Leaks are very aptly named.  These weaknesses in your game can drain your stack and will keep draining it until you fix the leak.  This requires first analyzing your playing to find the trends that mark the sign of a leak, which will often be quite clear.  Below are a number of the more common leaks and how you can alter your game to plug it up.

            It can be argued that this one problem is the catalyst to all the other leaks.  Not paying attention to the game, the other players, and the cards is only going to lead to your stack dwindling in size.  Because while you’re not concentrating on the game others are.  Everything around you is a clue to how you should be playing and reacting.

When you play poker you're playing a mental game, it just doesn’t work if your head’s not in it.  Through every game at any table whether you’re playing at the moment or not you need to be focused on the game.  Are your opponents giving you any tells?  How did the raising change after the flop?  The is game generally tight or loose?  Poker requires constant analysis.  If you’re not able to manage this you’ll likely become familiar with at least a few other leaks that weaken your game.

            This is actually a problem that many poker players have in the beginning.  We come into the game thinking that action is the point of the game, it’s how you win.  However, time will usually cure this when the player realizes playing every hand means losing every chip much of the time.

So the earlier you can take that understanding and apply it to your game the better your odds of lasting will be especially in the long run.  Just looking at things statistically if you’re seeing about a third of the flops that’s too many.  That’s playing too loose, or in other words too many hands.  Getting it down to more like 20% of the flops is recommended.  One of the traps of this leak is the blinds.  Because there’s already an investment it’s hard not to feel you should play the blinds even if you’re hand isn’t all that good.  That kind of thinking is starting to let emotions affect your reasoning which is a whole other leak.

            Bluffing in poker is a part of your strategy that truly takes a fair amount of skill.  A big part of that skill is knowing when to bluff, because blindly throwing them out there is going to get you knocked out of the game quickly.  The point is to make others think you have a hand they can’t beat so the first rule to bluffing is use it sparingly.

The most effective bluffing is typically found in tight players, or players that play conservatively folding all but their good hands.  When you build that persona as a tight player the other players at your table are going to second guess challenging you when you raise.  This of course makes it easier to get away with a bluff every now and then. 

Beyond not overplaying your bluffs you need to be choosey for when you are going to use them.  If you’re playing low limit poker, or what’s known as micro limit poker, bluffing can be all but impossible, especially in early play at tournaments.  Because of the low cost for seeing the cards many players will check your raise even if their cards aren’t great.  If you have a good hand this could play in your favor giving you a huge pot in the end.  However, someone gets lucky and catches the right card or has a better hand already you’d be out a good bit. 

Your position can also make your bluffing efforts more effect.  Check out the section on position below for more on this.

            This point might seem a little off.  How are you supposed to know you’ve got the second best hand?  Of course this isn’t easy to determine and you could still be wrong and in fact have the best hand.  However, there are times when you’re given indicators that you’re hand won’t win, even if you catch the card(s) you need.

The cards on the board are what help you determine if you’re second best hand, and how the players react to the community cards could solidify it for you.  A clear example of this is when you have a drawing hand for a straight and the cards on the board help you.  But by examining the cards and thinking of everything that you could use them for you realize one of your opponents could very well be drawing for a flush.   By knowing your hand ranking you know a flush beats a straight. 

So say you’ve just seen the flop and you’re in this circumstance.  There’s certain to be one of three outcomes; your opponent catches his cards to win, you both catch your cards but his hand is better and he wins, you catch your cards and he doesn’t so you win.  Knowing your odds on this it’s only reasonable to fold and not have it cost you any more.

            You should already know poker is a game that requires mathematics.  If you look at it that way the game gives you everything you need to determine how you should play a hand.  As soon as you’re dealt your hole cards you should be calculating your odds and playing by those odds.  

As discussed in the folding section, some players can find it difficult to fold. But it’s a much better alternative to “chasing”, which is the term for playing a game when the odds are against you, and often times doing so knowingly.  If you fall into this leak over and over again you need to go back to the basics of how hands are created and ranked, measuring how many out cards you have and using the board cards as a barometer to how strong a hand others could make.  Knowing the number of outs you have you can easily calculate your odds of seeing a card you need turn up.  And taking into account the pot most of the time the odds aren’t worth it so those odds are also not working in your favor.

Especially after you see the flop and have a chance to read the board somewhat, you should be getting a good idea of what you’re odds of winning are.  It will be really good if one of the cards you needed did drop, but you’ll most likely be feeling relieve you didn’t feed the pot.

Read this additional article for more on Poker Odds

            Where you sit at the table is a big influence on your game.  There have been many articles written about position in poker , including one on this website.  This is a very bad leak because it is a very obvious to everyone else.

In early positions you should play conservatively, because everyone will be watching what you do and getting that information.  You however won’t get the same kind of information.  In other words if you’re holding a pair of 8s you’d probably rather have known that someone else was going to bet way above what you were willing to, but that bet’s already in the pot.  Your safest bet is to play only your strongest hands in the early seats.

If you’re in the late positions you have this luxury of knowing what others will do first, and the dealer position, or the button, is the most advantageous of them all.  In these positions it can serve in your favor to loosen up your play a little bit, especially if others have been folding or just checking.  When you do bluff these positions are the ones that you’ll see the best outcome with the majority of the time. 

Before the hand is dealt take a moment to glance around the table and take note of who all is in what position and go ahead and start strategizing.  When you look at your hole cards factor in where you are sitting and if that affects their real strength in your mind.  This will also serve you in a second way by building your image of being a tight player so that its easier to pass off a bluff later on.

            This is referred to as playing on tilt which you never want to do.  Poker is very much a game of luck but also very much a game of reason.  As for how the cards are dealt we have no control over that.  But reason is where we can make the game work for us.  Your calculations and strategy make up the reasoning element of poker that you will need to use so that the game’s not just up to chance.

 

 

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