One of the most important things you need to learn in order to become a winning poker player is how to control your emotions when you are actually playing poker. Especially for beginner players it might be extremely hard to stay calm when you are getting a bad beat after a bad beat or when you simply can’t seem to get a hand that you can play. These bad runs can last for surprisingly long times and many people simply can’t handle them and instead go on tilt and end up losing their much valued poker bankroll. I myself have certainly gone on tilt from time to time, but luckily I have gotten somewhat better at controlling my emotions when playing poker, and I hope that with the following tips you will also be able to control your emotions – even when the things are not going so good.
10 Tips for controlling your emotions when playing online poker games.
1: When you get bad beated try to keep in mind that one hand is totally irrelevant during the span of your whole poker career. This tip also includes the fact that you should avoid putting yourself into situation where losing one hand has a major impact on your poker bankroll.
2: Try to ignore the short term swings and instead just focus on the big picture stuff. If you are up money during your poker career it is totally useless to think about if you are up money during the last week.
3: Don’t blame your opponents for the bad beats and don’t get enemies at the poker table. Nothing good can come out of it.
4: If you notice that you are starting to steam take a break till you are ready to play your best possible poker again
5: During the good times avoid rising limits too fast and try to keep in mind that luck also works this Odds are big part of your winnings in short term are due to luck and playing too big games against too good players is an easy way to do lot of damage to your much valued poker bankroll.
6: If someone calls you names in online poker try to ignore him. If that doesn’t work simply report his chat behaviour to the support and they will ban his chat feature.
7: Make sure that you understand the odds properly. Even when you get all in before the flop with pocket AA against KK you only win the pot 80% of the time, what this means is that every 5th time you are EXPECTED to get bad beated. After you get the concept of odds you are much more likely to be able to simply ignore even these bad beats that before felt horrendous.
8: Exercise, eat properly, don’t play drunk, sleep well. All these things will make you feel better while playing poker and thus make it much less likely that you will lose the control of your emotions.
9: Only play poker games for which you have the proper bankroll: when a short bad run doesn’t take part of your ‘roll you will able to stand the swings better.
10: If you are not trying to become a poker and are sure that you are playing with money that you can afford to lose try to ignore completely that there is money at stake when you are playing online poker.
