Poker Psychology Articles

Attaining and Maintaining a Tight Table Image

Oftentimes while playing poker, you will need to make your opponents fold, as you are either making a move to pick up chips, or you are fearful that your hand will not hold up if your opponents can see some more cards. You might have made it to the late stages of the tournament, but find your chip stack dwindling, or you might be simply be trying to steal a cheap pot on the flop. Whenever you are [...]

Why Are Games So Aggressive? How Do I Counter?

One thing about the explosion of online poker is that it has made aggressiveness, even aggressiveness to the point of stupidity, a much more common occurrence at the poker table and especially at online poker games. There are several reasons for this tendency, and knowing the reasons why so many players are overly aggressive can help you know when to back off, and when to use this to your advantage. Knowledge of the game being played is always [...]

Aces and Kings - Learning When to Fold the Dominant Holds

One of the hardest things to do in poker is to fold pocket Kings or Aces when the hand has potentially gone bad. There is a lot of argument about when and why to do this—and there are no hard and fast rules because every table is different, with different levels of skill and different styles of play, but there are certain instances that give you all the red flags you need to throw away the cards.

One of the [...]

The Dangers of Playing Loose Poker

Conservative poker playing can be frustrating to many beginning players, but it is necessary. While there are players who play “looser” and are successful, all good poker playing over the long term starts with basic conservative play and moves on from there. Aggressive playing is different from loose playing, and even if you see the pros doing it on TV, what you don’t see is the two hundred hands they played to get a read on every player [...]

Do you have fancy play syndrome?

Fancy Play Syndrome, AKA playing backwards, is a very serious condition among poker players. It causes you to have a high short-term variance while being -ev (negative expected value) in the long run.

Players with this condition can be found all over, but it primarily effects mid limit players who think they are gods gift to poker. They’re usually the ones playing every other hand at during a ring game or getting their chips in early on with marginal hands [...]