Playing Poker is fun, entertaining and rewarding. To be a poker player is to be a part of one of the most lucrative industries around.
When you look at some of the most successful poker players, they have attributes similar to each other which separates them from the rest but bad poker players are the same.
The bad poker players fail because of their habits in the poker room and outside of it.
Be it their behavior or etiquette when playing poker or their general attitude towards the game, they are easy to spot and are easily taken advantage of by good players.
Impatience
You must be patient if you want to be successful in poker. It is essential for learning in both cash games and tournament play.
Overnight success is uncommon, but if you genuinely want to be a great poker player, you must commit time to studying numerous techniques, hands, theories, and methods of improvement.
This key quality is lacking in poor poker players. They want to become overnight legends, which is just not feasible.
Being rude to other players during a poker game
It should go without saying that poker players should respect their opponents, as well as the dealers and poker club employees. Respect is the only appropriate default attitude and a common politeness.
People fail to be good poker players because they do not know how to handle bad beats so they lash out at everyone. Other times they discriminate against their opponents because they are from another race or have other sexual preferences.
This could give you a bad reputation quickly and see you in a position where you will be unable to play poker in any of the poker rooms in your area.
The most successful poker players know this, but the players that fail do not.
Respect may be as easy as reacting to a statement made by another player. It may also be baseline-appropriate behavior at a poker table, such as not berating the dealer since you recognize they have no control over the result of the hand.
Limping
As most people who are serious about the game know by now, limping is almost always bad in poker. There are almost no situations where it makes any sense at all.
Having the initiative in the hand is just much more +EV (expected value) in nearly all spots. So if you see someone limping, especially open limping from MP, LP or the SB, there is no question that this is a bad poker player.
Some regs will still open limp from EP or perhaps over-limp or complete the SB with a speculative hand. I don’t always notice that. I am looking for chronic open limping especially from positions where it never makes any sense to do so.
Bad Poker Players post their blinds out of position
This is another dead giveaway of a poorer poker player. Essentially, every regular in the world understands that you should wait until the huge blind arrives before submitting your blind.
Because poker is a long-term game in which each session is essentially a continuation of the previous one, it makes no sense to pay for blinds more frequently than necessary.
In a full poker game, certain regs may post in the CO, especially if there are known weaker players already at the table. This is something I do on occasion. Nevertheless, if you see someone posting their blind from ANY other position, they are unquestionably a terrible player.
Bad poker players play poker without discipline
Poker calls for both patience and discipline. It is what permits you to avoid rushing the gun and instead wait for a beneficial opportunity to strike. Poker is not a game for the quickly bored or the impetuous.
Even if you know a lot about the game and how much different beginning hands are worth, a few careless actions can rapidly cause your stack to burst. Discipline will allow you to stay in the game for much longer.
Indiscipline also stretches beyond what you do in the poker room as well. Not everyone is built for the professional poker player lifestyle. It requires keeping to a schedule, being punctual to live and online games (cash games or poker tournaments), spending a lot of time playing and practicing poker and finding balance in your life.
If you cannot achieve this in your poker career, you may never be a good poker player and the poker gods will never be in your favor. This brings us to our next point.
Bad Bankroll management
Bankroll management is a fundamental skill possessed by every successful player. Good bankroll management should be like breathing for each and every poker player if they want to become a high ranking poker pro in the poker world.
Even if you make the perfect play in the poker room consistently, if you burn through your money, you will have nothing left.
If you decide to play through your bad beats, and you continue to lose money playing poker, you will end up with nothing left.
Celebration after winning in poker is not a bad thing but if you celebrate too much, you can burn through the money you win and end up with nothing left.
If as a beginner, you decide to enter a poker tournament filled with seasoned poker pros, there is a chance that you can find out you will be made the sucker. Once this happens, the best players will suck your bankroll dry and you will barely have enough money for a ride back home from the casino. It will happen every time.
If your living expenses are not within a reasonable budget, it will come back and bite you in the backside. Poor players sometimes have the impression that they are better than they actually are and they end up losing everything as a result.
Postflop Under-betting the Pot
This is another apparent indication of a lesser player. Especially when they are betting a quarter of the pot or less. No good player would ever do that since it offers the opponent player(s) practically little reason to fold and clear odds to call with almost any draw.
In a low stakes no limit hold’em cash game, even bets of 1/3 pot have virtually limited application. Smaller bets have validity in MTTs owing to smaller stack sizes, but in a cash game, you should almost always be betting at least half of the pot in virtually all instances at the micros.
Having One Big Ego when playing poker
Your ego can sometimes ruin everything. If you have a hard time accepting defeat, it should be a red flag that you are not a good player. Even the best poker players are aware that they will not be able to win all the time. It is, sometimes, just a matter of luck.
Accepting these facts and letting go of your pride and ego are critical components of poker success. Good players don’t allow their emotions to take control of their performance – it will only lead to rash decisions and a negative outcome.
Moreover, having a big ego is bad poker etiquette. When the other players in the poker room see that you are full of yourself, it will serve as motivation for poker players to crush you in order to put you in your place.
It is also not a great way to make poker friends.
Not Being Able To Deal With Numbers
Poor poker players struggle with numbers. It is easy for professional poker players to spot those that are not paying attention to the numbers and math at the poker table.
While being a math whiz isn’t required to play poker, it is beneficial to have a basic understanding of the poker odds and probabilities that you and your opponents face.
If you do not know, for example, what your pot equity is, what the chances of hitting your draw is, what the optimal play given your stack size is, among other things, then you may need to go back to the drawing board because you are not ready to be a poker player.
