As I’ve stated many times in
past articles of mine,
I‘ve always been an
advocate of the idea that in the hands of a
good enough
poker
player, pretty much any hand can be a
winner.
After all, poker is basically a post-flop
betting game, where people who outwit their
opponents prevail.
In order to be a good player
one needs to learn to think the right way. There
is a lot of thinking involved in poker and those
who can’t do it right or are just too lazy to do
it, won’t ever become winners.
The problem is, that most mediocre players are
too lazy to do the work necessary to play well.
They’re looking for all sorts of alternative
solutions and shortcuts to cut the workload
somehow, and that is how they come to rely too
much on starting hand charts.
Let me make it clear that I’m not about to speak
up against the use of these charts. They’re very
useful and one needs to make use of them too in
order to improve certain aspects of his play.
After all, there are 169 possible starting
hands, not all of which are playable ( actually,
only about 80 are, but the whole thing depends
on a myriad of factors)
You definitely need to take a long and hard look
at the cards you’re about to see the flop on,
however, if you rely on these starting hand
charts in everything you do, you’re not going to
play well. The problem is, that it’s a hell of
lot more comfortable to just apply and reapply
something you learned somewhere, than constantly
invent new means of stripping your opponents of
their bankroll.
Most people are way too comfortable to bother to
discover things for themselves and that’s why
they turn to charts and books to get an early
edge in the game. I read somewhere that in
schools, learning something by means of
discovering it for oneself is far more useful
than just taking information for granted and
trying to memorize it. Now, I’m not a specialist
in education, but the above seems to make a lot
sense.
In much the same way, people striving for early
advantages by learning starting hand charts and
different poker concepts won’t have an edge in
the long-run, over those who simply learn by
playing.
The former, deprive themselves of learning to
“think poker” while the latter literally learn
the most important aspect of the game on the go.
Furthermore, because of the nature of Texas
holdem, Chart-lovers will often find themselves
in situations they won’t know how to deal with.
If the chart tells you to do a certain thing
with a certain starting hand, what do you do if
the flop completely misses you in the follow-up?
People who think, know WHY the chart says what
it says and they also know what to do on an
inconvenient flop.
It seems pretty straightforward, but you’d be
amazed to learn how few people are really aware
of what really matters in poker. The same way,
you’ll find a whole bunch of guys signing up for
rakeback
offers just because they read somewhere
that it’d help their game big time. Then they
fail to rake anything and wonder why
rakeback
was supposed to help them in the first-place.
In poker and online poker, it will never do to
just know what you have to do. You have to know
why you have to do it, and you also need to be
disciplined enough to actually do it too.
Once again: don’t you dare throw your charts out
the window, but by all means do try to figure
out why the chart recommends something instead
of another thing. Try to make heads and tails of
the whole deal, not only will you become a
better player in the process, but you’ll also
find that learning the chart is much easier.
