All gambling mistakes costs you money, and this is especially true for poker and online poker games. It’s a good idea to read on and learn from other people’s mistakes, unless you want mistakes to cost you your entire betting budget.
Our first tip is to pay attention to your small mistakes. People often ignore these small mistakes as it only costs them a pot, a fraction of their total stack. Beginners often fail to take these lost pots seriously and don’t realise that these smaller mistakes happen more regularly, which means they are actually more expensive in the long term.
One mistake many poker player beginners make is to overplay their hands. Do yourself a favour and watch poker players who are very new to the game. You will notice that many of them will not even consider folding anything equal or better than a top pair. If these beginners have a pair of aces, they would never think of folding, since aces are the top pair you can have.
The truth is that the more poker you play, the less likely you are to trust marginally strong hands. The difference between the emotional effect of a novice flopping bottom 2 pair and that of a professional flopping bottom 2 is huge. While a novice might get excited when flopping a poker hand as big as 2 pair, a professional understands that it’s a sucker’s bet.
When the novice sees this hand, they know they have a big hand on this flop. There is no flush or straight on the board, meaning that they might have the best hand. Novices will usually be willing to go to town on this board. The pro, however, sees the same board and knows that there are actually only 3 options: 1. His contenders have nothing, and he or she wins the pot on the flop, a little bit more than the blinds. 2. His contenders have 1 pair, and may be willing to call a single bet. Or 3, his contenders have a bigger 2 pair or a set.
There is another mistake that novices often pick up from watching a lot of TV tournament poker matches. This is the mistake of hoping for coin flips pre-flop. Keep in mind that although TV poker can be thoroughly entertaining, it is not a good way to learn good online poker strategic play as a beginner.
Although coin flips are common in tournament poker, it is almost never a good idea to go searching for a coin flip during online poker and cash-game poker. There are various differences between cash-game and online poker when compared to tournament poker. In the late stages of a tournament, players often look for a hand with any type of showdown value (i.e. an ace, two high cards, etc.) to put it all in with pre-flop.
In cash games, however, the only hands poker players will push with pre-flop will almost always be made up of A-K and pocket pairs. Two exceptions being the rare chance of a player being on uber-tilt, or perhaps just wanting to go home.
