Keep your eyes open
Wednesday, August 12, 2009 - P0ker H0
I really love to play online poker, but one of the things I really have a hard time with is how some players handle bad beats. When a lot of players lose with what they think is the best hand, their first reaction is to berate the other player…. call him a donkey, a fish, even an idiot from northern Europe. Here are a couple reasons why I have a problem with this. One is if a player is playing bad, why do you feel it is your responsibility to tell him that his play is bad? Wouldn’t you want that player to continue to play bad? You should know that he’ll eventually lose all his chips if he continues down that path. That’s more chips for your stack! Second, just because you think what he did was wrong, might not necessarily be wrong! Poker has a lot of gray areas. For instance, if you flop top set and the Donkey flops a flush draw, when you bet and he shoves and then gets there, you want to break your laptop! However, in a lot of situations his shove was not a bad play. You have to take into account chip stacks, type of tournament you’re playing,etc. I was talking about this last Sunday with Annie Duke on the “Ultimatebet Poker Show” on RoundersRadio. She made another really good point. Annie said that when you see a player playing “bad”, try to see what he is doing well, because he must be doing something really well to compensate for what you think is bad play. After all, he’s still in the game! If you focus on the positive in what that player is doing well and forget about what he is doing bad, it will help your game. There’s a ton of information to be had. It’s always important to remember that you can even learn things from a “bad” player. It’s never too late to learn! Be a sponge, and try and soak up all that you can. This will help you take your game to the next level. See you at the tables……H0
Tags: Annie Duke, Poker Poker Poker, poker tournaments, rounders radio, ub, Ultimatebet Poker Show
