Monday, April 27, 2009

Free Poker Tips to Overcome Common Poker Diseases

Many poker players suffer from several common poker ‘diseases’ because of playing the game. Typically, any poker player can easily contract these diseases. Yet, overcoming them may take time and a little dose of reality ‘medicine’.

Three of the most common ailments a poker player suffers from are:

Call-itis

Blind Paranoia

Chip Anxiety

Let us approach each one of these poker diseases and examine simple cures for overcoming the problem and improving your game with these free poker tips.

Call-itis-


This disease is typically an affliction that attacks many new poker players to the game; it is caused by the undying need to see a flop, the turn, and the river. Amateur poker players will call everything even if you know you have little or no chance to win. Curiosity killed the cat, and call-itis will kill your chip-stack. People affected by call-itis are known in the poker world as calling stations.

First and foremost to overcome call-itis is to understand that any two cards do NOT have a chance to win in a 9 handed game. In fact, straight odds give you less than a 10% chance to win with any non-paired hand. It is best to wait it out until you have a decent starting hand, and let that mediocre poker hand go when you miss.

Many people who call just to see the next card are living on hope and usually do not win often, sure you may pull an occasional pot, however in the long run, calling stations usually never see the final table, or get the big cash in poker tournaments.

Blind Paranoia


This unfortunate affliction is the detriment of many poker players who do not understand math very well. However, it is the delight of mathematical players, since they know the shortstacks feel compelled to push with any ace or face card, because the blinds are getting high.

For example, Let us say you are in a poker tournament with 50 people and the starting stack is $2000, that means there is $100,000 in play. Most ‘experts’ will tell you when you have less than 10 times the blinds you need to make a move. This is a false notion that ends up getting a lot of people knocked out because of Blind paranoia.

In reality, the time to panic is not when you have less than 10 times the blind, rather when you have less than half the average stack. Here is why; if there are 20 people left, the average stack is now $5000, and lets say you have $4000, you are 20% below the average and statistically 40% of players have equal or less than you. That means there are about 12 people with more chips than you and 7 people with equal or less than you. You actually have a good chance to make the final table, because of the other 7 short players who will push with mediocre hands. Pay attention to the average chipstack and ignore the blinds, and you will see that you will make it deeper every time

Chip Anxiety


This goes pretty much in line with blind paranoia, however, chip anxiety is the anxious desire to make a move early in a poker tournament because you think someone is going to get more chips than you and you need to hurry up and get chips. It is a vicious circle, when in reality, your chips stack is largely insignificant until after the first hour or so of the tournament. It is not necessary to try and get all the chips in the first 10 or 15 minutes of a poker tournament, since the tourney will not be won in ten hands. The tourney will last several hours in most cases, and like any competition, you need to pace yourself to win the prize.

The best free poker advice is to follow these tips and modify your game to make it deep. Let other players make the mistakes and bust each other out, while you slowly build to the top. Just remember these three free poker tips, and you will surely get deeper and cash more often.


For more great tips and to see how I won more than $30,000 last year in live poker tournaments visit my winning at poker page

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