WHY DO YOU PLAY?
In the movie The Color of Money, the Paul Newman character says,” Money won is twice as sweet as money earned.”It’s true, it is.
However, money won sometimes takes more work to acquire than money earned. Poker really is a tough way to make an easy living.
If you ask poker players why they play poker they’ll often respond that they play for the money. Don’t believe it.
First of all, few poker players are lifetime winners at the game. If 10 percent of all poker players end up winners at poker, I’d be surprised, and for those who are long-term winners, it’s hard work.
Why does anybody play then? Because it’s fun. Why is it fun? There are different reasons for different people.
You need to ask yourself what it is that you get out of the game that makes it fun for you. The challenge? The thrill of the gamble? The social inter-action?
Whatever it is, make certain the poker game you’re in is doing for you whatever it takes for you to be having fun. Winning is important, and you are much more likely to win if you’re having fun.
MAINTAIN YOUR COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE
Your advantage over the players at the table comes from the mistakes they make – but it’s not enough for them to make mistakes.
You have to exploit those mistakes, you have to act on their mistakes to profit from them. That’s your competitive advantage.
You can sometimes do things that cause your opponents to make mistakes, but most of your winnings will come competitive advantage by learning as much as you can about the mistakes your opponents are making and by constant vigilance for opportunities to exploit what you know.
Use Your Intuition
I’m not sure what a good way to define intuition is. It’s some kind of gut feeling about a situation.
I’ve actually had experience at the table where images of cards flashed in my brain. An example is the time I had A 
K , and the flop was 2 4 6 .
I bet and was raised by a late-position player. When he raised, an image of the 3 5 flashed in my head. I had a mental picture of those two cards.
This was not a premonition or fear. When I flop the nut flush.
I don’t get worried about someone having a straight flush after one raise, but something about that player and the way he made that bet put the picture of those two cards in my head.
I knew he had that hand. well, I didn’t really know, so I didn’t really know, so I didn’t fold, but I did call his raise and I checked-called the next two betting rounds.
Intuition is not premonition. If you sit down at a table and quickly find yourself winning a few hundred dollars,you might feel an impulse to get up and cash in so you don’t throw the money back. That’s not intuition.
That’s fear, dread, a premonition of disaster, but it’s not intuition. Intuition is that sense of knowing what is-not knowing what will be.
When I lost to that straight flush, I didn’t have a feeling that he was drawing to a straight flush and was going to make it-that’s premonition and it’s based on superstition, not on reality.
Intuition, however, is something subconscious, some clue that your subconscious brain has picked up and processed and told you the conclusion.
All that you’re conscious of is that conclusion, you don’t really understand how you arrived at it.
It’s no less real and it’s no less logical or analytical than reading a tell.
Listen to it. Just be sure it’s intuition talking and not premonition.
