Habits You Should Take Up To Get Better At Poker
It is certainly easy to get complacent in a craft you think you are already good at and poker players are no exception. In fact, they are rather infamous for being so, especially when they are on a winning streak.
However, poker games are extremely dynamic and constantly changing over time. This means that the onus is on the player to stay up-to-date with the current trends, should they want to really elevate their poker skills. This entails going through your daily routine and making conscious efforts to strengthen the different skills involved at every step of the way.
The following is a list of things you could do daily to better your poker skills. For online players, the Planet 7 Casino seems pretty good.
Reflect and Meditate
Before anything else, it is essential to take some time every day to prepare yourself mentally and focus on your mental health. Poker can be an extremely mentally-exhausting game when played as a profession and thus requires massive perseverance and focus. Patience is also key in a game of poker and meditation can help to improve this while retaining focus on the game.
Thus, it is helpful to meditate every day to attain some focus and clarity mentally. Moreover, the impacts of such meditation can be extended to other aspects of your life by decluttering your mind. By doing so every morning, you would be able to cultivate a habit that can potentially trigger your brain’s potential to the fullest extent and aid in your poker skills.
Do Your Research
In more recent years, improving your poker skills has involved the use of game theory optimal (GTO) and “solvers”, referring to computer programs that help to give you the best play for any situation. For the most part, strategy planning in poker is very subjective and this is where computer solvers come into play. They can help players input huge amounts of data and in turn, churn out the numbers needed for the most effective play in that scenario.
Today, there are multiple such programs to choose from and this allows you as a player to base your thinking process on an objective calculator, instead of relying on your own instincts and intuition, which might not necessarily give you the best results. You can start by trying out the different solvers and see which one best suits your needs and ultimately spend some time going through different scenarios daily. At the end of the day, you would be able to get better at deducing what the best plays would be on your own.
Evaluate Your Records
Unsurprisingly, results from poker games can be measured and quantified. This involves keeping track of data points to use to evaluate your poker games. One practical way to do this is to keep a notebook of such records, such as cards, position, betting, stack size, and other relevant details. These can be used to discern your mistakes and help you make better choices next time.
By keeping track of your progress, you would be able to see exactly where and what went wrong and nip the problem in the bud.
View Videos
According to the world’s most successful poker player, Daniel Negreanu, the way to improve your poker skills is to go digital. This includes watching Twitch streamers and videos online to get a good glimpse of how the world’s best players play in real-time. For streaming purposes, hole cards are upward-facing and streamers would take you through each step of their thinking process as the game develops.
As for online tutorial videos, they provide you with a clear analysis of plays and information to better your future plays. Such videos and streams should be viewed at least once a day to enable yourself to fully absorb the lessons.
Pick a New Variety
There are a wide variety of different types of poker games. Some of these include Texas Hold’em, Seven Card Stud, Razz, Badugi, and even 2-7 Triple Draw. Professional players like Negreanu are proficient in different variants of the games and excel in them. Learning about different games can help to widen your thought processes and help you to see a game from new perspectives and understand different dimensions of the game.
Stay Healthy
As with anything you do, having a healthy body and healthy mind is paramount. In the context of the world’s best poker players, health and fitness are taken as seriously as having the best strategy at the poker table. Sure, a cup of coffee can help get you moving in the morning but a healthy body would ultimately stand the test of time and give you the stamina to keep your mind alert throughout a round of a mentally-draining poker game.
You can start by having a quick gym session every morning and follow up with a nutritious meal plan. These would definitely show improvements in your poker games in the long run.
Practice, Practice, Practice
The phrase “practice makes perfect” goes without saying. Just merely building your arsenal of knowledge and analysis is of no use if you are not able to properly and appropriately use them during a game of poker. Thus, it is important that you apply what you have learned by practicing specific skills at the poker table on a daily basis.
As Negreanu posits, being determined to play better each day was what motivated him to keep on practicing and he actively sought to learn from his mistakes instead of letting a loss put him down. Ultimately, practicing every day is essential in becoming a better poker player and this should be easier nowadays, with both online poker sites and physical casinos.
Conclusion
Apart from the above-mentioned list of things you can start doing to improve your poker skills, there are other activities, behaviors, and habits that are also important to becoming better. Starting with these habits can at least set you in the right direction on the road to becoming the best poker player that you can be.
