10 Critical Texas Hold'em Mistakes to Avoid

Hello,

Playing winning poker is about having a proper strategy. There is a lot of money to be made from online poker if you have the correct strategy.

If you want to develop a strategy that is disciplined and allows you to take advantage of other player's mistakes then take a look at the Winning Poker Strategy Course on the Poker Professor website.

The first step however is to make sure that you don't fall into the traps of the common mistakes that a lot of online players make. See below for a quick guide to avoiding these critical mistakes.

Mistake #1 - Playing Poor Starting Hands

It's imperative that you play the correct starting hands and that you have a proper starting hands strategy. By doing this you enable yourself to enter the pot only when you have a good chance of winning it and you are giving yourself good odds to win the hands that you play in.

A good example of a starting hand strategy is in our free Winning Poker Strategy Guide. This strategy is devised from studying the results of millions of poker hands and coming up with a proper ranking of hands by looking at how often that starting hand won the pot.

By playing with this strategy you are playing hands that have a high percentage of coming out the winner. Too many people play all sorts of cards like J-7 or 10-7 and they are relying on pure luck to come out a winner rather than playing with the odds in their favour.

Mistake #2 - Being Impatient

This follows on from Mistake #1 and your starting hand strategy. When cards are not coming your way then don't get impatient - carry on waiting for the hands you want to play and don't relax your starting hand requirements.

Losing poker players are normally big offenders to this mistake. Make sure you focus on being patient and you will be a winning player and live to play another day.

Mistake #3 - Folding and not Checking

Now this might seem like a really silly mistake to make, but I see it every single day people folding their hand when they have the option of checking! There is absolutely no reason to do this - you are potentially missing the opportunity of free cards and making a winning hand. Never fold when you have the option of checking!

Mistake #4 - Not Reading the Cards

You have to develop the art of reading the cards on the table and being able to identify what potential hands are out there and which can beat you. If you are holding pocket 7's and the flop comes down 6 7 9 don't get overwhelmed by the fact you have just hit a set, you need to be able to identify that there is a possible straight on that has you beat and act accordingly.

Be aware of all possibilities and then you won't play like you've got the nuts when in fact you haven't. I'm not saying that you should fold just because there is a possibility of a hand that beats you, but you need to take that factor into consideration when making your decisions.

Here's a section of the Winning Poker Strategy Guide that talks about analysing the cards on show.

Mistake #5 - Not Selecting The Most Profitable Table

This is not something most poker players consider - but it can give you a big advantage. If you don't take a few moments to select the best table to play at then you are putting yourself at an immediate disadvantage.

Take a look at this section of the Winning Poker Strategy Guide to see the criteria you should be looking at to identify the most profitable tables.

Conclusion

So there's the first 5 of the critical mistakes to avoid as a poker player. Keep your eye out tomorrow for the remaining 5 mistakes to avoid.

Regards,

The Poker Professor
www.pokerprofessor.com
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P.S: The Winning Poker Strategy Course is a completely free resource, just like everything on Poker Professor