09 Dec 11

Do Not Play Robotically - The Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker Excerpt

We have another exclusive excerpt from PokerStrategy.com Coach Jonathan Little's first book, The Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker Volume 1.

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When you play online, it is easy to fall into a routine in which you always play a specific starting hand the same way. It is easy to stop thinking about your opponents and only pay attention to your cards.

You must constantly analyze why you are making a decision. If you start ignoring information, such as your opponent’s pre-flop raise percentage or stack size, you will start making mistakes.

Eventually, you will go into autopilot, which will turn most profitable players into break-even players and most break-even players into huge losers.

This doesn’t just happen to online players, either. If you play live tournaments and focus on things other than the poker game, you can easily go into autopilot as well.

I have been guilty of falling into a robotic playing style. For about three months a few years back I decided to work on my full-ring game by multi-tabling cash games online. I start playing nine tables, which I had no problem with. After a while, I was playing 24 tables at the same time.

While I was still winning a small amount of money, it wasn’t improving my poker game. I was just mindlessly grinding.

The whole reason I play the various forms of holdem, like sitngos, six-handed cash games, nine-handed cash games, etc., is to become a better all-around holdem player. I don’t play these games to make money, even though that is a nice side benefit.

If you aren’t focusing on the game, you are basically playing to pass the time. If you want to improve your game, play few enough tables that you can still concentrate on what is going on. You must be able to follow every hand and actively put each player on a range.

You need to pay attention to every detail about the table while you are playing, such as your opponent’s statistics, everyone’s stack size and the payout structure if you’re playing a tournament.

Some players can only do this while playing four tables at a time. I find that once I play more than nine tables or so, I shift to autopilot. This problem has a simple solution. Don’t play more tables than you can handle without playing like a robot.

In live poker, don’t do things that can distract you from the game, such as watching sports or texting on your phone. If you actively put players on ranges and generate reads, your poker skill set will grow rapidly.

The Secrets of Professional Tournament Poker Volume 1 by PokerStrategy.com coach