24 Jan 2025 Beginner This material is for beginner players A-game float moving up stakes studying Today we're gonna talk about the top five reasons why perhaps you're losing at poker or not quite getting the results that you'd hoped for yet, and more specifically how to fix it based off the conclusions that I've gathered from coaching hundreds of students at the small and mid stakes games, and also having been a professional poker player for over 10 years myself. These are the top five reasons why most people lose at poker and how to fix it. Alright guys, counting down from five to one, here we go. #5: Hand Reading So number five, let's start off with a little bit more advanced one, which is hand reading. Now guys, hand reading is something that all good poker players know how to do. And by the way, I'm going to walk you through examples in a lot of the points in today's article, just so you can see exactly what I'm talking about. But all good poker players understand the importance of hand reading. And basically, this is putting your opponent on a range of hands. Now I want to be clear off the start, guys, this is not like the Hollywood movies, where they're putting that man on a hand. That's not how poker is played in the modern era. Because we all know that when you're up against another person in a hand, you're playing against a range of hands, you're not playing against one specific hand. For example, they can have over pairs, they can have top pairs, they can have a flush draw, they can have a straight drop, or they can have nothing at all. This is the entire range of hands that they can have, unless you are some sort of mind reading Houdini genius, or you're just cheating, you don't actually know what hand they have. Let's get into the example here: So you understand me a little bit better. So you have two red aces, and , and you get raised on the river of , guys versus a tight player, we can tell you without a doubt, this is nearly always a set or a straight. So when it's a set, they have pocket threes, pocket sixes, pocket sevens, pocket eights, or pocket 10s. A set is also known as three of a kind, this is a very well hidden three of a kind with a pocket pair. And all of these absolutely beat pocket aces here, because guys, you need to remember that pocket aces is just one pair - three of a kind always beats one pair in poker. The other thing that hopefully you guys notice on this board is that if anybody has a nine in their hand, they have a straight, and we don't have any in our hand. And also there were other straights for example, literally flopped a straight on this board. So guys, bottom line here, you need to understand that when a tight player raises you on the river here, they're literally never doing it with a worse one pair hand. Remember, all we have is one pair here. And a lot of people, by the way, will say: what if they have pocket aces, pocket kings, pocket queens, pocket jacks, guys, the easiest way to defeat that argument right away is to understand the sequence of events that occurred in this hand, when we raise pre flop, and they just call that almost always means that they don't have one of these strong premium hands, because these strong premium hands usually reraised us before the flop, or they would have raised us on the flop or turn. So guys, take it to the bank. Trust me from 10+ years experience that when a tight player raises you on a river like this, you are literally never good with a one pair hands. The best thing you can possibly do here is fold your pocket aces right now. #4: Floating in Poker Let's move on to reason number four that you might be losing a poker and that is you're not floating aggressive poker players enough. Alright, so let me break this down for you floating and poker is when you are in position on the flop turn or river, meaning that you are getting to act last and you make the call even with a weak hand in order to try to take away the pot later versus them. And that is extremely important. A lot of people float in poker without a clear plan. It’s very crucial to not only have a plan for the hand, but also to understand that if they show any weakness later on, we are 100% going to be trying to take this pot away. So let me give you an example: Once again, you have ace king this time and . And by the turn the board reads the and . If a loose and aggressive player makes another bet here, you should often call again. And the reason why is because there are too many bluffs in their range. Let me give you just a couple examples of their bluffs here. , , , , I could go on and on. These are just a couple of the hands that they could be bluffing with here. Also, they could be bluffing with lower pocket pairs, for example, a . And it is really important to understand that on a paired board like this, if it comes with another 10 on the river, for example, our hand actually plays in that situation, their hand is what we call counterfeited, our ace plays and their pocket sixes are meaningless. And therefore we win the hand. So we've got counterfeit outs versus pocket pairs, we know that there's lots of bluffs in their range. And also crucially, this is the loose and aggressive poker player type who often is going to be making a lot of wild bluffs in situations like this. And that is why it is so important that you understand the five main poker player types. #3: Studying Away from the Tables Guys, it literally blows our mind that there