Rule 38: Since poker is a game of positioning oneself to win (but with no guarantee of winning), there are going to be times when doing exactly

Since poker is a game of positioning oneself to win (but with no guarantee of winning), there are going to be times when doing exactly the right thing leads to losses.
There aren't many sports or games where you can have a lifetime of experience, make every play exactly right, and lose. But poker is one of them. This tells us something it tells us not to approach it like other games.
This is a difficult concept for some players to understand. They ask. «What am I doing wrong?» And if the answer is «Nothing», it leaves no rational explanation. Yet this situation is common in poker. Coolness must prevail. Clinical detachment and composure need to be embraced.

Rule 37: It's a mistake to use experience alone to determine what good poker play is.

Long-time experience can be deceptive. Our memory can be selective. It can mislead us, overemphasizing some things that occurred and underemphasizing others. A big win may shine brightly in our memory, yet if looked at closer, it might not be backed up by good play. Always make sure you are playing right first, and then get a lot of experience at it.
Don't do it in reverse. Don't reference your many years of experience
as proof that you mast be playing right. This kind of self-referential
argument is capable of containing numerous errors.
Similar card situations occur again and again, thousands of times. And some players have been playing them wrong – for years. Worse, such a player often learns to do so expertly! In fact, many of them become
excellent players, amazingly adept at «working around» their own flaws and weaknesses. They become experts at starting out with their own self-
imposed handicaps and overcoming them. They are like track stars who
become very proficient at finding ever newer and more innovative ways to
get over the hurdles that they themselves have put in their own way.

Rule 36: One of the main ways we improve in the game of poker is by getting certain lessons pounded into our heads.

Books, seminars, and other kinds of advice are all well and good, but
nothing instructs us in certain lessons like experience. Lessons learned
through painful experience tend to form a deep groove in the brain.

«You can close your eyes to reality, but not to memory». – Stanislaw J. Lec

Free rules for poker 35: If you're doing a lot of folding, won't this look odd to the other players?

You might sometimes get the feeling that all this folding you're doing looks
pretty obvious to the other players. You can almost feel their watchful eyes
on you – and hear them thinking: «Boy, he sure plays tight. He must be
waiting for the perfect hand to come along».
If you took a survey, though, you would find this is not what most low-
level opponents are thinking at all. Here is what they are really thinking
when you are doing a lot of folding:

1. Nothing.
2. You're a player who must be getting pretty lousy cards.
3. Great “you're out of the way“ let the action commence without
you.
4. They really don't care (or even notice). Frankly, there are enough
other opponents in the game to worry about, and the fewer
opponents, the better.
5. You must be a fairly «tight» player may be a «rock».

Notice that the thing you were most worried about came in last –
which it probably would in a real survey.

Free rules for poker 34: In the best players there is a streak of simple common sense.

If we put things in these terms, the game seems pretty simple.
Strategies are somewhat different than this at higher, more sophisticated
levels of play, of course, but for most players this common sense aspect is
something to keep in mind. It is possible for a player to get lost in
convoluted scheming and overlook this simple truth – that a good portion of
the game is simply common sense. And this trait is also present in the great
players. In fact, the vast majority of plays in the game of poker are not
fancy, sophisticated plays, but obvious ones. But these have to be done right
too.

Free rules for poker 33: Don't go on the offense against a large field of players with a weak hand.

Here's a poker secret: When you don't have good cards, someone else
usually does. Don't go into the aggressive/offense mode in a situation where
you're weak and they are a mystery. Remember, the good cards have to be
somewhere.

Free rules for poker 32: You may as well bet if you intend to call.

It is a generally accepted idea that if your hand is good enough to call a bet with, then you are better off betting. (And this is a situation that occurs very often in poker.) The thinking is that if you're going to call a bet, you might as well be the one driving the betting. It's going to cost the same amount anyway at least this way you're in the driver's seat. There is an intimidation aspect that also accrues from doing this whether in the individual hand, or cumulatively, over many hands a general aura of aggressiveness.

Free rules for poker 31: Once you commit to a hand, you should play it strong.

From this rule we can see the problem that occurs if you start a hand with marginal cards. You've already got yourself in the middle of a conundrum, forced to play a bad hand forcefully and aggressively.

