Common Mistakes Players Often Make – Part 1
It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of on-line poker, and even easier to develop bad habits because we see other players getting paid off by chasing a brutal 3 outer to the river and hitting it. In this series I’m going to look at common mistakes players make, how they fall into those traps, and how you can hopefully avoid them!
As I said, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of online play. It’s fast, it’s reckless, and one of the major mistakes new players often fall into is not recognizing a “loose” (also termed Loose Aggressive) strategy as oppose to NO strategy. Often players will see a “loose” player and think that they are an easy target, but this is a mistaken thought. While a loose player may see a lot of flops, and bet at a lot of hands they aren’t foolish. You’d be hard pressed to see a loose player (seriously) called a river rat or a calling station, even though , to a novice it might seem so. Often they are taking calculated risks, playing hands that have high value if a specific flop hits (low suited connectors, 9/7 suited etc), and are often capitalizing on perceived weakness of their opponents and their position at the table.
The danger in not recognizing a “loose” player is that you will pay him off. Huge. You wont believe that he’s got anything, but the reality is you’ve only seen him showdown a few hands. Sometimes he’s miscalculated and he’s not raking in the chips, but most of his pots are won on the flop or the turn. But he’s paying attention to the calling stations, and the river rats, and hopes that youdon’t see his monster hand coming. He’s hoping that you’ll think he’s bluffing, and come over the top in an effort to make him fold..or even better, check call him all the way to the river.
Let me say this again, if you see a player who seems to be betting a lot, steals your blinds and is obviously baiting anyone to call them down..they may know exactly what they’re doing, and you may be playing right into it!
