Archive for the ‘Poker’ Category

What Constitutes Good Poker? Is It Discipline Or Innate Talent?

Wednesday, September 1st, 2010

What is talent, anyway? Not an easy question. A person sets a goal and his talent potential may be determined by how successful he is in reaching it. However, relying on talent to get to that goal will not work unless the bar was set very low. The greatest players in any discipline use their open mind to discover their good points and the tenacity to train themselves make the most of them. This is not for the person who wishes to remain in a familiar zone, never breaking out of it.

The professional player does not dwell on talent and will not be afraid to exert himself. They are self-critical and act on what they find to minimize their weak points and maximize their strong ones. Everyone needs, whether beginning or expert, a general idea of what talented play looks like at today’s poker tables. The pro will take this further and attain the discipline required to understand the game and its strategies, no matter the type of poker.

The successful player gains experience by playing the game constantly and learning from all those hands. This is how they develop the best methods of play in many different situations.

Talent without discipline is depending on luck. This is the mark of the amateur. He will play for the adrenaline rush and the thrill of that sure jackpot that’s just around the corner. Talent with discipline aims at reducing chance to its minimum. The expert player has no interest in his adrenaline, he has a profound interest in emptying his opponent’s wallet, no matter how good or bad that opponent is. To the pro, the game is a battle pitched against chance and his opponent’s expertise.

Method begins with self-analysis. If you can’t stand recording your weak points, you will never learn. Indeed, many people cling to activities they are no good at and will not be convinced that they would do much better at some other game or practice. Often people are so much interested to be actually good at something as to indulge the fantasy of good living. That is why there will always be good business in poker for the professional player.

The first thing a professional poker player does is to decide which poker to play. Limit poker does not engage the same faculties as non-limit poker. It requires patience and caution to play limit poker successfully, since it takes time, requires gradual building up of advantages and information. To be successful at non-limit poker it takes the opposite kind of discipline: a seemingly recklessly maintained aggression which is at the same time well controlled and calculated.

Among the most common flaws in “talented” and overconfident amateurs is their inability to restrain themselves. They concentrate on the fact that they are “good” at this and neglect the strategic advantages of a timely retreat. If your purpose is not to flatter yourself, but to maintain a consistent record of success, you will have to temper your narcissistic tendencies and learn to leave when there is no way to win or when you are loosing control.

It happens to everybody; sometimes the pressure may be too much to handle, but the good player will be able to recognize this and will always prevent the situation from becoming worse by drawing the right limit.

The author is a full time online poker player and makes the majority of his income from his online play and rakeback at PKR Poker. To sign up for a Rakeback account of your own visit Rakeback Solution.

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