5 Bad Habits That Make Poker Players Lose Money

Playing winning poker is complicated. It requires a great deal of knowledge and the ability to make hundreds of little decisions that add up to profitable plays over time. You also have to learn how to read situations and players. Because every single time you make a mistake, it costs you money.

These things are also why poker is such a beautiful game. Smart play and learning from experience is rewarded. Meanwhile, bad play and bad habits are punished. This is why you need to identify and eliminate as many bad habits as you possibly can from your poker game.

Without further ado, here’s a list of five poker habits that you need to make sure you don’t develop.

1 – The Action Junkie Habit

I love it when new poker players sit down at the table where I’m playing. Almost every new poker player has the same problem. They want as much action as they can get, so they play far too many hands. This helps experienced poker players make more money.

If you’re playing poker against a single opponent, how can you predict which player has the best chance to win any particular hand? The answer is that you can predict the player with the best chance of winning the hand based on which player starts with the best hand.

A player with an ace and a jack has a much better chance to win than a player with an 8 and a 10. Or a player with king-queen has a better chance to win than a player with queen-jack. This is easy to understand when it’s just two players.

What if there are six or nine or even 10 players? How can you predict the player who has the best chance to win a hand?

The answer is the same as when there are only two players. The player who starts with the best hand has the best chance to win. So, the question should be—how can you improve your chances of having the best hand at the beginning of each hand?

For one thing, you shouldn’t play too many hands. The more hands you play, the lower the chance is that you’re going to have one of the best hands at the table. When you stop laying poor hands and stick with your best starting hands only, your odds of having the best hand at the start go up a great deal.

You can get plenty of action on your good hands. And this action is going to lead to more profits, which is even better than action. Stop being an action junkie and try to build the habit of becoming a profit junkie instead. This is the best way to play poker.

2 – Chasing Without Correct Pot Odds

Even when you enter the pot with good hands, there are many times when you don’t have the best hand after the flop. But you often have a chance to draw to a better hand. The key is determining when it’s profitable to stay in the hand and when it’s more profitable to fold.

The good news is that you can use something called “pot odds” to determine when you should chase a better hand and when you need to fold. Winning poker players understand and use pot odds, and losing players tend to chase all of their draws.

You need to do a deep dive into pot odds that involves more than the 60 seconds or so that it takes to read this section. But I’m going to give you a quick lesson.

Pot odds involve determining the odds of improving your hand and comparing these odds to the amount of money in the pot and that you have to contribute to the pot in order to stay in the hand. In some cases, you make more money by staying in the hand, and in some cases you’re better off saving your money for a better situation.

You need to learn how to use pot odds on the flop, turn, and river. It’s a little more complicated to determine all of the information on the flop, but you can do it with enough practice.

If you’re getting ready to see the river and you have four cards to an ace high flush, you can quickly determine the chance of completing the flush on the river. 46 unseen cards remain, and nine of them give you the top flush. This is a ratio of 9 to 37. If the pot is offering a better ratio than this in comparison to how much you have to call to remain in the hand, then you should call. If it doesn’t, you need to fold.

Let’s say the pot has $250 in it and the bet is $25. You need to call $25 to see the river. This is a ration of 1 to 10. This is much lower than your chance to make your flush, so the pot odds say you should call. But if the pot is $250 and the bet is $200, the odds are much worse than your odds of drawing the flush card, so the best play is to fold.

You need to learn how to use pot odds and use them every single time you need to decide if a call or fold is better.

3 – Playing Above Your Head

Playing above your head means two things. The first thing it means is playing in a game for stakes that are too high for your bankroll and experience level. The second thing it means is playing against competition that is decidedly better than you.

Both of these things are likely to cost you money. I cover more about playing against competition over your head in the final section on this page. For now, simply understand that the level of competition you face has a direct relationship with how much you win or lose.

This leaves playing at stakes that are too high. Poker is as much about mental things as anything else. You need to do what you can to control the mental aspect of the game.

Even if you can afford to do it, you shouldn’t be playing in a game for thousands of dollars until you can completely disassociate the value of what you’re risking from what you need to do to win.

If you’re thinking about how the money in the pot is enough to make a mortgage payment or multiple car payments instead of focusing on what you need to do to win, you’re playing at a higher stakes level than you should.

Instead of playing above your head, find situations that are far below your comfort level. You can work your way up in the future. Right now, simply concentrate on putting yourself in the best situation to win.

4 – Bluffing

Another thing that most new poker players do is bluff more than they should. They might have seen big bluffs work out on television or they simply get a thrill from winning a pot with nothing.

But when you bluff too much, it leads to higher losses in the long run.

In fact, you’re much better off not bluffing at all than bluffing too much. If you don’t bluff at all, you’re going to win more or lose less than when you bluff too much. Get out of the bluffing habit right now.

5 – Grabbing the First Available Seat

Losing poker players grab the first available seat and take their chances when gambling in a casino. Winning poker players do everything in their power to make sure they’re the best player at the table, or at least one of the best players at the table.

You can do this by improving your skills so you’re better than most players and/or by picking games with bad players.

Start paying attention to the bad players so you know who they are. When you have a choice of tables, pick the table with more bad players. Or figure out how to fill a game with bad players so you’re the best player at the table.

Conclusion

If you want a quick guide to help you improve your poker results, the five bad habits on this page are a good place to start. Play fewer hands and learn how to use pot odds to determine if you should stay in a hand or not once you enter the pot. These two things are going to make a big difference in your results.

Don’t let your ego lead you to bad decisions. You shouldn’t be ashamed of playing at a limit level that you can beat. This is smart, not shameful. Stop losing money by bluffing, and learn how to use smart strategy before you even start playing.

When you eliminate these five bad poker habits, your bankroll is going to be much better off.