Free Rules for poker 30: Staying more frequently in a poker game offers you greatly increased chances of winning here's why it's a mistake.

One or two players every hand are likely to have a great hand. If you are going to play almost every hand, then you're going to have to beat a great and every hand. If you think about it this way, it becomes obvious why it is foolhardy to «stay» on a large number of hands. The challenge you're giving yourself is insurmountable trying to beat a great hand every time.

Rule 29: The value of starter cards.

It would be hard to overstate the importance of В«starting cardsВ» in poker. To
the casual observer (or novice), this might not seem to be the case. Indeed,
why would it? After all (they might think), a good hand could develop at any
point during the hand, couldn't it? On the fifth card, or the sixth or seventh,
and so on. So this might not seem logical. (And this is – needless to say –
how bad players play the game.) Furthermore, they might argue, how can a
hand «develop» if you don't give it a chance? How can it, if you keep cutting
it off early, and folding, before it can develop into anything?
The explanation is this: If you operate without regard to your starter
cards, you will often be В«running behindВ» your opponents. For example, a
player who has four low cards (in a low-ball game, say i is В«aheadВ» of you if
you only have three low cards. Over hundreds of hands dealt, his В«better
startВ» will soon manifest itself and make him victorious.
This law can be generally applied throughout life. Go into situations
where advantages lean in your direction at the beginning. While this is still
no guarantee of success, it will mean that you are not being penalized from
the very start of the process fighting an uphill battle from day one.

Rule 28: Luck, good or bad, comes in bunches.

Any experienced, long-time gambler is familiar with the «bunching» of luck.
Play the same cards one night and they will be losers, while another night
they will be winners.
Both good cards and bad do come in bunches. It's important to realize
the В«typicalityВ» of this. It is within the bounds of probability that this occurs,
not outside of it. Many players think of it as an aberration – that such
occurrences are outside the framework of probability. They are not. They are
within the framework of it. (There is a point where they do become an
aberration, but this point is much farther along than most people would
guess.)

Rule 27: Get a bigger bankroll.

Failure to have a big enough bankroll is a common failing in poker. It can
lead to all types of adverse effects: the feeling that every hand is a В«life or
death matterВ», overly-emotional play, temper tantrums, mood swings and
so on. Having an adequate bankroll allows us to suffer the natural swings of
fortune that take place, and it lets us do so with composure and equanimity.
One ought to try to get one's poker bankroll to a large enough amount so
that the outcome of any one hand (or session) has no effect whatsoever on
one's play.
Without an adequate bankroll, we tend to inject emotion into these
fluctuations that occur. Having our heart and soul riding on each hand
magnifies them and makes them larger in our mind than they should be.
Take away this emotion, and things once again resume their natural place in
the bigger picture.

«Don't fly too high above your bankroll, for that is when you'll live and die
with each pot. or at least with each session. Obviously, when each bad beat
has so much significance to your financial well-being, you can't help but be
affected».

Rule 26: Rebelling against the read has predictable, bad consequences

As we staled above, the problem is not that players' instincts aren't good but
that we often don't listen to them (or even rebel against them). Thus, we
are not going by what our В«readВ» is telling us.
There are a number of reasons for not listening to this inner voice:

1. «The read is unfairВ».
2. «The same read seems to be going on forever and never changes».
3. «I get tired of hearing В«NoВ» from my read».
4. «I get tired of continually folding based on my read, even if it is
accurate and the correct thing to do».
5. «I he read always seems to favor the other guy never me. It always
seems to be them, them, them».
6. «Every time I make a read, it seems to come up with this: Other-
Guy-Strong, Mc-Weak, and I have to fold».

The thing is, you are beating the game (in the long run) if you go by
your read and your read is accurate – even if it involves a lot of folding.
One of the secrets of poker is this ability to hear the word over
and over“ without it bothering you. You'll hear В«YesВ» only infrequently, but
it will be enough to win.

Rule 25: We need to listen to our instincts in poker.

