mental trauma that professional gambling can throw at you. There are many similarities with regards to poker with many other fields and one such...
Understanding the Importance of Shania (theory post)
I think I just had a really cool epiphany. Danny and I just watched the new movie 21 tonight (meh). Obviously, when two poker players see that movie there is going to be some gambling discussion afterwards. One thing lead to another and I brought up the subject of why...
An Easy Guide to Exploiting Your Opponents
By paying close attention to your opponents’ actions at the poker tables, you can get pretty solid reads on their play. Using this information, you can make some of your ranges stronger while making others weaker in order to seriously exploit your foes.
Nine Noobie Myths About Microstakes NLHE
I feel like tons of the noobies in the BC have serious misconceptions about microstakes poker. Here are a few I’ve seen lately. 1. The micros are just too fishy to be beat for any decent win rate. 2. The micros are too hard to be beat since UIGEA. 3. The FTR...
Tilt and Why
Rondavu re-evaluates the psychology of tilt and why it occurs. Another Look at Tilt I’m going to explain tilt the way I understand it. I hope it rings true for a lot of you, as it does for me. We are flawed as humans. One of our major flaws is detrimental to...
Poker Goals
There are several similarities that you can find between the game of Poker and Life in general. One of these would be to compare a poker player to a major league baseball pitcher. Every at bat is a world on itself, and you have to keep a cool head through all of them....
Bless the Beats
It’s never easy to shrug off a losing session. We’ve all taken our share of beats, both good (if there is such a thing) and bad. Sometimes, they can effect us so deeply that they permanently alter the way we play. But, even in the midst of these trying ordeals, there are lessons to be learned. Each hand we lose becomes a teaching opportunity, and the careful student of the game will gather up these bits of knowledge like so many invisible chips. Here now are some of the best ways I’ve found to recover from a rough stretch at the tables.
The Efficient Frontier of Poker
euphoricism recently made a post entitled The biggest money-making secret in poker. https://www.flopturnriver.com/poker-strategy/biggest-money-making-secret-in-poker-19084 I’m not going to rehash it here (read it if you haven’t already – it’s...
Making Our Strategies More Robust and Avoiding Auto-Pilot
You shouldn’t play the same way against all opponents. By considering how strong or weak you want your ranges to be in certain poker situations, you can get the best of your adversaries. Learn how to modify your default ranges for increased profits.
3 Extremely Useful Methods to Recognizing a Read
Goal: to know the cards of your opponent. If you can obtain that information (through legal and accepted means!), you are on your way to making a lot of money. The study of reading your opponent is a never ending endeavor, because making your reads is going to be...
