For some people, online poker seems easy. For other people, it seems hard. Where do you belong?
When I started to play online poker, I found it hard to be profitable. Then I studied the game more, I read more and I tried to discover why I was losing in order to remedy that.
If you are losing at online poker but would like to win, one key thought that can help you dramatically is the following. All players are human beings, and intelligence is not the main reason to lose or win. The main reason is our psychological tendencies. So if we have leaks, and we correct them, then we will improve our results.
Online poker is a lot about automatic actions and the first step it to at least play correctly and avoid obvious “mistakes”. If some players can be profitable, so why not you?
After a few months of playing online poker, I noticed that I had a tendency not to fold when facing huge bets in an already large pot. Somehow I was in denial, wondering and doubting why my opponent would be making such large bets is he really had such a great hand. It turned out that often he had a great hand. My inability to fold in big pot led to big lost pots, and this is probably why I was a losing player while I could have been a winning player otherwise.
I learned to fold. I learned to almost never feel committed whatever the amount of chips already in the pot. Feeling committed is a leak as it leads to adding to your loss. I learned to focus on who was the player making the big bets, and depending on my profiling of him, I would decide to fold or not. For example it was quite obvious when a solid shark-rock type player was attacking the pot aggressively that he had a monster hand, so why feed his children?
Another important element is to not turn out to become predictable. If you start to systematically fold against large bets, then some observant players will notice and use that against you and bluff you. So mixing up your game is the second key.
Learn to fold and to it mix up, and you will shine at the poker table.