One possible reason we don't listen to them is because the answers we keep
getting always seem unfair. It's always В«them, them, themВ» (and В«fold, fold,
foldВ» for us). So we often rebel against the answers that our instincts are
giving us. Yet if we stop and think, statistically, most of the time it is going
to be them, them, them.
This is true for a couple of reasons. First, there are more of В«themВ»
than us, and second, because the majority of situations won't favor us. After
all, you're only one hand out of four or five players as you look around the
table. It's more likely that one of these other hands is going to В«helpВ» than
yours, hence your В«readВ» is simply going to be more often. In fact,
you might get ten or twelve В«no'sВ» in a row from your read, one after the
other“ or even three or four В«no'sВ» in a row in the same hand.
The point is, you're going to hear В«noВ» a lot in the game of poker. The
secret is to keep listening to the correct answer and acting on it even if it
is not the answer you want to hear. Because it is not about getting the
answer you want to hear, it's about continuing to make correct decisions.

Rule 24: Playing correctly without being rewarded for it is a concept the player must get used to.

The player must get used to the idea of playing correctly without being
rewarded for it. This will often mean playing correctly while going nowhere,
and even losing. You simply do it because you do it. You do it without any
expectations.

Rule 23: We should want to lose if we play badly.

There are some times when we are better off failing in life, even if it's more painful at the time: shoplifting, betting a hundred dollars a hand in blackjack, making romantic advances to the boss's wife, and so on. Getting away with these things temporarily would actually lead to worse things for us in the long run. So maybe it's better if we fail at them right away. We need wrong decisions to have bad consequences. We shouldn't want to be insulated from our mistakes, for they will guide us in the right direction and in the long run this will be to our benefit. Similarly, making mistakes in poker, and then winning by this means, while momentarily pleasing, is very bad in the long run.

Rule 22: Make correct decisions (Part III).

We have all heard it said of a player, «It just kills him to lose». But have you ever heard it said of a player: «It just kills him to play his cards wrong?» Well, this is the way it should be. Because this is where the money goes – the leak, the fissure in the dike where the money seeps away. Be the player about whom they say: «It just kills him to play his cards wrong».

Rule 21: Make correct decisions (Part II).

As noted above, it is by making correct decisions that you beat the game.
Here's an example. Let's say you make a straight, and then a possible flush
appears on the last card (either on the board or in an opponent's up-cards).
An opponent who you know only bets when he has a good hand suddenly
lights up with joy at this turn of events. He fires in a bet, and you fold. Now
let's say this happens again. And again. And again. In fact, let's say it
happens six or seven times in a row, and you fold each time. You are
beating the game by doing this – even though you're losing. Why? Because
you are making correct decisions. A series of correct decisions, carried on
long enough. will eventually В«turn the tideВ» in your favor.
All you can ever do in poker is make correct decisions, moment by
moment, in each specific situation you find yourself in.

Rule 20: Concentrate on how you are playing, not on whether you are winning.

I he idea of winning money, as we have seen, is a false goal. You can
actually be playing quite poorly and be winning quite handily. This is not the
victory it feels like, however, for eventually this bad play will catch up to
you. And while it might be momentarily pleasing to win money, it is
disastrous if you are achieving this by playing wrong. (Probably the thing we
should hope for is to lose when we are playing wrong, for this will steer us
toward the correct path.)
Money, as a measure of poker expertise, is quite unreliable. Here is an
example. Suppose you are winning $200 in a poker game. Going by this
measure alone, this would mean you've been playing very good poker
indeed. But suppose a better player, dealt the same cards as you've been
getting, would be up $600? Now a different picture emerges. We see by this
example that money alone is not a good measure of poker play.
You should go home from a poker game on some nights losing $250
and be proud of the way you played. And you should go home on other
nights a $300 winner and be disgusted at the way you played.
Be as proud of yourself for playing well with bad cards as you are for
playing well and winning. Achieve your sense of satisfaction by this path
also. Actually he proud of yourself for doing this.
The process must always be kept uppermost, because it is what will
win you money over the long run. Give yourself a pat on the back every time
you make a correct play, not every time you rake in a pot.

Rule 19: The goal of poker is not to win money, it is to play your

Many players believe that the goal in poker is to win money. Actually, the goal is to make a series of correct decisions. This is the real goal. Keep your focus on (his and the rest will follow naturally. Correct play on each card and each hand is your real goal as a poker player.
«Winning isn't your job. Making good decisions is your job».

– Mike Caro