When I look back to my early 30’s I realize that I was still making a ton of mistakes at the poker table. And you would think by this age most people would have everything together. I mean you have some life experience under your belt, and you don’t shove all in with jack ten suited just because you’re having a bad day.
But the truth is I’m not alone, which is why I want to urge any of you reading this to stop doing the same things I was. If you want to take the game more seriously you must quit making these mistakes repeatedly.
Playing Emotionally After Losing a Big Pot
I mean this is a big one. At some point you must become numb to the losses and accept that variance is going to happen. Your pocket aces are going to lose to someone going all in with pocket tens pre flop only to see a ten hit the turn. In these moments you have two options. First, accept that you just got sucked out and continue playing well, or option number two, let it ruin you.
If you look at any professional poker player and the way they approach these moments, it’s almost always with grace. They don’t start revenge playing out of frustration. They understand these things are a part of the game which is what makes all this fun. Lesson number one is that you need to become to variance.
Playing Too Many Hands Out of Boredom
Yea this is another silent killer. The reality is that you can go on long stretches of having bad hands. I’m saying the best hand you might see sometimes for an hour, and a half is 109 suited. When this happens and believe me it will you might be tempted to start playing garbage out of position just because you’re bored. If you do this too much or too often it will slowly become a bankroll killer and hurt your ROI over the long term. So, try and not play garbage hands out of boredom. You can thank me later.
Moving Up in Stakes Too Fast
Okay, I’m not saying you should never move up in stakes, but you should not blindly go up a few levels and assume you’re going to crush these guys. Sometimes what you will find is that your win rate will go way down if you move up compared to the level you were initially playing.
What I like to do is play at least 10,000 to 30,000 hands at a certain stake to see how I’m doing initially. I can at least get a baseline to see if I’m winning or lose at this stake and if maybe it makes sense to stick with it or move back down to where I was playing before. Because most of the time when you play for more money the competition will get harder. Figuring out if you’re good enough or if it’s worth it to stick it out at that stake is the smart way to do this.
Playing Too Long After My Focus Was Gone
I like to call this auto pilot poker and believe me it’s a real thing. This is where your focus is completely gone but you think I should just keep playing because I need to get more volume in. The issue is that if you stop paying attention to the little details happening in every hand that’s exactly when you lose your edge.
This usually happens if you play too long sessions that can tip over 4-6 hours at a time. I think the sweet spot for playing is keeping things right around 2 hours and then taking a break. This allows you to keep yourself fresh and not get burnt out from constantly processing hands like a robot. You must take breaks to keep your focus. This is another skill I wish I had developed earlier on in my poker career.
Lastly, Ignoring Table Selection
This was another obvious mistake I should have corrected much earlier on. But I spent way too much time trying to outplay regulars instead of finding softer games filled with recreational players making silly mistakes. Over time, I realized poker is one of the only games where you can choose your competition. Good table selection can completely change your win rate, confidence, and bankroll swings.
So instead of stubbornly staying at difficult tables, I started leaving bad games and searching for better spots. Softer anonymous player pools on sites like Ignition also helped me focus more on solid fundamentals instead of ego battles with regulars. You can see what I mean on Pokerstacked.com which describes this out nicely. But this one adjustment alone made poker far more profitable and less stressful for me.
Final Thoughts
Poker in my early 30’s was still a lot about emotions and ego. I needed to accept that I still had some leaks and that patience and emotional control were going to be my biggest leverage points. They could either work for me or against me.Because I feel that a lot of us who play this game long enough have all the skill sets and understanding of how to play in different situations. It’s just in the moments when things don’t go according to plan do we let our emotions ruin us. This is something everyone needs to work on in my opinion. But the good news is that you can always improve yourself. I would just learn to take breaks to keep yourself fresh, focus on table selection, and move up in stakes when you’re ready too. Sometimes you just must have a long-term outlook on this game and not try and brute force everything because it doesn’t usually work out the way we want it too. Because in poker and life things aren’t easy but making good decisions each time you sit at the table is 100 percent in our control.