Five Typical Mistakes of Which Every Beginner Should Be Aware
As a beginner in any field, you are given a free pass when it comes to making mistakes. However, in a game of poker, your mistakes could cost you dearly and set a vicious pattern for your future games. There are some very common poker mistakes that you should be aware of and avoid at all costs.
We have compiled a short and crisp list for you of the five most common mistakes that you could make. These mistakes are applicable to poker in general, no matter the game you choose to play. So, make sure to imprint them into your brain and stay away from the poker trap.
With further ado, let’s get straight to it.
1. Too many hands too little experience
As a novice, you may think that the more hands you play, the more action you will get. Some may even feel that if they don’t play every hand, they will look weak in front of their opponents. So, they rush at every chance they get. However, it will do these kinds of amateurs well to remember that patience is a virtue and a very important one might we add, for a poker player.
The basics of poker cannot be stressed enough when it comes to choosing good starting hands. Before choosing to play a game, a beginner must make sure their hands have enough potential to win a game.
Since you will be playing solely on the basis of your cards until you develop a better understanding of the game, your starting hand selection is more important than ever. It is only later that you will start to understand the psychology of poker and other complicated calculations involved in the game.
2. Playing in fear
The tendency to be scared of new things is as human as it gets. Now, although in most cases this is a good thing, it prevents you from falling face first, in poker, it can get a tad bit problematic. Beginners are often so scared to lose that they end up folding all the possible hands unless they are a hundred percent sure they have an unbeatable one. Although this is a sure shot way to win, it can soon turn into the end of your poker career before it even begins. This fear of losing is common and wears off after a couple of games at the tables. However, it can turn into full-blown paranoia. Assuming that your opponent is always holding a killer hand is not healthy or realistic. Unfortunately, the only way of overcoming this one is by playing it out.
3. Wrongly sized bets
In pot-limit or no-limit games, you may often be making betting mistakes that are quite easily avoidable. Betting correctly is a skill that you develop over a period with experience. Hence, new players tend to raise or bet at extremes, not knowing the correct way would be to weigh in the situation and make a decision accordingly. Most commonly, this happens in pot-limit games when entering a hand. Newbies usually raise the minimum pre-flop when other players have already entered the pot.
4. Committing to a Hand
Now, usually committing to something you believe in would be considered a good thing. However, poker is anything but usual. Committing to a hand in poker can easily be considered one of the seven deadly sins.
When starting as a freshly minted poker player, a hand can excite you, make pin your hopes and dreams to it, and suddenly, before you know it, when the time comes you won’t be able to give it up. It can happen to anyone really; it could be a pre-flop pocket pair or any other hand with so much potential. Holding onto it could be bleeding you dry, making you call bets you never would’ve otherwise. It this case, you will only realize the damage after it is done.
Beware of such hands and don’t commit to anything as a beginner.
5. Getting swept away by emotions
This one is a famous downer. Your mood affects all your decisions that you make, and emotions can spill over from one place to another faster than milk does. We all know how profitable there crying over spilled milk can be. So, it is best to keep emotions away from the tables. However, this is easier said than done. Inevitably, as a beginner, you will make rash decisions and less than wise judgments regarding the odds of hand or a pot. Poker gets intense, and your ego or attitude towards a certain player can get the best of you. The best that you can do as a beginner is to take a step back and a deep breath when you feel that your emotions are interfering with your game. This will allow you to reassess the situation, look at the bigger picture, and take stock of your game.
This is just a list of the common poker mistakes to avoid. At the end of the day, it is obvious that you are going to make mistakes. As a novice, you are entitled to them. They are expensive commodities in the trade of poker, and repeating the same mistake twice is just a shame. Each mistake presents you with a great opportunity to learn, so make sure that you do not let your mistakes go to waste.
Poker players are constantly learning and upgrading their skills, and the only way to do this is to keep playing.
So, if you are a beginner, Spartan Poker is the best place to hone your skills and find an extremely supportive community of players in India.
Spartan Poker is the safest online poker portal to play poker in India. With our daily tournaments and freerolls, you will always find opportunities to learn and improve your poker game.
Along with all our amenities, we also have a detailed guide on how to play poker to help out beginners like you, be sure to check it out!
Keep learning; keep playing.
