Poker Improvement: Doing What You Don’t Want To Do

Any creative art requires a philosophy. The game of poker, with all its complexities, is an art form. If you are a droid, all you need is an on-off switch to get you going. If you are not, you will need certain human qualities to motivate you to achieve your purpose and that which you love. Obviously, few of us would consider ourselves philosophers. But that isn't required - what is required is a creative imagination and powers of perception.

Imagination and perception are the springboards to allow you to force yourself to do that which you don't like to do. These two concepts will enable you to view the unwelcome chore from a more favorable perspective. Think of comparing the somewhat abhorrent task of developing communication skills with taking a cold shower. The cold shower will shock your system and turn you off of them completely. But with repetition, over a few weeks of taking them one or two times a week, you actually may look forward to the occasion and you won't give them up. It becomes a challenge to step into the shower, but it will wake you up, and the warm water feels so good after the cold.

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, again using the cold shower situation as a guide, it is time to tackle what you dislike about the game of poker.

So much for the philosophical side, it is now time to consider some more general and pragmatic advice. You might hire a professional coach to teach you privately where you can acquire experience without the embarrassment of more learned opponents making fun of you. The coach will also point out your weaknesses and mistakes so that you can learn from them - weaknesses and mistakes that you may not be aware of without outside intervention.

If the cost of a professional trainer is too much for you, the alternative is to acquire poker friends: sincere and frequent arguments even between average players significantly improve logic and perceptiveness. You may also want to be a member of poker forums. Very good players often post and share valuable experience via online forums.

Keep notes. Even during offline games, note down your games so that you can review it later the better to realize where you did wrong and remember it. Notes help you realize that there are often more possibilities that you might first think. They help acquire the keen self-consciousness necessary to learn to ask yourself why you made the move. The same applied to the moves of your opponents. And it is a sign of significant progress to be able to ask yourself those crucial questions before you make the move.

What reaction do you expect from the opponent? Is that expectation, dictated by the current situation, consistent with what you have managed to learn about the opponent? Can that bet or raise evince the expected reaction? What hand do you want him to think you have? In which specific cases do you want him to call or raise?

Learning to ask these questions of yourself on a regular basis may seem tedious and difficult. Pretty soon, though, you will find it a challenging and addictive process. Now you are a poker player for real.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives NoiQ Rakeback as well as Minted Rakeback.

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