Making mistakes

Marcus Bateman / Marcus Bateman / 04 September 2009 / Leave a Comment

The most important things you will ever learn about poker will come from the mistakes you make.

Poker, just like any area of life, is a place where you will constantly make mistakes. Be it small ones that effectively go unnoticed, such as making a bad bluff that ends up working, all the way to falling into the most obvious trap set by a weak player and losing your whole stack, poker is a game where even the very best make mistakes.

Many players do not really think about this. If anything, they often deny it, blaming any losses or misplayed hands on luck or their opponents stupidity (when have you ever heard Phil Hellmuth admit he played a hand badly?). The reality of any game of incomplete information is that it is impossible not to make mistakes - no one can (and probably never will be able to) play poker perfectly.

As a result, mistakes form one of the most important parts of poker, and understanding them and learning from them is the fastest way to improve your game. Most people try and block out mistakes. Making them is not fun, and the desire to suppress the fact that you have done something wrong is a very powerful one in human beings. The problem with this in poker is that you need to be constantly reflecting on - and learning from - your mistakes.

If you lose a big pot because you fall into a specific kind of trap (such as where your over aggression costs you), it is important that you think carefully about what you need to do in the future to avoid it. In the case of being overly aggressive, you need to understand that you cannot simply run over every player all the time (yes, sometimes they are actually going to pick up hands), and that you need to balance aggression - which is obviously a good thing - with the ability to fold.

The most important things you will ever learn about poker will come from the mistakes you make. Most players never fully come to terms with their own mistakes, as admitting them and thinking about them is a difficult and often painful experience. The reality is that you have to be comfortable admitting that sometimes you did not play well in order to be able to not make the same mistake in the future, and if you cannot do this then your mistakes will consistently come back to haunt both you and your bankroll.

Related Entries

Cutting Out Mistakes - Sorel Mizzi
Spotting Mistakes - Marcus Bateman
Common Mistakes Made by New Players - Matthew Pitt

Get Valueback at Betfair Poker