I spent far too many years at the beginning of my poker career making the same expensive mistakes over and over. Here are three lessons that would’ve saved me a small fortune if I’d learned them right off the bat.
1. Fold Big Hands
You have pocket queens and the board is jack-high on the river. After continuation betting twice, you call a small check-raise on the turn and are now facing an all-in on the river. This is a spot where, depending on the exact board texture, poker solvers fold at least half of their combinations of AA/KK/QQ. And that’s against a perfect theoretical opponent who is entirely balanced. Against your average recreational opponent, that number can be, and should be, even higher—potentially much higher. That’s because the average poker player simply doesn’t have enough bluffs in this spot. Even many decent regulars don’t. So until you’ve collected evidence on your opponent to the contrary, trust that they will fall under the population tendency of being overly weighted towards value when springing to life on the turn or river, and fold your big hands. You might lose a pot or two to a maniac on a senseless bluff, but you’ll save far more in not continuously calling down against the nuts.
2. Slow-Play Is Slow Death
The truth is that most big pots in poker are the product of bad beats, coolers, and run-of-the-mill variance. You’re going to lose (many) pots you “should’ve” won. You’re going to (regularly) run kings into aces. You’re (often) going to get outdrawn.
The only way to overcome that reality is to maximize the value of your winning hands. When you have what is clearly the best hand, your mission must be to extract as many chips as you possibly can. Slow-playing your big hands not only gives your opponents an edge in the form of getting to realize their equity cheaply against you, but it prevents you from winning the big pots that your long-term survival in the game depends on.
If you’re only getting 50% of your value with your winners but paying off 100% of your losers, it’s going to be tough to get ahead, no matter how good you are (or bad your opponent is). So when you have a strong hand, bet it, raise it, build the pot. Yes, it’ll be annoying when your opponent folds, but over time, that annoyance will be far outweighed by the joy of scooping one big pot after another.
3. Balance Is Idiotic
I used to be obsessed with being “balanced,” aka having a similar number of bluffs and value bets in each particular spot. I’d bluff into calling-stations to “keep them honest,” I’d hero-call little old ladies because I had to “protect my range.” Then a coach I was working with asked me a simple question that always stuck with me: Are you stupid?
Maybe not the most compassionate approach, but it was effective. Plus, the accusation was accurate, I was being stupid. Or at least scared.
I was so worried about being exploited, I never stopped to consider the true realities of the game. Namely, that hardly any of my opponents were paying close enough attention, or even knew how to use the few showdowns they might see over the course of a session against me. Becoming wise (or at least less stupid) was about recognizing that as long as I wasn’t facing high-level thinking players, balance was idiotic. Of course, it’s useful as a theoretical baseline, but it’s the deviations from it where all the real money lives.
These are the things I’d tell myself if I were starting all over today: play your opponent, learn to make uncomfortable folds under pressure, and squeeze your big hands for all they’re worth. That was the way to beat low stakes poker back in the day, and it continues to be the way today.
