Winning Poker Players Make Adjustments

If you want to become a winning poker player there are many things you need to know, but one that is often overlooked is your ability to adapt to poker. The best poker players in the world are able to understand the situation they are in and adapt to it. This is not nearly as easy as it sounds. There are many poker books that give you good guidelines on what poker hands to play and what raises to make.

The problem with following these books to the letter is that they don’t show you how to adapt to each situation. Sometimes the style of play at your table dictates more of what you do than the basic rules.

There are times when you are going to fold that middle pair. There are times you are going to play that garbage hand. Sometimes you want to just call, while other times a raise is more productive. The problem with blindly following the rules is that the rules were not made for each individual situation you face.

Every single bet, raise, call, or fold that you make must be made for a reason and it must have a purpose. Playing in a very tight higher limit game is not going to be anything like playing in a loose low limit game. Your decisions and actions are going to be different. You need to adapt to the table. You can be a great poker player, but if you can’t adapt to the situation, you still may lose.

Here is an example. Let’s say you are playing in a very loose game and have a four flush after the flop. Normally you might want to raise and get more money in the pot, but in a loose game with a lot of maniacs you might not want to make that move because it might get re-raised and drive everyone else out of the pot and your big pot is gone.

If you are playing in a loose game the professional type plays usually don’t work. Everyone is going to call and do stupid things. Your professional play isn’t going to work as well as it would with a game full of solid players.