When you are playing poker in a card room, one of the best ways to improve your game is to study the other players.  You can even sit back and watch the play the first few rounds as much as you want.  This is another poker tell.  If you notice a particular player isn’t playing their hand, what actions will they take?  Did they check, called or raised?  Did they fold, or stay in?  If you have a pretty good idea of what they are doing, the next time you are sitting next to them, you can choose to steal the pot.

Many poker players know the answer to this question.  They have a quality of players that they know, and can tell you exactly what to do.  This is a big advantage in a game like poker, because so much is based on the choices the players make.  If you can guess, or at least guess accurately, what the other players are going to do in a hand, you are almost guaranteed to win.  It isn’t the guarantee that you will win that is important, because if you win one hand, it doesn’t mean anything next time.  You can still lose.

The reason most people lose is because they make the wrong choice, not because the other player did not make the right choice.  The choice not to bet is entirely up to the player.  They could have bet, and possibly even raised.  Maybe they even had a very strong hand, and chose not to bet.  That is a play they could make, because in the end, they made the wrong choice, and lost a big pot.

Knowing what several of the other players are going to do can help you deduce your course of action.  Maybe that will be the winning play, and you can re-raise all in.  If that is not the play, maybe you need to fold now, before you learn what the other players are going to do.

Losing is bad.  But, waiting around to lose is better than losing, when you could’ve made some money.  Playing for money is a different kind of embarrassment, because it can cause you to play less wisely, or be dumbfounded by what you have done wrong.  This might be something you are better off not doing again.

This is a rule that applies to all forms of gambling.  The expression, “luck is not merely a belief, but an experience too” sums it up nicely.  Luck might not make you win every time.  But, over the long stretch, a little luck will definitely help you win more than you lose.

There are many players who place bets not because they have a good feeling about it, or because it is how they like to bet their money.  They lose, but they don’t really care.  The reason they don’t care is because of a deep-seeded desire to win money.

There are also many players who spend their time worrying about what they have done wrong in the past, rather than how they are going to win in the future.  They may be on a losing streak, or they may be on a hot streak.  Most likely, they will continue to play, until they lose or win the money back that they have won.

Of course, some people win.  Pokerboya is a game of chance, and sometimes people win weeks, or even months of consistently.  These people don’t want you to think about winning, or losing, or even being able to do anything except play.  They want you to continue to throw your money away carelessly, believing that the next hand is going to be their lucky one.

Meanwhile, there are going to be plenty of hands in a poker game where someone is going to hit a big pot.  Right now, the only way you can protect yourself against this kind of bad beat is to make sure you have more chips than your opponent has.

That situation might be a regular bad beat, but it could also be the only opportunity you have to escape from a massacre.  If you are not ready to play, not even with your life, then you can be assured that any regular beat dealt to you will not be worth your time or money.