By Lou Krieger | Published on April 11, 2010

Poker’s Most Common Mistakes, Part 1

When I was in college, a journalism professor told our class (we all fancied ourselves future newspaper or magazine columnists back then) this wonderful truth: When you have trouble coming up with a subject for your column, make a list and all your problems will be solved.

“How many items on the list?” someone asked.

“It doesn’t matter. The subject defines the size of the list,” he said.

With that golden insight in hand, our study group tossed some less-than-scintillating column ideas among ourselves: “New York City’s Ten Hottest Hairdressers,” “Brooklyn’s Seven Best Delicatessens and Why You Should Try All of Them,” “Five Items That Will Make or Break Your Wardrobe,” “Manhattan’s Nine Most Romantic Places to Kiss,” and “A Dozen Incredible Eastside Irish Pubs.” You can make lists until the cows come home, and once you have the idea, a column based on a list just sort of writes itself.

I’ve periodically written list columns, though I try not to overdo a good thing so I don’t overuse them.

Recently I was rereading some of what I like to think are my best quotes, and came across this one: “Most of the money you’ll win at poker comes not from the brilliance of your own play, but from the ineptitude of your opponents.”

I wrote that a long time ago and still believe it fervently – so much so that it spurred me to offer up another list column in two parts: the most common mistakes made by poker players. It’s not an exhaustive list – you can probably think of three or four others for each mistake I listed here – but it’s a good start if you want to take it for what it is: A chance to review your poker game and correct any of these leaks.

#1. Immutable Standards

Beginning poker players often look for an immutable set of standards to tell them in deciding which poker hands to play and which ought to be released. Although the boundary between playable and unplayable poker hands can sometimes be crystal clear, it’s often fuzzy. While even the newest of newbies can learn to play a pocket pair of aces and throw away seven-deuce, what should our new player do with QJ in middle position if no one has entered the pot, if one player has limped in, if there’s one limper and one caller, or if someone has raised? And for each of these situations, how should you modify your tactics based on perceptions about your opponents’ relative aggression or passivity? The more layers to sort through, the grayer things frequently become, and when that happens, situational awareness is far more valuable than any set of hard and fast rules.

Because new poker players aren’t facile enough to maneuver their way through all these changing shades of gray, starting standards can serve them as a set of rules. But more experience players should think of starting hand standards as a guide that can and should be modified depending on the situation, while an expert should view starting hand standards simply as a point of departure based on his analysis of the situation, his opponents, and his perceived ability to use his chips to maneuver opponents into and out of the pot.

#2. Don’t Get too Emotional.

This is when you’re most likely to make mistakes. Try to remain detached from the poker game and bet with your head instead of your heart.

It’s all too easy and commonplace to graft sports analogies onto poker. Emotion can be a life-saver in physical sports. The ability to go all out can lead to a vital rebound in a basketball game and to a sprinter holding his form and finding victory even if he isn’t inherently faster than his foes. A bicyclist who isn’t prepared to suffer won’t win a time trial, or a bunch sprint, or a hilltop finish. What’s required is skill plus training plus the willingness to push through pain to victory.

But not in poker. The willingness to run up and over or through a brick wall won’t win many poker tournaments. It’s always a fine line between aggression and knowing when to pull back, tactically withdraw, and save chips for another confrontation. Poker is a high wire act of sorts, and unrelenting will, brute force, and the willingness to suffer won’t serve you well. You have to be prepared to drop in and drop out, take your chances with the best of it, and save your chips when the odds don’t ride with you.

#3. Avoid Playing Early-Position Hands too Assertively.

Reserve that ploy for late positions. It allows you to see what your opponents are doing. That’s when you should be more aggressive. Early position aggression is really blind ambition. You’ve no idea what your opponents have and you don’t know what they plan to do when it’s their turn to act. With each step closer to the back of the betting order, you have that much more information at your disposal about the real or purported strength of your opponents’ hands and how much it might cost you to make the play you’d like to.

#4. (Fancy Play Syndrome) Spare the Bluff.

Don’t get cute too often. If you do, you can expect to be called more frequently. Betting on a weak hand just reduces your chips. Bluff in moderation.

Too many players like to trot out fancy plays for no other reason than to demonstrate to the rest of the table just how facile, smart, sophisticated and cool they are. But many players won’t even recognize what you’re doing, and you’ll just cost yourself money. Poker expert Mike Caro labeled this phenomenon “Fancy Play Syndrome,” or just plain “FPS.”

If you must use fancy plays, use them sparingly, and only against your very best opponents. Players who have the skill to read and decipher your actions – and are good enough to be fooled by your ploy – should be your target, not weak players. An opponent who is blind to your actions won’t see what you’re up to and can’t be faked out. Against weak opponents the best play is usually the simplest: Bet your good hands and watch them pay you off.

#5. Calling When You Should Fold.

Don’t play too many hands. Most players do, and it’s probably the single most common mistake made at the poker table. After all, whether you’re playing online poker or in a traditional casino, most of your opponents – like you – love poker. They came to play, not to throw away hand after miserable hand that doesn’t warrant wagering on. Unless you’re having a rare run of extremely good hands, most of the time you should toss your starting hand away with no regrets and save your money. Marginal poker hands are the downfall of the majority of players who want to get in on the action, to play, to see if they can get lucky or make a move by bluffing opponents off the best hand.

But it doesn’t happen often enough; it only happens enough to be seductive, to lure you into playing weak hands because you want to play instead of fold. But that’s when you’re prone to making mistakes – when you play marginal, unprofitable hands. You might flop something, but the sad truth is that the best hand going in is usually the best hand coming out. So when you start second best, it’s all too easy to seduce yourself into sticking around with something that’s second best and figures to stay that way.

If you’re playing poker correctly, you’ll fold more than you raise and raise more than you call. That’s the ticket. Calling too often with mediocre and weak hands is a one-way street to a busted bankroll.

#6. Limit Your Booze Intake.

Actually, this is true for all altered emotional state – regardless of the cause. Alcohol, drugs, feeling depressed, an argument with your spouse of significant other and poker don’t mix well. Playing poker online alone can be hazardous to your wallet if you’re prone to substance abuse – or even just substance use. And stay away from those free drinks in a casino. It’ll cost you more money than you realize if you blow through your bankroll because your altered state says “call,” when your good sense would tell you to either to raise or fold.

If you must drink, do yourself a favor and do your drinking after you’ve played poker, not while engaged in the game. Your decisions do matter at poker, and when you’ve altered your logic and reasoning, your decisions don’t figure to be very good. If you must drink and gamble, do it at the roulette table. After all, your results won’t be any worse there drunk or sober because your decisions don’t matter. As long as you can crawl back to your room once you finish playing, whether you played with a clear or clouded mind won’t impact your results one iota.

#7. Poor Game Selection.

It’s all relative in poker. We figure to win if we play better than our opponents, and figure to lose if they are more skillful than we are. Game selection is critical. Good as you may fancy yourself, your chances of booking a win are scant if you’re playing against a table full of poker experts. But even if you realize that you’re just a bit above average, and not a world-beater at all, if your opponents are mostly fish or degenerate gamblers, you figure to book a win, and you can’t ask for much more than to have the best of it.

This is good reason to learn to play all games well, rather than specializing in just Texas hold’em. If you can play a variety of games, regardless of whether you’re online or playing live, you might recognize that some other game is much better than your usual hold’em game, and if you’ve taken the time to school yourself in a variety of games, you’ll stand just that much better a chance of coming away a winner.

We’ll cover the remainder of this fifteen-mistake list in the next article.