1. Feeling Entitled to a Win with Premium Pairs like AA, KK, and QQ.

I know, it's hard to ever let go of these hands, but to be a skillful player, you have to detach yourself from the emotional aspect of getting a big pocket pair. What you really have to bear in mind is that you have a pair, that is all. Granted, it's a very good pair, but your biggest advantage here is primarily a pre-flop advantage. Especially in situations where you get two or more callers pre-flop, you are likely to be in severe trouble if you don't have the discipline to lay these down when the post flop situation warrants it.

2. Overplaying Small and Medium Pairs

Medium Pairs - I'm not sure what kind of value people think they are getting when they re raise and shove a bunch of chips in pre-flop with hands like pocket 7s through pocket 9's, or even pocket 10's, at a full table against more than one raiser. It's fine to be aggressive since as a general rule, you want to be the raiser instead of the caller, but you just have to be cautious and they are by far some of the trickiest hands to play.

Small Pairs - If you've ever run hands like 22, 33, or 44 through a calculator like PokerStove, you can understand the abysmal odds of playing these hands too aggressively. Against a random hand, you are only slightly better than 50% to win.

3. Not Playing AQ for Maximum Value

AQ is a monster shorthanded, but it's generally a somewhat weak hand at a full table. I generally don't even like playing AQ from early position. This may sound very tight, but if I'm playing a weaker hand from early position, I'd often rather be playing suited connectors than AQ. If I raise in early position with AQ and face heavy action, I'm usually dumping it, especially if unsuited. It's just a much weaker hand than most people think when facing heavy preflop betting.

4. Betting The River With Marginal Hands

This mistake is made over and over again and I fail to understand it. As a general rule, it only makes logical sense to be betting the river with hands you can't possibly win without a bet, or hands where you hope to get called by a worse hand. I see it all the time where people will bet the river with middle or bottom pair. What could you possibly be hoping to accomplish? You are only likely to get called by a better hand unless someone thinks your bluffing and they decide to call you down with a high card, which is usually not going to be the case. You are rarely going to get any value betting marginal hands on the river. If you have a marginal hand, just check it down. If your opponent bets, you can then decide if the situation warrants a call or not.

5. Poorly Chosen Bluffs and Continuation Bets

I'll start with continuation bets here. Too many people waste a bunch of money feeling as if they have to continuation bet every single time they are the pre-flop aggressor. Good players will always pick up on this and punish you for it. It's a waste of chips and is far better to mix it up a little bit.

Bluffs ? At lower limits, people bluff way too much in my opinion. It's often not necessary and many of the players are just unbluffable. I've done it way too many times myself against people I have no business bluffing because they will call me down with just about any pair.

6. Ax ? The Silent Killer

I don't even know where to start with the subject of playing weak aces like A9 and lower, especially unsuited. These hands are mostly garbage in my opinion. People tend to fall in love with their aces. Throwing these hands away most of the time has saved many a dent in my pocketbook. The problem is, even if you hit an ace, you are very likely to be dominated by a better ace and can be in big trouble post-flop because it is so hard to let it go.

8. Not Picking Your Battles with the Right Players

Being observant of other players is an extremely integral part of the game. Most people don't fully put this into practice though and get way too aggressive with the wrong players. When you want to be aggressive against someone in a tournament, sit and go, or cash game, you should really be running through a checklist of who is likely to experience the most pain by calling your raise.

9. Slow playing Big Hands and Overbetting Weak Ones

I know it's natural to want to keep people in the hand when you have a made hand and slow play it. However, you are going to extract a lot more money over the long run if you play your weak hands and bluffs the exact same way you play the monsters.

10. Underestimating the Value of Position

I know you've probably heard this many times before, but it's worth saying again. Position, position, position. Your position at the table is of utmost importance in NL hold'em. When you're last to act pre-flop and in subsequent betting rounds, you will save a ton of money when you're beat, gain more when you have great hands, you have more control over the size of the pot, and are putting your opponent in an uncomfortable situation.

Return to Poker-A-Z.Com's - Online Poker Index