Posted in Poker January 9th, 2010
Improving in Poker by Doing What You Dislike
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If complexity means art then poker is as artistic as it gets. Philosophy is a requirement of the arts. Unless you are a robot and get your motivation for passion and achievement from an on-off switch, you will need more than just electricity. You need a philosophy, a credo, or if that makes you nervous, how about calling it imagination or perception?
Everything starts there and to learn to make yourself do what you dislike in order to improve substantially it helps to envision the task from any favorable perspective most convenient to you. For example, you might compare developing communication skills to taking cold showers: these are an unpleasant shock every time when you first begin to take them, but after a month or two (which is not at all much!) of such very brief ablutions twice a week you become, in a sense addicted, because there are definite results and pleasure involved: few things compare with hot water after 30-60 seconds of cold water.
This is true of almost any new skill that is humanly possible to acquire and that is why some people like to learn \”new things\” even though the initiatory stages are always necessarily stressful to a certain degree.
So with the analogy of the cold shower in mind, take the plunge and dive into those areas of poker that you would really rather not venture into.
The philosophy lessons ends here, and now you might consider several more general and practical tips. Hiring a professional to train you privately is one of the best ways to acquire experience and learn about your weaknesses. A private coach will also teach you to keep an effective track of your mistakes in order to learn from them.
A professional trainer can be a budget buster, but you can get the same experience and knowledge by acquiring some poker playing pals. The give and take of play with others who enjoy the game, even if their play is not so hot, will improve your technique and insightfulness. Don\’t overlook the value of online poker forums. There are some crackerjack players who love to post their knowledge and experience on these boards.
Don\’t forget to take notes. Whether on or offline, while playing the game, record your play to enable you to review the hands later and learn from this as to where you went wrong. Notes can reveal all the choices you could have made but didn\’t, putting you on to greater possibilities of alternate moves in the future. They will also help your self-introspection and will lead you to ask yourself why you made the moves you did. This skill at introspection also applies greatly to your opponents moves. You want to reach the point where you can ask these crucial questions of yourself before you make that bet or play that card.
Ask yourself the following questions during the game: What do you expect your opponent\’s reaction to be? Did he react in a manner consistent with your perceptions of him in that situation? Did he bet or raise as expected? What cards do you want him to think you are holding in your hand? Under what circumstance do you want him to call or raise?
If you continuously ask yourself questions like these, while cumbersome and difficult at first, they will become second nature. After a while, this questioning process will become a welcome challenge and this is when you become a genuine player of the game of poker.
The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at Aced Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.
This entry was posted on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at 3:57 pm and is filed under Poker. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.
