To Be Good at Poker Ignore These 3 Pieces of Advice

I’m a man who loves to use quaint sayings; or maxims, adages, mantras, proverbs, or whatever else you wish to call them. Really, what’s not to love about quick little sentences that can sum up an entire experience?

It certainly seems like we have a saying for just about everything, whether it’s a self-esteem booster like “beauty is in the eye of the beholder,” or a behavioral warning like “people who live in glass houses shouldn’t throw rocks, “these sayings always convey your point and seem to be applicable to just about any situation.

One place you’ll certainly find a lot of these old adages is at a poker table, but it’s at a poker table where certain popular sayings don’t ring true, such as the following three.

If you want to be the best you have to beat the best

In a poker game this is wrong on so many levels.

For one thing, there really isn’t a “best” in poker, or a way to quantify the best players. The best way poker players have of keeping score is by money won, and the best way to win money at a poker table is by playing against inferior competition.

In poker if you want to be the best you should do everything in your power to avoid playing against the best players.

It’s not over until the fat lady sings

You know those cartoons with the phrase “Don’t give up” where a bird is swallowing a frog and the frog is holding the bird’s throat in an effort to stave off the inevitable? Yeah, well get it out of your head while you’re playing poker.

In poker the best play is quite often to simply give up. When you’re a long shot to win a hand and your opponent fires out a bet the right move is to fold, not to give it the old college try and see if you can catch lightning in a bottle.

In poker there is only a single winner, and the second place finisher loses the most money.

You miss all the shots you don’t take

I love this saying but when it comes to poker it really doesn’t apply in a general sense.

While you’re playing poker and find yourself in specific situations it’s important to take calculated risks and be aggressive, but when it comes to things like game selection and bankroll management it’s often best to just pass up the shot and wait for a better one.

At the poker tables you should pretty much ignore this adage, since the whole game of poker is built on missing:

• you will only 1 or 2 out of every 10 pots you play
• you will only win about 50-60% of your sessions
• you will only win about 1 out of 100 tournaments depending on the number of entrants and your skill level

If you try to win every pot and every session and every tournament you’ll be broke very, very quickly.

In poker there is always another shot coming just around the corner.