If you’re a poker pro or a newcomer, sometimes you must tighten up because you’re playing too many hands at the table.
Hand selection is vital in cash games. When you’re bogged down in a losing streak, you’ll often discover that you’ve been playing too many hands. The best way to fix that leak in your game is to play fewer hands, but remain aggressive with the hands you end up playing.
This flaw is especially important if you’re playing online poker where you can get dealt significantly more hands because the virtual game progresses much faster.
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Don’t Get Bored
In real life at your brick-and-mortar casino or local card room, you can experience anywhere from 25-30 hands per hour if you play a full-ring table of no-limit Texas Hold’em. This average will increase if you’re playing shorthanded, but it’s a general estimation.
If you have a fast and efficient dealer, you can expect more than 30 hands per hour. Sometimes the action dictates 25 or fewer hands due to the glacial pace of slower players or multiple interruptions for the dealer or a cocktail server.
Boredom is bankroll killer, especially when you’re card dead. If you only played one hand over an hour, it’s not uncommon to grow antsy and impatient. That’s why you must stay vigilant and avoid the temptation of playing with marginal hands, especially out of position, when you should continue to fold. Stay disciplined and don’t play suboptimal hands no matter how bored you get.
Next time you play live poker, track how many hands you play per hour. If you play more than one-third of all hands, then you need to seriously tighten up.
Don’t Get Jealous
It’s happened to all of us. You’ve been card dead for several hours and didn’t get any action the one time you were dealt a big pocket pair or flopped a set. You miss that feeling of elation and excitement when a mound of chips is pushed your way. You frown every time the dealer pushes pots to inferior players, and that’s when envy kicks in.
The goal is to want to win a hand. Desperation and jealousy takes hold. When you peek at your hole cards, you play a hand you would normally otherwise fold like Ace-rag. You eventually lose at showdown because you were outkicked by Ace-King. Or perhaps you thought Queen-eight of hearts is the best hand you’ve seen in a long time. You play it and make a flush, yet lose to an opponent with a nut-flush.
Jerry Garcia, the lead guitarist from the Grateful Dead had a quote about improvisational music that could be applied to poker. “It’s not about what notes you play, but it’s more important what you don’t play.”
It’s not about what hands you play at the table, but it’s more important about what hands you don’t play.
Why Limp When You Can Fold?
One of my early mentors had a saying about pre-flop hand selection: “If you don’t have a raising hand, then fold it.”
The gist of that mantra is that you should be playing premium hands or raising pre-flop instead of limping or limp-calling to a raise. You can play fewer hands by cutting out those limping hands.
In a full ring table with nine players, it’s easy to fold marginal hands in early position. You can take a flier on some of those weaker hands in late position if you’re the first person to raise the pot.
Playing Fewer Hands at Online Poker
You can expect to play at least twice as many hands per hour at the online poker tables. It can be anywhere between 60 and 80 hands per hour in no-limit hold’em cash games. At a short-handed or six-max table, you can log over 100 hands per hour.
Those averages can exponentially increase if you can multi-task and play simultaneous tables. If you play three tables online, you can average 180 hands per hour versus 30 in real life.
I found it was easier to play tighter and with fewer hands while multi-tabling online poker. Seeing more hands per hour reduces boredom and impulsiveness.
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