It has never been a better or worse time to wish to become a top-level poker player. Let’s start with the bad news, and that’s that the game has arguably never been more popular than it is today. According to one count, there are more than 100 million poker players across the globe. That means there are a bunch of players that newcomers have to overcome if they’re going to be one of the better players.
OK, so that’s the bad news. What’s the good news? It has never been easier to reach your full poker potential than it is today. Thanks to the internet, a beginner poker player can make more progress in a week than a pre-digital-era player would make in six months or more. In this post, we’ll run through how newcomers to the game can use technology to replicate the habits of the best players in the world.
Spend Time Studying
You’ll need to spend time studying poker in order to be competitive at the table. Professional players spend — or did spend, when they were learning — around 80% of their “poker time” reading up on strategies and only 20% on playing.
For one thing, you can thank the internet for that information. People in the olden days might have thought they could learn simply by doing; you cannot. Second, all of the expert knowledge is easily available to you in the form of blogs, forums, and books. You might have to pay for content in some cases, but it’ll still be instantly accessible.
Play a Variety of Game Types
Professional poker players recommend playing a variety of poker games. The better your all-around play, the better poker player you’ll be. Plus, by playing in different types of games, you’ll learn new approaches and strategies that can improve your performance in all types of games. After all, there’s a difference between playing online and playing in a tournament, with the latter helping to significantly enhance your overall skills.
It can be difficult to get a seat at a tournament, but here, again, the web can help; programs like the PokerStars Power Path offer a pathway toward the largest online and real-world tournaments. It’s also recommended to play different variants of poker — you’ll probably start out playing Texas Hold’em, but what if Omaha Poker is the one that you really connect with? Most real-world casinos only offer Texas Hold’em, but online, you can find a much wider range of variants.
Logical Thinking
Poker is heavily reliant on the player’s capacity for logical thinking. There’s space for intuition, of course, but the vast chunk of the performance is logic-based. Anything that can help elevate a player’s capacity for logical thinking is therefore worth exploring.
There are a bunch of apps that claim to improve logical thinking, including BrainHQ, Lumosity, and Elevate.
Game Immersion
The more you put into poker, the more you’ll get out. The digital era offers players instant access to as much poker-related content as they want. By investing time in watching videos, listening to podcasts, or reading advanced poker strategies in online communities (poker-related subreddits are a good place to look), newcomers can speed up their understanding of the game.
Overall Well-Being
Our final tip, investing in overall well-being, is often overlooked by amateur poker players but not by professional players. The leading players understand the importance of good mental and physical conditioning and invest the time and energy to make sure they’re in tip-top condition.
There’s no shortage of wellness apps that can have an indirectly positive impact on your poker game (and other aspects of your life). To get started, look at downloading applications that offer:
- Exercise regimes
- Meditation sessions
- Sleep improvement
- Yoga/stretching
- Easy healthy meal recipes
You might just find that investing in these activities can give you a subtle edge when you’re at the table — and a subtle edge can make all the difference.
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