Now, we here at Juicy Stakes Poker know that the term “mental” has become slang for “crazy”. The old-fashioned American term based on the great 1930s movie “Mr. Deeds Goes to Town” was pixilated. Then pixels became a term, and pixilated came to mean a clip or movie with pixels.
So, a new term was born: mental.
This is not the mental we mean here! We are talking about poker as a game that challenges one’s mind. It can also lead to some unfortunate mental mistakes. Those are the ones we will talk about here.
Poker Requires Quick Thinking under Pressure
You can’t take forever to make a decision in poker. Poker decisions boil down to a few dichotomies: is she bluffing or does she have me beat; how much should I bet to get full value; what are my pot odds, expected value, and so on.
It is the natural pressure of poker that causes some players to make mental mistakes. So, let’s find out what a few of the more common mental mistakes are and how we can correct them.
Mental Mistake #1: Tilt
There is no more destructive poker mistake than to allow a bad beat or a poorly analyzed and played hand to throw a player into the throes of tilt. This is a mental mistake because no matter how well we play we will suffer a few bad beats.
A bad beat in poker is like a baseball player hitting a rope and one of the fielders makes a spectacular catch. It is like a hockey player hitting the post when he had the goalie beat. It is like a basketball player rimming the basket and the winning shot falling away.
Teaching yourself to deal with bad beats or poor play is a singular task for any poker player who wants to be a winner. We would go so far as to say that if your emotions are out of control, you should take some time off from poker!
There is no magical way to avoid tilt or remedy its long tentacles. This is a mental challenge par excellence and one we all have to work on every day.
Mental Mistake #2: Losing Sight of the Long Game
Jim Brosnan was a relief pitcher for the Cincinnati Reds of the National League. He wrote “The Long Season” in 1960 and “Pennant Race” in 1961. Both of these books speak loudly about how seeing the long game is essential in a sport like baseball.
It is also essential in a game like poker. You will have a session when the cards fall your way all the time, and you will have sessions where you can’t catch a break. You should prolong the winning streaks and shorten the losing streaks.
Your overall success in poker will be based at least to some extent on how well you prolonged the winning streaks and how efficiently you shortened the losing streaks.
Mentally, you should never see yourself as a top dog in poker. Humility is also part of avoiding tilt and of playing the long game.
There is another cliché that fits here perfectly: don’t throw good money after bad. That rule applies to a hand that you should leave and a session that you should leave.
Mental Mistake #3: Second Guessing
There will be many thoughts vying for prominence in your mind as you play. One of them is that you are due to win a big pot. Unfortunately, the cards do not know that.
Second-guessing is involved when you berate yourself over money lost in a session. The way to deal with this mental mistake is to teach yourself never to berate yourself after a session.
If you have formally told yourself not to berate yourself and you do it anyway, that is a clear sign that you should stop playing poker.
Everyone wins some and loses some, and berating yourself is not productive. The only time that berating yourself might be productive is if you have completely lost your sense of proportion and have bet so poorly that you feel that you have no recourse but to be angry at yourself.
Then, you should stop playing poker.
Mental Mistake #4: Falling in Love
If you have four of a kind and you lose to a straight flush, you should just chalk it up to the poker gods. But if you get dealt pocket aces and see them through to the river even though the community cards didn’t help you, that is a clear example of falling in love.
Falling in love in real life is often a good thing. Falling in love with your hand in poker is not a good thing. You should decide whether you think you have the best hand or, if you don’t think that you have the best hand, you should decide on a fold or a bluff.
Neither of these thoughts assumes that your cards are the supermen of poker.
Mental Mistake #5: The Flop will Help Me
The flop might very well help you, but is it going to help another player more? Will it help you enough to win the hand? Is it worth the cost of seeing the flop worth spending?
The term “limping in” was coined to describe a player in early position who just wants to see the flop so he or she calls. This is a true beginner’s mistake. Unless you are a blind, you have no money in the hand and therefore, your best play on most hands in early position is to fold.
Mental Mistake #6: Fearing What the Other Players Know
If I fold “all the time” in early position, they will all know that I have a good hand when I bet. That might be so, but so what? You have to fold mediocre hands before the flop when you have no money in the pot. This saves you a lot of money when you are playing the long game.
So, the others know that you have a good hand. If they are in the hand, too, then they also have a good hand. Do you know what they have? Do they know what you have?
No and no!
You can’t improve in poker if you are always afraid of what the other players have. This fear leads to players folding winning hands.
Mental Mistake #7: Check Raising
Check raising is a good ploy when you know that the opponent will bet. But it often happens that you have a better hand based on simple analysis, and you aren’t sure how much to bet in order to keep the opponent in the hand.
The mistake is to assume that she will bet, and then you can raise. She might just call. The deeper mistake here is to be unable to determine the size of your bet that she will call.
Juicy Stakes Poker Offers Players the Chance to Play without Mental Mistakes
There is a good reason why poker is so popular. Here at Juicy Stakes Poker, we see thousands of poker players. We see the kinds of mental mistakes new and even seasoned players make.
Playing online gives you the chance to dip your feet into the poker waters. No marathon sessions are needed. Just play for a while, analyze the difficult hands, and come back the next day or the day after for more great poker.
