Thanks for coming back for my fifth article. Previously we veered off topic and rather than talk about ranges and the poker odds table, we talked about overlooked poker skills. These skills can’t tell you the correct moves in post flop situations, but they’ll help you maintain your bankroll and help you become a fully developed player. Today I would like to explain variance, another important topic for people playing poker. This is similar to the last entry: I’m not discussing cards when I discuss variance. Instead I will display the importance of discipline and emotional control in this game.
Variance is the primary motivation for having a large bankroll when playing Texas Hold Em. Logically, if you’re the best player online, what is the point in having a bankroll? If you won every time you played on Tiger Gaming, you’d never finish the game on a losing note for the rest of your poker career, right? I wish it were that easy.
Alas, you’ll realize that no matter how faultlessly you play, you will still have down days when playing Texas Hold Em. Occasionally the poker hands you’re given will be awful and you’ll be forced to fold almost all of them. Or maybe the hands you’re given will be excellent, but they’ll never end up the winner because sometimes the opposition is too lucky for you. It’s a fact that occasionally you will manage to lose despite getting it in as a 95% favorite. Moments like these will drive you to wish you were playing online slots instead of poker!
If you aspire to make money playing this game, you need to see that variance encourages bad players keep making deposits on real money poker sites. They are the reason you make money. Because you cannot hope for variance to bypass you, you should learn how to ignore it. Do this by following proper bankroll management and also eliminating tilt issues. Figure out how to shrug off unfortunate situations and as long as you have enough in your bankroll, you’ll be winning again before you know it. The other option is to just download free casino slot games, but we all know you don’t want to do that!
Posted on Monday, 21 June 2010
