Those are poker mistakes that were gathered from articles from two major foreign gambling portals - Poker espanga, the leading poker portal in spain, and Jack Vegas - a leading Casino portal in Sweden.
1. Playing too tight. Sure, you should play tight, especially if you’re a newcomer, just don’t become too predictable. Playing like a machine would work for one session, or two, and if you are playing with regulars, you will be doomed to fail. If you enter a pot, only players with better hands will try and stay with you in the pot, and will be very aggressive. If you are auto-folding every time you miss the flop, you are going to get a reputation for being easily bluffed and you opponents will catch on when you do have a good hand, making them quick to fold against you. Vary your tight game; show some mediocre cards you played with, just to let on that aren’t a by-the-book player 100% of the time.
2. Playing the right blinds. The rule of thumb for this matter is having a budget (bankroll) of 5000 times the big blind. Also, you should consider your bankroll as being the money you are willing to lose for poker purposes. It’s not your whole bank account!
3. If you have the right budget to play the game, don’t buy-in with anything less than 100 times the blind, and if possible, buy-in with the maximum amount. That way you can maximize your strong hand and afford yourself to make the right decision every time.
4. Don’t play after you have drank or done drugs. It will affect your judgment. Sure, one sip of wine can be beneficial and relaxing, but if you can’t drive, you can’t play – that’s how it is!
5. Don’t play if you are emotionally imbalanced at the moment – if you go to play poker and you are in a bad mood, you most likely find yourself tilting. Sure, after a major fight with the wife it can be fun to go and play with the guys at the casino, just to relax a bit. But at the end of the night, you will inevitably mumble to yourself, “I knew I wasn’t going to win anything with that attitude I had…” or “I threw away free money” or “I was tilting from the first moment,” etc. – so just don’t do it on the first place.
6. Don’t show your cards after each pot. If you are playing with guys who know something about poker, and you show each and every hand, people will get to know your game, no matter how much you vary it. Try to avoid showing your hands to people who are not part of the table, but may be just sitting next to you – it’s a trick. They want to learn your game before they sit down to play with you in your next session.
