One of the first rules of poker is that when you get started, you need to play hard, you need to play strong, and you need to play long. What do we mean by this? You will need to really step back and dive into poker in a way that’s aggressive — especially if you really want to earn big money. It’s too easy to end up not getting the money that you deserve because you got lost along the way.
As you might have learned already, poker is more than just cards. It’s about the battlefield of the mind, and how much control you have over your own emotions. It’s too easy to end up making decisions in poker based on your gut and your heart rather than your head. There are times where gut decisions make sense, but most of the time you will need to be logical. There are people in the world of poker that will be preying on any and all of your weaknesses, so the best betting tips that you can learn is simply this: you don’t want to take anything in poker seriously.
The truth is that you will need to make sure that you don’t take anything seriously because people will turn it against you. They will make it hard for you to do anything in the world of poker because it will immediately become obvious that you’re someone that can’t control their own feelings.
When you start feeling like you’re getting too serious about the game, you need to step back. Analyze your hands and really think about what your goals are in poker. Are you playing for fun? if so, then you might want to step back from paying for real money for a while, at least until you’ve really gotten a chance to think about the weight of your decisions. Sometimes it can be helpful to take the money equation out of it and just play for chips and maybe a few prizes rather than making it a serious money venture. Yes, you can make big money in poker but that definitely takes time to really learn the game big time.
If you’re really feeling raw, remember that poker isn’t just about cards — it’s also about people too. It can be helpful to really take your time and spend time off in the community boards. You can talk strategy if you want to, but some people like to get away from poker while still being around people that understand all too well what they’re going through.
That’s right — veteran poker players can sometimes take it personally when they lose the game of poker. It means that you don’t want to think that you’re the only one that goes through it. You’re definitely not alone. In fact, it’s safe to say that there is a phase during your poker learning time where you’re going to take every defeat personally. It’s the ones that manage to get out of this phase through clear thinking that actually manage to do more than just sit and complain about how things aren’t fair.
So when you start sliding towards high emotions, remember this: you don’t want to take online poker personally! Now go play!