Key Advice for playing poker well, and improving your game.

1) Play well.
This might sound like an exercise in the obvious, but it isn’t. I see countless players, who are capable of playing very well indeed, throwing their money away because they can’t be bothered to play well. The problem with playing well is that, quite often, it involves folding. When you get bad cards for several hours, it involves a lot of folding. The temptation is to try to “make things happen”. So you try this, and it goes wrong, and then you are mad at yourself for trying it, and you play worse. You have already beaten yourself.
2) Read books.
There is a school of old-style poker players who don’t believe in this reading books lark. They think that there is no substitute for experience. They are wrong. Reading books serves two purposes. The first is that it helps you play better. You do not need to take what is written as gospel. But you should never dismiss what is written out of hand.

3) Get experience.
While the old-school players are wrong to say that they can’t learn anything from books, they are right when they say that nothing compares with experience. The more you play, the more you will learn. If you stick to one site and one level, you will learn the “tone” of the game. This will give you a great advantage when it comes to reading other players.
4) Reflect on previous hands.
At the end of a session, think back to hands where you could have lost less and also to hands where you could have won more. Most long-term losers who can play a bit are losers not because they throw money away in stupid chases, but because they fail to extract the maximum that they could extract from their winning hands.

5) Take notes on your opponents.
Now, unlike some, I won’t advise copious note-taking. You end up with 15 reams of notes on thousands of players that you never see again. But when something interesting crops up, or when you get an “impression” of a player, do not trust your short-term memory when you say to yourself: “Ah, yes, I’ll remember that”. Because, trust me, you won’t. Write it down.

6) Two utter contradictions.
Keep good and honest records, but do not become a slave to short-term fluctuations.
As a man, I am obviously addicted to lists. I keep records on everything related to my poker-playing. I could probably tell you what pair of shoes I was wearing when I had that big loss back in November 2002. Keeping records helps you measure your long-term success. Failing to keep records might be considered laziness, but it is more often denial. If you find yourself noting down a good win, but “forgetting” to note down a loss, you are practising denial and self-deceit.

7) Know yourself
Poker can lay bare your soul. If you have a chink in your personality, then playing poker can find it. You may find out things about yourself that you would rather not know. Some people cope with this better than do others. If you want to be a better poker player, look at your flaws rather than deny them. If you have lost a hand, it might well be bad luck, or you might have done something ever so slightly wrong. If your bankroll looks like it is getting thin, do not play at a higher-stakes game in an attempt to “get out of it”.