In the last article I told a bit about my history as a poker player and the reasons that lead to me leaving the life of a professional poker player. In this article I will focus on some of the things that I wish I knew before I began playing poker and went pro. I wont reveal too much specific strategy advice in this articles, for them please check out the news section and use the search function to find information about the poker game that you want to get tips to.

Instead in this article I will reveal things that lot of poker pros and fellow players are hesitant to tell you. They might be holding them back because they don’t want you to improve as a poker player or for some other reasons; I really have no reason to hold them back so I’ll tell everything straight up.

How to know you are the fish

By fish I mean that other players think they are better than you. I find the term “fish” somewhat insulting, as well as the term donkey and I really wouldn’t use them in any other context than things like this. However lot of poker players love to call the casual players and players who are not that good in poker fishes and all other kinds of nasty names. Below I have listed several things that might reveal that your opponents think you are a terrible poker player and that they only view you as a cash machine.

- In live poker other players overly nice and kind to you. They might for an example bring you drinks and things like that even if you didn’t ask for them and they wont bring them to others. They are doing this so that you will stay longer in the game and are more likely to lose your moneys.

- The game fills quickly when you sit down. The poker pros are like piranhas when they find a weaker player they will immediately sit down to the table and do everything they can to take his moneys.

- In online poker the waiting list to your table gets suspiciously long. If you are for an example playing $5/$10 no limit and only the game that you are playing in has a 5 or more persons in the waiting list you can be certain that the game includes at least on really bad poker player.

Poker books and poker education is actually useful

Every “true” poker player loves to tell others how poker books, videos and DVD’s are completely useless and only idiots waste time on them. Some of the poker teaching products are certainly low quality, however if you do little research on the internet you are guaranteed to find poker education tools that will certainly improve your poker game and save you money. Reading poker books and spending time on the poker coaching websites certainly helped my poker game. You might also want to consider some high quality poker forum to share information and ideas with follow poker players who are also looking to become profitable in poker.

Bankroll management is the most important thing in poker

You might be the best poker player in the world but if you are playing too big games for your bankroll you are bound to go broke. You should always stick to the games in which you can hit a massive bad run and still have a comfortable bankroll left. For an example if you play 6 max no limit holdem you should have at the very least 50 buyins in your bankroll – that’s if you are serious about making money from poker. If you play for fun you should do whatever feels the best.

Game selection is the second most important thing in poker

In the beginning of this article I told you how you can figure if other players think you are a bad poker player. The thing however is that if you are serious about making money from poker you need to hunt the weaker players. At the end of the day with the rake and all it is hard to make serious profit from the other good players, this is why you should always try to find the players that are not good in poker and do everything you can to take their chips.

Thanks for reading, I hope you found these little insights helpful.