If you find that this is the case then this is the biggest and best warning sign yet that you have far more to learn about the game and that you really shouldn’t be playing above low stakes or even micro stakes levels. Few people take this option and a few free articles on the internet or even a $20 poker book can literally save you thousands of dollars.

Back in the day when online poker wasn’t as evolved as what it is now then I know of numerous players who lost serious seven figure sums of money simply because they never really comprehended what they were going up against. Now I am not saying for one minute that you are going to lose seven figure or even six or five figures but the fact remains that you can easily put yourself into a situation to find out how good you really are by comparing your knowledge level in any field with that of the best.

However one such popular way is to bet on even chances and only use a percentage of your stake. Say $1 if you started with $20. But instead of doubling up your stake if you lose you only increase your stakes if you win. If you went onto a winning streak straight away then you can actually amass considerable winnings. Let us say that you bet $1 and won and so now you have $2 and a total of $21. Let us also say that you actually win 8 times on the trot. Spin number two and you wager $2 and so win another $2 and thus taking your stack to $23.
Spin three and you bet the $3 profit and win again and now you have $26.

The same with spin number four and now you have $32. On spin number five then you decide that you are going to “bank” some of your money and so you risk $6 and that wins and now your stack is at $38. You decide to risk $12 of your profit on spin six and that wins and now you are up to $50. You have $30 profits after six spins and your maximum downside was only $1.

So what level of play can you get away with where this style of play can work? Before I answer that then it also needs pointing out how playing an automatic style can be very productive for the simple reason being that you can simply add more tables and so the reduced earn rate per 100 hands is offset by the fact that you are achieving vastly increased volume. I certainly think that an automated style can succeed at NL50 and especially on the large sites and networks. This is probably true of NL100 as well as long as the liquidity is very good meaning lots of tables to choose from. With rakeback and sign up bonuses involved then an automated style can do very well and especially if your post flop play is on the weak side.

In most cases then the primary consumer is the poker site itself by simply raking the games. In fact if the levels are low enough then the site is the biggest winner of all and is certainly making more money than even the best player on the site. Some high stakes players may be making more money from their games than what the site takes in rake from the games that they themselves sit in but they cannot possibly compete when it comes to how much the site takes from the total environment.

So the poker site becomes the primary consumer of wealth and then this knocks on down to the secondary consumers which are the successful poker players. These come in all shapes and sizes just like in any other food chain. For example if a lion killed a zebra then the food produced would not just go to the lion but to other types of animals as well that fed off the remains of the carcass. This is identical to the eco-food chain and it is important to know where you fit in and who you can feed from and who is likely to feed from you.

This analogy is significant because it highlights the fact that many systems fail in gambling not because they are fundamentally unsound but because of the vigorish that is imposed on it from the casino or the gambling house. Poker is the same with table fees and rake and many would be successful poker players end up either not making money, losing money or not making enough to make the entire process financially viable above and beyond doing another line of work.

This process is the same for poker players because not only do you need to find a successful style but you also need to find a successful style that beats the rake and other overheads and also to find a successful style that allows you to earn an amount from the game that you deem to be financially viable. So any casino gambling strategy by sheer definition has many obstacles for it to overcome before it can start down the road to making money.

If you are increasing your bet blindly then you are simply placing more money onto the table when the count is unknown. So this means that the count will be unfavourable as often as it will be favourable…….almost like a coin flip. Based on the fact that you are as close to even more money as it is close to get in terms of the expectation of winning a particular hand then you will see why getting too excited about the prospects of winning the next hand simply because you have won or lost a certain number of previous hands is a rather poor strategy to try and execute. This is no different in principle to a player who bets red or black on roulette simply because there has been a previous sequence of red or black numbers.

Poker is about making decisions and it isn’t enough to make a decent decision these days and as ex-world Chess champion Emmanuel Lasker once said….. “If you think you have found a decent move at the board……stop….think…..then find a better one”. There are always better ways or nearly always better ways to play poker hands than the one that you originally arrive at. As a rule then deception assists you in not only playing a poker hand better yourself but also helps your opponents to play badly. Think about that for a minute because let us say that you have J-J and limp-raise from early position. This is deceptive because it makes your opponent think that you have AA-KK. But if your opponent thinks this and they re-raise then they almost surely have you crushed.

There are a total of 10 cards of 7 through to a 9 (we have two eights) and a further 15 ten value cards (the dealer already has a ten) and 4 aces. This means that the dealer will beat our total straight away 29 times out of 49. But they will also pull a combination of smaller cards to make 17 or more as well and so the chance of our standing and winning is small. If we take a card then any card will bust us unless it is an ace through to a five. Whichever way we go then our chances are slim.

But if standing has a certain value, taking a card has a certain value and so does splitting then we take the play with the best value. Quite often this involves placing more money onto the table. If you stand to lose 10% in EV on a $10 bet then you are losing $1 in expected value. However if by splitting your EV becomes -2% then although you now have $20 on the table your EV is only -$0.40 and not $2.

This is an inevitable process for any complex field that is constantly evolving. I think that the real education of a poker player comes when they realise that in order to be a successful poker player over a long period of time then you have to learn to adjust.

It isn’t just a case of learning to play poker hands well because that can be easily achieved with just a moderate amount of study. In fact I think that this is the biggest mistake that millions of poker players the world over make because they take their poker education to a certain level and then stop in the belief that they know the game.

In a sense then they really do know the game but they do not know the game enough to be able to survive when the environment becomes tough. This is when the better players begin to play poker far differently to what they had previously played it. Only when you can compete and survive in an environment that has totally evolved can you really say that you have completed your education as a poker player, fortunately for the select few…….most never reach this goal.

Another aspect of the game that you can control is the level of variance. A low variance style will mean that the dips to your bankroll will be less than if you were playing a higher variance style. In the world of financial trading then these dips are called drawdowns! Many financial traders view having low drawdowns very high up on their list of priorities and I can understand why that is. I have known many poker careers cut short by highly negative variance.

So you can control losses but only to the extent of those losses. You simply cannot control losing money because that is as inevitable at some stage as the fact that you will be a day older tomorrow than what you are today or that the sun will rise. I believe that controlling your losses is as important as making money and some of the best technical players in the world have tried to optimise their earn rate by increasing variance only to then get blown out of the water so to speak.