The Ten Biggest Mistakes a Poker Player Makes

[Talking Poker]

What a great thread. Sorry I'm late to the party....

For me, the answer is a very simple and specific one. I don't know if it's worthy of the overall list, but for limit players, this is HUGE (literally the difference between being a winning player and a losing player a lot of times):

-Betting the river with a medium strength hand when first to act. CHECK AND CALL, CHECK AND CALL.

Also, another huge one for limit poker:

-Calling too often on the turn; Folding too often on the river. We all know what pot odds are, but SO MANY people obviously don't understand them and how they apply when making that river decision. If you are getting 10:1 or better against just one oppponent on the river, I'll go so far as to say it is almost never correct to fold, unless you have a completely busted draw.... Calling with Ace high, and certainly any pair is often the correct play, even though it "feels" like you are losing so many showdowns. Remember, you only need to win 10% of them for that call to be correct!

Another small one (not Top 10 worthy, probably):

-Drawing to the sucker end of a straight (or any other situation where you have high negative implied odds). Even if the "pot odds" tell you calling is correct, your negative implied odds often greatly outweight the pot odds, and make drawing -EV.

I also think the bankroll management is HUGE.... Maybe lump it in with Emotional Control, but it has to be in there somewhere.

[2Tone]

Playing until it is 'all gone.'

Often I’ll be at a 3/6 limit live game, and will watch players either lose a few big pots or slowly bleed away their chips, and end up sitting there with less than $20. Rather than reload or walk away with what is left, they keep going, and 90% of the time end up losing that as well on an all-in, or, best case scenario, fail to make as much as they could have when they finally do catch a hand.

[lightfungus]

I think these things can be tied together into one point (almost). I find myself at this stage in my game struggling with correct bet amounts. I don't have as much trouble knowing when to bet, but more, well nevermind, yes when to bet as well, but not right out of the gate with hole cards or anything. Its like betting on the river when you are only gonna get called or reraised and get yourself put in a difficult situiation, that kind of thing. This is one of my biggest areas for improvement right now. It's the over EV of certain situations that is the issue I think.

[sjay2k]

Speaking of table selection, I found this 6-max table today.

Quite possibly the fishiest table I've ever seen (although it was only a 2/4 table)

[Talking Poker]

Yummy. I could lose $400 there in about 15 minutes, no doubt!