Your lack of ability to learn from your mistakes, your rationalization of playing marginal hands, lack of patience, inability to play emotionless….these are your biggest opponents, all within yourself.  If you can take the time to master a Zen like state in poker, then you will be eliminating your biggest opponent and creating a more profitable game of online poker.

In light of my last post about Super System, I wanted to make a quick comment about the continuation bet.

While the continuation bet is a good strategy in a lot of circumstances, you must know when the continuation bet is going to be worth your while.  If you are playing against a calling station, stop doing the continuation bet – as the real purpose of this move is to get the opponent out of the hand.

Super System edjucates players to always continue their bet after the flop if they have raised pre flop – and I think that if you want to be a winning player you need to discover when the right time to continue your bet is!

I understand that when you bet the flop and the turn you feel like you should at least give it another shot on the river. Think about what you are doing when you keep betting. Are you trying to represent you have a hand or do you have a hand and are betting for value? If you bet and bet and you keep getting called you should stop to think what they could be calling you with. This is especially important if you have position on your opponent and they keep check calling you. It is ok to check on the river and save yourself from being in the position to have to call a raise especially if you only have a pair. This will save you a lot of headaches and money in the end.

You’re playing in a tournament and you get deep with about average chip stack. You pick up a big pocket pair (TT,JJ,QQ), how do you play it?

This is a good online poker secret to maximize your play with these hands. If you are in early position it is a good idea to make a bigger than normal raise. You don’t want to see a flop multi-handed and the blinds are normally big enough to make it worth it if everyone folds. If you are in middle or late position with an early position limper or raiser then I would suggest going all-in to protect your hand. If you get called then you probably have to win a race but you put the decision on your opponent to make the mistake of calling with a weaker hand. The last scenarios on how to play these hands are in the blinds. If you yhave a limper or raiser, pushing is the best option, but if you are facing an all in from any position except the button or cutoff then I would suggest thinking about the size of the all in or if it was a reraise all in. You may have to let this one go if it looks like you have a multi-way pot when you may be dominated.