Hopefully you’ve already absorbed a wealth of knowledge from our poker lessons.
There’s still much to learn – in fact you’ll never stop learning about poker.
Before moving onto the next stage of your poker development let’s review some of
the typical mistakes that beginners make when playing Texas hold’em.
Although one or two of the mistakes we’re going to mention are relevant
to no-limit hold’em, the majority are applicable to all forms of hold’em,
in addition to other poker formats. Please use this lesson as a guide, so
that you don’t fall into the same traps.
The Top 10 Typical Beginner Mistakes
In no particular order, here are our top ten typical beginner mistakes:
#1 – Playing Too Many Hands
One of the main mistakes new players make is feeling like they have to play every
hand. They may become impatient, feel left out of the action or don’t want to
look weak in front of their friends. It could also be that they just don’t
know any better. Any Jack, Queen, King or Ace looks good if you don’t
The problem with playing too many hands is that you are actually only going
to hit the flop a small percentage of the time and even if you do hit the flop;
it’s hard to know if your hand is the best. Until you understand how to play
beyond the cards, you will mostly be playing based on what you are dealt and
if you are involved in too many pots, the next thing you know all of your chips
will be gone. marked cards contact lenses
#2 – Playing Scared
While some beginners play with reckless abandon, many play with fear. Having
not played many hands, new poker players are often afraid to make a mistake or
they simply are afraid to lose. Because of this they will fold until they know
they have an unbeatable hand. Fear can also manifest itself into paranoia, where
a player assumes that anyone betting aggressively must have a monster hand
(often referred to as “monsters under the bed”) and they will fold all but
the best possible hands. The only way to get over this is to log in time at
the poker tables and practice trusting your instincts.
#3 – Getting Committed to a Hand
Because of the competitive nature of poker, beginners think that poker is
like other sports where “giving up” is considered a bad thing. While you
shouldn’t play passively, poker is not like other sports and it is often
the correct play to fold. When you first start playing poker, it’s easy
to get emotionally attached to a hand. This might be a pre-flop hand like
a pocket pair or making a pair on the flop. You stay in a hand because you
don’t want to get bluffed out of a pot or look weak – or because the
competitor in you says there is no way to win if you fold. Unfortunately,
by continuously calling bets you never really know where you stand in the
hand until it’s too late.
#4 – Improper Bet Sizes
This one is primarily related to no limit and pot limit games. Understanding
how to correctly size your bets in these games to manipulate the action comes
with experience of playing poker. However, such common betting mistakes that
beginners tend to make are easy to fix. New players often raise or bet at the
extremes – meaning too little or too much. Some common examples of this are
raising the minimum pre-flop in no limit games when there are several players
who have already entered the pot or raising 5x-6x the size of the blinds when
you are first to enter a hand.
Miss-sizing of bets also occurs after the flop. Beginners will bet the minimum
with big hands (two pair or a set) when there are lots of players in the hand
allowing them to draw cheaply to a better hand. Conversely, they may also over
bet to “protect” their hand. In most cases, these are both incorrect.
Ideally, in poker you want to bet an amount that maximizes how much you can
win and minimizes how much you can lose.
#5 – Chasing
Similar to #3, a beginner will often stay in a hand hoping other cards will
appear that could improve their hand. This could include straight and flush
draws, but also calling bets in order to pair an Ace or a second card for
two pair. Calling on a draw isn’t necessarily a wrong, but the mistake that
beginners often make is chase getting improper pot odds to do so. While you
might hit the card(s) you need in one particular hand, if you are chasing
without the right odds you will lose money in the long run.
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