are so many poker players still in today's games that think that they know it all. They think that they have figured out the game of poker, they have climbed to the proverbial top of the mountain, and they know it all. You can see them all over the internet in the comment sections. There's a lot of really confident poker players out there. Elite world class poker players, they don't think this way. They understand that the game of poker is always evolving, always changing, and therefore they need to be evolving with it as well. So therefore they study their hands in a HUD software, for example, they read high level poker books, they enroll in training courses, they hire poker coaches, both on the strategy and the mental side of the game. Do not get an ego in this game. It is the end of so many poker players, we have seen so many of them come and go over the years because they thought they knew it all. And it ended up not turning out so well for them. So always be improving, and you're gonna have a lot more success. #2: Always Value Pair Alright, tip number two - always value bet top pair. Good poker players always get full value with top pair. Value betting is the heart and soul of winning poker. And let me give you an example: Once again, you've got queen jack, the and on a river of , , , and . Guys, if they check it to here, you should be betting 50% of the pot. And the reason why you want to bet that amount is because we know that they have a lot of good second best hands here. For example, , , , , , etc. These are all hands that we expect many different player types to show up with here on the river against us that they're willing to make another call with. However, against good poker players, if you bet too much, for example, if you bet 80% of the pot, and by the way, what I mean by that is if the pots for example, $100, you bet $80, that'd be 80% of the pot. If you bet too much like that a lot of good poker players will be able to fold a hand like , for example, or . And on the flip side, if you only bet $20 into the $100 pot only betting 20%, you're just costing yourself money, because we know that they probably would have called more. So I've often found that about 50% of the pot. So $50 into $100 in this situation is often the sweet spot to get value versus all of the second best hands. Bottom line here: when you have top pair in poker, do not allow them to get a cheap showdown with a hand like middle pair or bottom pair - especially if you think that they would have paid off some amount, because this is literally the difference between winners and losers in today's games where the edges are relatively small, where there's a lot of decent poker players today, you simply cannot afford to be allowing yourself to lose three big blinds, five big blinds, whatever amount it is on the river here. This is literally the difference between winning and losing at poker over the long run. Do not miss these value bets on the river with top pair. #1: Learn to Quit Early You are going to have many days at the table where there is absolutely nothing you can do to win, they're going to hit every flush on the river against you. When you hit middle pair, they're gonna have top pair, I could go on and on. I think you guys have all been there. When you got three of a kind, they got to hire three of a kind - sometimes guys, this is going to happen. And it's going to happen all day long. And sometimes this can actually happen for weeks or months on end. Let's just talk about individual days here - when nothing is going right for you at the poker table, the number one thing that you can possibly do in this game is quit early on these days. I have seen so many poker players turn what is a routine loss into a disaster loss, because they go on tilt and end up throwing away tons of money, which when they come back the next day, and suddenly their luck turns around, as it always does in poker, they've lost so much on their big losing day that all of their profit doesn't make up for it. It might sound counterintuitive, but a big part of winning poker is just limiting your losses on all of your inevitable losing days. And please, if anybody ever tells you that you don't have losing days in poker, they are absolutely pulling your leg. I don't care if your name is Daniel Negreanu or insert the name of any famous poker pro here, they all have losing days, they just don't tell you about it on social media. People love to brag about when they're winning, they don't talk so much about it when they're losing. I have lost on many days throughout my poker career. And learning how to limit my losses has been a massive game changer, understanding that I am not going to be playing my best. And when I am on tilt, that captain comeback almost never works. And that it doesn't matter what my day to day results are anyways, because I am playing this game for my results over the course of years and decades, not days, not weeks, and not even months. Losing is an integral part of the game of poker. So often when I'm having one of these really bad days, I will simply quit early for the day, I will go review my hands in a tracking software, for example. And I will simply come back with a fresh mind tomorrow having limited my losses so that when I come back tomorrow, and hopefully when those profits will be higher than my losses. And that's how you win in poker in a nutshell. Thanks for reading and good luck at the poker tables!