Another common mistake that new poker players make is to concentrate entirely on what cards they are holding. That may seem to you to be the right thing to do, but in reality your own cards are the very last thing that you need to concern yourself with.
Consider this scenario: You are in the last seat, the dealer is on your left, you are the last to act. You look at your cards and you are holding the best cards you could hope for – pocket aces.
The action goes round the table to find a few players fold and one or two flat call. On your turn to act you made a reasonable bet of three or four times the size of the big blind. The blinds fold quickly followed by those players that had called initially. You take the pot unseen and curse your luck for getting no action on your premium hand.
Ok, now consider the same situation with one difference; you find yourself in the same position holding a nine of clubs and a two of diamonds (in other words, rubbish, rags). What if you acted as if you were holding aces? When you had the aces everyone folded, what would happen if you three or four bet now? If you do it properly,m then the same result should ensue – you take the pot unseen.
Now that is not such a bad scenario is it? Taking a reasonable pot with nothing in your hand sure can feel pretty good.
The only real difference here is what your cards were. And you were the only one to know what they were. So from everyone elses’ point of view both situations are exactly the same.
The point I am trying to make here is that if you paid attention to what was happening at the tables you wouldn’t need great cards a lot of the time. Heck, you wouldn’t even need to know what your cards were. If you could get a reasonable read on the other players at the table, you would be able to spot dead pots like this one – pots that no player had the cards or the interest to contest.
So, to take this a bit further, what would happen if, having made a reasonable sized bet, the action goes around to one player that re-raises? In the first situation, with you holding aces, it’s an easy enough decision to make; you re-raise.
But in the second situation what do you do? Do you dare re-raise holding 9 2 off suit? The decision you make here can be the difference between being a long term winning player or a long term losing player.
If you have been watching the table, you will have an idea what this guy has. You must form an opinion on what you think he is holding right now. What did you think when he called the big blind? Did you think he was out of position for a raise so he could only call safely and hope for a raise? Did you think he was hoping for a cheap flop with a possible draw? Or were you just concentrating on your own hand and didn’t think about the other players at all?
Take the time to watch the other players, get a feel for the table. Especially when you are a newer player, and are hopefully only playing premium hands most of the time, you should have a lot of time when you are folded out of hands that you can use to study the other players, and the flow of the game.
Don’t lament the fact that you are not getting cards right now, and don’t lower your starting hand selection criteria just to be playing. Remember that even when you are not in that particular hand you can still be playing by watching the game.
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