Top 5 mistakes that beginners make
Overplaying and Overvaluing Overpairs
Just having an overpair doesn‘t mean you will have the best hand all the time. You need to think about it ranges and positions of your opponents. It is hard, but you have to be able to give up your hands on specific boards vs. big action from your opponents. For example: Straight heavy or flush heavy boards vs. the blinds when you don’t have any of the flush or straight cards. Another example is a raise from a really passive player who never raised before, but just called or checked all the time. In those cases, stubbornness will cost you a lot of money and this will take your chance of winning big money in tournaments too often.
Slow playing too much and missing out on value
Recreational players like to play „tricky“ and forget to gain chips. Examples for that are just calling premium holdings all the time in late position (especially in early stage of a tournament). This leads to too many callers preflop and therefore a lot of players on the flop that can easily pick up a really strong hand. On those multi-way pots it is hard to keep the best hand all the time, as so many players could get something on the board, especially if you didn’t improve your hand.
Another example is checking in strong holdings instead of betting in clear situations, mostly C-Bet pots, where you just miss out on so much value by checking. Be careful and don’t leave those clear spots out!
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Making decisions on the flop
Being unable to make a decisive move on the flop will cost a lot of money. Make sure to think about whether you want to play a certain hand aggressively or not. If you are indecisive about this, you will most likely play it passively. You are going to just call down with weak draws or medium pairs. This is going to cost more money in the long run than just making a decision on how to play the hand on the flop (e.g. raising with flushdraws, C-Betting on board x,y and z, etc.)
Making bad decisions preflop
Calling off too many 3bets out of position with medium holdings to „see a flop“ and “then make a decision”. Stick to your charts on what to raise and call preflop vs. each position. Common mistakes here are:
- Defending too wide in the blinds
- Limping hands from any position
- Flatting too much in later positions
- Can lead into flopping top pair with a bad kicker – will cost more chips on later streets
Being able to quit when tilting
Being influenced by tilt will change your decision making a lot and again just cost you money and mindset. If you aren’t able to leave when tilt is approaching, it will lead to making worse decisions that will cost even more money. It really is KEY to leave the ego behind and stop a session when tilt is approaching. Also, be able to reflect and analyze the sessions you played. It will help to improve your mindset and skills by a lot and will make your decisions’ worth more money than ever before!
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