A few of the kind emails I get from people commenting on my work mention that I have a good grasp of Texas Hold’em poker and the concepts one should be aware of when playing cash games or tournaments. All that I can say is that learning how to play poker is something I continue to do everyday and every good player says this and really believes it. Although the comments are welcomed and appreciated, the truth is that the gaps in my poker game feel like chasms rather than cracks. It is very difficult for me to tell you how good I am, but I feel I am getting where I want to go in terms of improvement.

Fortunately it is equally difficult for your opponents to tell you how good they are. This means that the weaker players who you win money from will come back to the table for a combination of reasons believing they can beat the game and make money from playing poker. They will assess bad play as bad luck and therefore believe next time things will work out better for them. Often this is simply wrong, but without these types of players at your table you may be unable to win money. I never tell a player he is rubbish, or berate them for bad play even if they put a bad beat on me as I worry they may suddenly realise I have a point and stop playing. You should always give yourself the chance to win your money back.

Analysing your own play is a difficult to do. Often it is best to seek the advice of a poker coach and provide them with your Pokertracker or Poker Office database and let them look at your stats in their own time. You may have to pay them to undertake this analysis but the feedback you get especially if they spot a weakness that is losing you money could be worth much more to you than a small payment for their time and effort. A friend of mine noticed through this process that he was losing a lot of money playing pocket pairs from under the gun. Now that he folds everything apart from Queens, Kings and Aces from that position he is doing a lot better.

If you can discuss poker strategy with a good player this suggests you are technically competent. Your ability and inclination to gamble plays a part as when the pot gets bigger not everyone can play their best poker at that point. The metagame skills you have are very important as you will have guessed reading many of the other articles I have written. It is not just whether you fold, check or raise but how you arrive at those decisions and being in the optimal frame of mind to allow that decision to be made when required leads to profits.

The biggest indicator to your level of poker ability is your results. Although short term results, especially in poker tournaments, can show a high profit from a small sample size it is the ability to win money from playing poker over time that we all strive to achieve and maintain. Consistent cash game winnings point to a consistent able poker player and we all want to show our ability through winnings over time. These winnings emanate from dedication, ability, composure and persistence. All of these things are the ingredients to a good poker player, and you should spend as much time as you can improving in each and every one of these elements.

I play my online poker at bwin.com and constantly take notes, make observations about my state of mind and mental status. I know that if I play the hands the way I can play them I have an advantage over many of the players I encounter online. Poker is a game that rewards good decisions over time and only the good players make good decisions more often. You will make mistakes, but as you learn about why you made mistakes in the past and learn from them this will help fundamental errors being reduced to a minimum and then only variance will affect your short term results.

By Malcolm Clarke

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