Table of Contents
Mistake #7 Not calling enough in dealer position
Many players fold too many hands in dealer position. In fact, the dealer seat is the last to act and it has the inherent advantage of allowing you to widen your range to see a flop if the price is right.
This is especially recommended in live poker, where the blind players are not as aggressive in guarding the blinds.
Mistake #8 Calling too much Open in the small blind
Calling too aggressively in the small blind is a very common mistake. While it may seem that the floor odds are good enough to call, it is a bad habit that is not recommended, and I will explain to you that：
- you always have to counter your opponent’s strong range with a bad position (since your opponent made a raise in the front
position) - there is a player in the big blind position behind you who is not acting, he may do a squeeze play at any time, and since the small blind is just calling so it looks like it is just a medium hand.
If the player in the small blind gets a strong hand, he or she will want to immediately 3-bet to build the bottom pot and isolate the initial raiser to form a smaller pot. However, simply calling the bet means that the small blind is only dealt a weak or medium hand. For this reason, you should cut back on such calls when you are in the small blind and instead, if you want to game a hand, make a 3-bet!
To build your 3-bet range in the small blind, please note the range balance we mention from time to time and add some weak cards like a color streak as appropriate. This will allow us to force the big blind to fold medium strength hands even when we don’t have that good of a hand. This has many advantages.
- 3-betting puts pressure on the player who initially raised, especially effective if this raiser is using the back seat to make a wider range of raises.
- Constructing a reasonable 3-bet range for the blinds can effectively prevent others from stealing the blinds.
- 3-bet can also prevent the big blind player from seeing the flop relatively cheaply.
Mistake #9 Overestimating the non-colored heads-up cards in your hand
Tony G once said that I always tell people “don’t overplay the K-J hand”.
As Tony G said, people often over-trust this type of hand, especially non-flush ones, and it’s very dangerous to go up against a front raiser in middle position.
If you play this type of hand often, you will notice a phenomenon where the chips in front of you are constantly being shipped to other players by the dealer, and imagine the horrible things that happen when you and the opponent who raised in front of you hit top pair at the same time. For this reason, 89s is better than kjo. Flush straights are not easy to dominate, and they tend to form nutty hands if they become a hand.
Mistake #10 Calling a very big 3-Bet
This problem is especially common in live poker, due to the fact that the person who opens first will raise a very big bet first, leading to a bigger 3-bet, such as being 3-bet to 18BB-20BB (online poker 3-bets are usually 10BB-12BB). Calling such a big 3-bet actually has a lot to do with the player themselves, they don’t want to fold, which would make them look They don’t want to fold, which would make them look like wimps.
Fighting an oversized 3-bet can get you in trouble, as the odds are already very unsuitable. Let’s calculate that assuming Open3BB and being 3-bet to 10BB：
To call this 3-bet we need to make up another 7BB to win our (3BB) + our opponent’s 3-bet (10BB) + the size blind (1.5BB), and the calculation shows that we need a 32.6% win rate.
Let’s look at the opposite when facing an 18BB 3-bet
To call this 3-bet we need to make up another 15BB to win our (3BB) + our opponent’s 3-bet (18BB) + the big and small blind (1.5BB), which gives us a 40% win rate.
Suddenly, our win requirement has increased by almost 8%. In live tournaments, players almost only 3-bet with super strong hands, so calling a super big 3-bet like this because of gambling can get you into trouble.
Of course what can you do against such a 3-bet? A good strategy would be to fold unless you have a good hand, and only when you get a super good hand should you go for a 4-bet.
Also, if you find a player who will call a super big 3-bet like this, you should think about what you can do with that.
Mistake #11 Not having a plan for your game
All of the mistakes mentioned above boil down to not having a strict plan for the hand you are about to participate in, or not thinking clearly enough. Deciding whether to play or not to play the hand is the most important prerequisite for participating in a poker game, before the flop, to play or not to play? Before deciding to move on to the next session, ask yourself the following questions：
Texas Holdem Poker Tips
- What kind of cards will you open after the other players in the position fold to you?
- What cards will you open and what cards will you call?
- What kind of range will you use to participate when the player in front of you opens first?
- Once you open, what do you do when faced with a 3-bet from an opponent in a different position?
Many players cannot give good answers to these questions. Therefore, you should think carefully about these questions, identify your shortcomings and try to improve your strategy so that you can be more competitive in future games.
Mistake #12 Haphazard “mixed play”
It’s obviously worse to think in a chaotic way than to not have a good plan. I’ve seen a lot of players make stupid moves on the field before they flip, which always come back to bite them later.
Overall, it is important to adjust your play. We know it’s important to use our opponent’s tendencies to adjust our play on different occasions, but we have to have an end goal in mind. As an example, we never call with AA pre-flop, and since you’re going with a mixed play, you want to mislead your opponent into thinking that there’s no way you’re going to flat call with AA, but that’s never a good play.
Because of the math. Even if you mislead some players, you lose the extra gain you get from 3-betting. In the long run, you lose the profit of re-raising with AA, and these are losses that you can’t compensate to with calling.
If we decide to play mixed, it should be because we have a well thought out plan, not just for a momentary surprise.
