4 Wrong Things Amateur Players Say

Elite professional players are much better than amateur players. Everyone knows this. However, what many amateurs don't know is that elite players use a vocabulary of strategies that is almost completely different from that of beginners. In other words, amateurs and professional players think about the game in completely different ways, and obviously the way amateur players think is usually not the most accurate.

Thoughts of Amateur Players

Here are four bad things amateurs say when talking about hands that you'll never hear from a professional player.

1. “I think he has Ace and King.”

Amateur players say this all the time, and they're almost always wrong.

The hand, in this case AK, is not specifically the problem. You could change it to any other hand and it would still be a bad thing to say.

Amateurs tend to oversimplify poker, and this is one way they do it. When they are trying to read their opponent's hand, they focus on only one possible hand to the exclusion of all others. Then, they play whatever way they think is best against that particular hand.

The problem is that it is almost never possible to restrict your opponent's range to just one hand and be correct.

Elite players would probably say something like, “He has a weak range of hands.” This statement acknowledges that an opponent may have a different range of possible hands.

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2. “I gave up/called just to try to control the variance.”

I've been hearing this one for the past 13 years, and it's just as bad today as it was back then. The idea is that no one likes the ups and downs of No-Limit Hold'em. In fact, the ups aren't the problem, the downs are.

A bad player then starts to think, “Well, I can’t afford to lose what I didn’t put in the pot!” Little by little, he starts to play passively. Instead of reraising with QQ before the flop, he just calls. Instead of calling with a bluff-catching hand, he folds. Instead of playing the draw, he folds. Whenever there is a choice to be made, this player chooses the option that puts the least amount of money in the pot.

If you ask this player what he’s doing, he’ll probably tell you that he’s trying to reduce the harms of variance. “Sure, I know I’m giving up a bigger profit, but I can play so much better without all that variance swings.”

This doesn't work. Winning play requires a lot of aggression and risk-taking. You can't systematically reduce risk and still play strong. That's impossible. If you're limiting all your decisions to calling or folding, all I have to do is bet every time you check and I'll eventually beat you.

Elite players don't have a similar line to this. They play a high variance style because that style is the best and most profitable to play. If you intentionally try to reduce variance, you have to accept that you will never truly play well.

3. “I raised to try to take the pot now.”

Amateur players often say this when they have a strong hand on a dynamic, drawy board. For example, they might have QQ on a J96 flush-draw flop. When someone bets, they raise to “take down the pot quickly.”

The idea behind this, when you think about it, is ridiculous. Good hands only have value at showdown. If you raise on the flop and win the hand right away, you could even have 72 and still win. In fact, the only difference between QQ and 72 is that you win more showdowns with QQ. So, there is absolutely no point in avoiding showdowns when you have good hands.

This doesn’t mean it’s wrong to raise with QQ on this type of board. But raising just to “take down the pot now” is weak and amateurish logic.

Elite players talk about raising ranges. These players would look at the J96 flop with a flush draw and think of all the possible hands they could have. Then, they would mentally divide these hands into a folding range, a calling range, and a raising range (sometimes they might even split the raising range into two, one for small raises and one for large raises).

Typically, they do this mental exercise while studying, away from the table, so that approximate ranges come to mind almost automatically while playing. So, an elite player could indeed raise with QQ because that is a hand that could be in his raising range in this situation. At this point, any intention behind the raise is irrelevant, and the pro certainly wouldn't want his opponent to fold.

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4. “I’ll play that guy with any hand next time. I know he’s stealing.”

People easily remember things that happened recently, and so tend to give more weight to those events when making decisions about future events.

If the New Orleans Saints have just won 3 games in a row by high scores, the average person will tend to overestimate the Saints' chances of winning the next game. Sure, they might actually be good, but they're not as good as they might seem on their best winning streak. A single stroke of bad luck could cause them to lose any game.

It's the same in poker. A hundred poker hands mean absolutely nothing to the game as a whole. Most online players will tell you that they need at least 1,000 times more hands than that before they can start drawing meaningful conclusions.

Yet many amateur players make assumptions all the time based on just a hundred hands, or even less. It's common to hear things like: he's always bluffing; she always plays only the nuts; he's the tightest player I've ever seen; she always calls with bad hands.

Most of the time, you can't draw legitimate conclusions from just one day of play. Yet many amateurs do it all the time.

Elite players have a more analytical point of view. Of course, they read their opponents and adjust their strategies accordingly. However, these adjustments are supported by a strong and balanced strategy base.

For example, it is unlikely that an elite player will look at his hand before the flop and decide that he will play it “like Aces” just to get bluffed. As I said before, elite players think in terms of hand ranges. If they think someone is bluffing too often, they will simply put more hands in the calling and raising range.

They might even play 72, T3, or any hand that comes their way. They'll add hands from the best to the worst. If their next 5 hands are horrible, they'll just wait for one that isn't.

Final Considerations

If you are an amateur player who wants to improve, the first step is to forget the wrong thoughts, like the ones I listed, that are part of your game. If you notice that you are thinking and saying the things I listed, it is time to work on your game.

Article translated and adapted from the original: Ed Miller: Four Bad Things Amateur Poker Players Say