| Any poker player who wants to
improve their game reads poker strategy articles and books. There’s certainly no
shortage of it out there, just about every poker topic imaginable has been addressed over
and over again. There must be a selection of 50 or more poker-related books at any quality
bookstore you walk into, and new articles are posted online every day. There seems to be
no end to what one can learn about poker, especially since the game and the theory are
evolving and changing as we move forward in time. All
this information can get a bit overwhelming at times. For those of you who are trying to
learn everything that you can, it can get a bit muddled at times. Often poker experts
don’t agree about some strategies, and will recommend that you do different things in
the same situation. Or that a strategy that you learned, and use in your game, is now an
obsolete way to play, and is now costing you money instead of making it for you. But this
isn’t supposed to happen. You’re supposed to be making money and winning
tournaments because you’ve been putting in the extra effort to becoming a skilled
poker player.
Well the truth is, as important as it is that you learn
poker strategy, it doesn’t mean that it will make you a winning poker player right
away. Learning strategy is only part of the equation that makes up a winning poker player.
Experience also plays a big role in your development, often teaching you lessons that a
poker book never could. Poker is a game where you eventually develop your own style of
play, and copying a style from another player you read about will only take you so far.
And let’s not forget about the big role that luck
plays in the game. Just because you know what the correct play is in a situation, it
doesn’t mean that you’ll be a winner. All players run bad and lose, despite
making all the right plays along the way. Playing with a good strategy should make you
profits over time, but will never allow you to crush every game that you play in, at any
level. And it’s true that some players do run better than others. The win/loss
variance of the game is wide enough to affect anyone to an extreme.
So don’t get frustrated if all your efforts to learn
poker theory have not produced any big returns. It could take a long time before
you’re in the right place at the right time to have a big win. Don’t get too
caught up in winning and losing, try to concentrate on playing your best game all the time
and the profits will eventually show themselves.
Poker should be fun to play. If it’s not, you
shouldn’t be playing. If you read poker strategy you understand the value of patience
as you play. You need the same type of patience when it comes to your results. Relax and
enjoy the game that you love to play, you might find that it helps. |
