Why High Rollers focus on avoiding errors

When you watch the best players in the world, it is their consistency rather than their genius that makes them an elite force in poker.

One of the best free tools for learning poker is going to YouTube and searching for final table replays of big online final tables like WCOOP High Rollers. You can watch players like Adrian Mateos and Pads do their thing, with hole cards shown.

When people follow my advice and do that, they often say a version of the same thing: "They all play so standard".

People expect to see jaw-dropping hero calls and swashbuckling bluffs, but the majority of hands look like how most players already know how to play them.

The difference between elite players and amateurs is simply that they can execute the right decision over and over, without making any big mistakes. Amateurs will have a couple of clangers a session that derail everything for them.

Consistency is what separates the elite

I once interviewed Fedor Holz for The Chip Race, and he said the key to German high roller success was, "we didn't have a perfect answer for any spot, but a good answer for every spot."

A former student of mine who is now a crusher recently told me that he gets about two crazy spots a day, and 10,000 standard spots a day. That's all poker is, especially at low to mid stakes.

So instead of magical thinking or assuming top poker requires you to increase your IQ by 20 points, simply training yourself to know what a decent strategy looks like in all the most common scenarios is all you need.

In a sport like long jump, you can make lots of mistakes, but if you nail the final jump, you win the medal. Poker is more like show jumping or golf, where avoiding mistakes is the key to success.

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