Two key things for making money at poker

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

There are two basic things that you have to be able to do if you want to consistently make money from playing poker.

The first is that you have to able to control yourself in the games you are playing; and the second is that you have to be able to control yourself in picking what games to play.

Of these two things, the latter is by far the most important. Losing control in a game that is well within your bankroll is bad, but it is not catastrophic, as it will only slightly dent your bankroll.

Playing in games that are well outside of your bankroll is the grim reaper to poker players. This single thing has bust more people than any other single factor.

The reality of poker is that even if you play perfectly at all times, you will still regularly lose buy ins in big bet cash games, or bust in tournaments. If you are playing well outside of your bankroll - say with around half of it on the table - you will never win money playing poker in the long term. It is as simple as that. There are occasional situations when playing slightly outside of your bankroll, or 'taking a shot', are worth it. These tend to be sitting in games with a huge fish, following a tilting player as they rise up the stakes desperately chasing their losses, or playing a game with a player who knows very little about it (say you see a good hold'em player suddenly playing Omaha or the such like).

On the whole though, you basically want to avoid sitting in games that are outside of your means - it is a recipe to go bust and one which you must learn to avoid. Despite picking the wrong games being the major leak of the two, playing very badly in your regular game is also a big problem. If you are just steadily losing money, playing in an erratic or unusual manner, or can generally just feel tilt overcoming you and your self control, you have to stop.

Some of the most profitable players in poker to sit with are players that are usually very good - but when they tilt tend to drop nearly all their profit in one long, spewy session - do not become one of them.

If you have to remember two basic things about poker let it be these. If you start to lose control in either of these areas, you will lose money, and in many cases all of it. There are some things in poker which skill simply cannot overcome - and you forget that at your (and your bankrolls) peril.

Related entries

Controlling Tilt - Marcus Bateman
Controlling a Pot - Marcus Bateman
Controlling your Ego - Marcus Bateman
Beating weak games - Marcus Bateman
Choosing which game to play - Marcus Bateman