IMPORTANCE OF GAME SELECTION
If you don’t limit your play to games you can beat, then you aren’t likely to beat the game.
Game selection is the most important element of poker.
I’ve seen some estimates that it’s 80 percent of what makes a winning player.
Your winnings from poker don’t come from your excellent play.
If everyone played perfectly, then the money would just be passed back and forth among the players, with the house skimming a small amount every time money was passed. Everybody would be a net loser.
That’s not what happens, though. Some players are net winners, and some are net losers.
Some of the losers are actually better players than some of the winners.
The different isn’t because of luck-it lies in who their opponents are.
Losers play with people who play better than they do, and winners play with people who don’t play as well. This does not mean that you need to be the best player at the table.
You don’t. In fact, if most of the other online poker players play only slightly better than you, then one really bad player is probably enough to make the game worth playing.
Let’s suppose for minute that I’m one of the ten worst poker players in the world, and let’s suppose you’ve among the ten best.
If I always play with nine players better than you, then I’ll be a consistent winner, and you’ll be a consistent loser.
What does that tell you about what’s important for becoming a winning poker player? Many winning poker players develop a reputation as lucky.
They accumulate larger wins more often than do other players who seem just as skilled.
Often these players are highly skilled at identifying exploitable situations.
They seem lucky because they pick those opportunities to get lucky.
We’ll talk more about this later in the book. Almost always these lucky players are those who choose good games.
Once they are in the poker game, they identify individual player characteristics that can be exploited.
The focus of this chapter is on selecting a good game.
We discus individual player characteristics in chapter 9, and we give examples of exploitable situations throughout the book.
Your profits come from your opponent’s mistakes. I’m going to repeat that frequently.
Even if you don’t play well, as long as you play with players who make more mistakes than you, you’ll win.
For most players it’s not enough to pick a game with weak players.
You also need to pick a game you’ll enjoy. Poker is not an armed conflict, it’s game.
The whole point of playing any game is to have fun, and poker is no exception. Every game has a kind of personality of its own.
Your long-term success depends on matching the personality of the game to your own personality. You’ll win more money if you’re having fun.
Picking a Seat / Theories of Poker / Betting Theory: The Odds
A Theory of Starting Hand Value
A Theory of Flop Play: Counting Outs and Evaluating Draws
The Dynamics of Game Conditions / Table Image / Player Stereotypes
Women and Poker / Spread-Limit Games / Double Bet on the End Games / Kill Games
Short-handed Games / Tournaments / No-limit and Pot-Limit Poker
