The idea that poker is a game of luck is a badly flawed one. If you play bad cards hoping that luck will save your hand in the draw, then you are going to be out of a lot of money with no one but yourself to blame. Likewise if you let an amateur opponent betting on luck chase you down on every hand, you still have yourself to blame. Skill wins poker, not luck, and letting yourself or anyone else believe otherwise is going to undermine how you play.
Some players never learn. Time and again you hear them complain about losing when they started with a pocket pair of faces. It isn’t bad luck. It’s bad playing. The only way to protect your hand is by playing it. Sitting on a good hand when you could be betting on it is a flat out waste. You open yourself to chasers when you should be betting them out of the game early.
If you don’t move aggressively on an early advantage, then don’t be surprised if ultimately another player draws out on top. There is no rule that says you must play to the last card; the sooner you can take the pot the better, especially if your hand is at risk. No reasonable player will beat you with what started as a weak hand unless you let them stay in the game.
Don’t slow play your own hand if the draw has been good to you. For example, if there is potential for a straight in the draw, and you already have one in hand, then don’t let chasers ride it out hoping the draw will make a combination for them too. This applies to online play as well. Often, in online poker, you will get fed a nice string of hands that tend to crush the table. You gotta hope that players at the table have weaker, but still decent hands that will induce betting into you. However, some players will wait for the draw anyway, but if you bet hard you will eliminate most chasers and stand a good chance of profiting from those that remain.
Betting is your hand’s best security. If your hand is good but vulnerable, then bet to use your current advantage. Don’t bet low hoping to string along a player waiting for their one out, because sometimes they get it. Winning a small pot early in the hand is far better than taking a small loss at the end of it.
That said, it all comes down to risk. You have to know what a good hand is, and you have to know when a good hand is really good enough to go the distance, or when it’s best to make your move early. If your good hand stands to get better with a draw, then there is no sense in betting everyone out early. The idea, after all, is to take the biggest pot possible. If you can safely see all five cards drawn, then by all means let the other players pump your pot. But if you’ve got a nice pocket pair and the other players are betting weak, don’t wait and see with the rest of them. The point of all games is winning, but in poker it’s about winning big.
Jerry
