Confidence: THE key to winning play? An epiphany, of sort..

Let me sum up this post in one line:

"Every time you win a hand without showing down, it doesn't matter what you held."

I've heard that a lot. Of course, it's true.

The epiphany I've had is simply the fact that I have held a GREAT hand and won without showdown so many times that I am starting to possibly understand why confidence may be the single most important aspect in winning play.

Some people tout aggression as the key to winning poker - but aren't you aggressive because you are confident? Isn't that what really makes you bet / call / fold the way you do? You are confident in your hand and you push it.

God. I can't even put into words what I'm trying to say, but it can be realized by doing an experiment. Count the number of pots won without showdown when you *KNOW* you had the best hand (to the best of your knowledge) and the # of pots won without showdown when you weren't sure you had the best hand, or you were repping / bluffing. It would be interesting to see the numbers.

This isn't really coming across as clearly as I am personally understanding it now, but are you getting the jist of what I'm saying?

I'm feeling like it's a "waste" of a good hand when you win and no one gets to see it - you may as well have had poopscoop.. But - What made you win the hand? Was it the confidence of knowing you had the goods and how it translated into your playing?

Sorry if this seems like ramble scramble. Did I make any sense at all?

I agree somewhat, but consider this:

A lot of the hands you win without showdowns are when you have the only (or one of the only) hand that would be making that bet, and therefore no one else could have it(or it's way less likely that they have it). Examples of this include big flushes when you are holding the ace or king. You will win a hand like that without a show down a lot of the time. You still need the cards to do it, because if you don't have them, someone else might. Moral: It's easy to be confident when you have the cards to back it up. It's sometimes stupid to be confident when you don't have the cards, because the other guy does.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Robert Tiltin'

Some people tout aggression as the key to winning poker - but aren't you aggressive because you are confident? Isn't that what really makes you bet / call / fold the way you do? You are confident in your hand and you push it.

---

Aggression isn't the winning recipe. If that were the case then maniacs would rule the day. As you know they bust all day long. Maniacs are just unsuccessful Loose Aggressives.

A winning poker player who appears aggressive or maniacal has actually become a skilled Loose Aggressive.

To put it short.... a successful aggressive poker player has superior reads.

Confidence stems from your ability to read the board and your opponents. Once you master that, it puts you on a different level.

Confidence alone will not win. It has to be confidence extracted from a superior reading ability.