Novice and intermediate poker players often overestimate the importance of playing poker hands well. Do not get me wrong here because I am not saying that it isn’t important to play hands well…..of course it is! But all I am saying is that many players overestimate this part of the game. In the eyes of many then playing hands well coupled with bluffing is the real skill to poker. In actual fact winning poker is more to do with folding when you should and getting away from situations where other players would have stuck their chips in.
Imagine two poker players who get dealt the exact same hands over the course of a year. One player makes $100,000 in the hands that they win but loses $120,000 in the ones that they lose for a net yearly result of a $20,000 loss. The other player on the other hand makes the same $100,000 from their winning pots but only loses back $40,000 in the losing pots for a net result of a $60,000 profit.
But the difference of $80,000 has not been derived from making big bluffs or fancy plays or anything of that nature but by literally getting away from certain situations when you don’t have the best hand. Sometimes this can cause you to fold the better hand in the course of doing so but you need to be prepared for this and to accept it as though it is nothing. Because being bluffed in one or two hands a day when you could be playing 500 hands per hour when multi-tabling is really nothing in the great scheme of things.
