Long Term Goals In Poker

Poker players relies on decisions in order to become successful in this game. If they make good decisions, they win and if they didn’t they lose.

Each decision you will make has a long term expected value in poker which is shorten as EV. The EV of a decision is what you will win or lose on average in the long term. One example would be playing in a limit Hold Em poker game where in you play and bet the nuts on the river. With this you’ll get a positive expected value of $20 each time you made the decision. On the other hand, folding a big blind will make you lose $10 which is a negative EV every time you made the same decision.

Not all decisions are exact though. The -EV$10 example is not that simple. In case you lose $3 in the big blind every time then your expected value of folding any hand is -$7. But if you lose $12 a hand in the Big Blind then your EV every time you fold would be +$2.

But why there are still a lot of players who make bad judgment? This is because they focus themselves on the short term aspect of the game and not the long run. They think that luck is the biggest contributor, that’s why they win and they attribute losing in it too. Expected value is farther on their thoughts and they only think about what they can do to be lucky on the next hand.

Even good poker players has faults. They are not really visible on the naked eye but they exist. There are popular players who loved their most favored hand, others can’t understand the idea of positioning and there are too open minded to leave their blind unprotected. Actually, there are a lot of mistakes that a good player can be a victim.

Its commonly known that a player who make good decisions gets the chip on the table.

However, some of our opponents misunderstood this concept. They always thought that by winning a big bet that they already have made the right decisions. They don’t realize its just short term luck. Winning doesn’t mean that you made a better judgment. A decision can only be called good if it results in a positive expected value in the long run.

Brilliant poker players have trained themselves to ignore the distraction made by short term luck in poker. They focus themselves into making the right decisions in order to attain a positive EV. One goal is clear for a poker player and that is playing their money on a hand where they have a big chance of winning.

Some individuals who ignore the core strategies of the game and only depends on luck to win are called results oriented. They look on what happened and not think about what could have they’ve done differently to make a better outcome. They are not aware that a term called EV existed in poker. They just think about the short term results of their play.

The other players’ faults is a gain for your pocket.

This concept is very significant to the fact that players who make more mistakes are your ideal opponents. This means that you in poker mistakes are very expensive. Players who made the fewest mistakes always come out on top. And those who made a lot of mistakes ends up losing. So its very important that you choose your opponents well.

This belief is applicable to all kinds of poker games, regardless who are playing in it.

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