The Three Key Skills

Poker pros are commonly described as tight and aggressive: "These poker pros do not play many hands, but when they play them, they play them like they had the nuts."

That's a nice general description, but it doesn't say much. And it's not even totally right about no limit games, as a solid loose, aggressive player is a person to be feared. Thus, when I think people say a player is tight/aggressive and therefore good, I really think they mean that the player has mastered three critical elements of poker.

#1 - Math Skills

• Good poker players know general percentages. They know that you have about 1 in 8 chance of hitting a set when holding a pocket pair, and that you have about a 1 in 3 chance of completing a flush draw from the flop.
• They know the importance of 'outs.' Outs are simply the number of cards that will improve your hand. From the flop, count your outs, multiply them by four and you roughly have the percent of chance of hitting one of them by the river.  From the turn, multiply by two.
• They can figure out the 'pot odds.' Knowing outs is meaningless unless it's translated into rational, calculated betting. Knowing you have a 20% chance of hitting, what do you do then? Well, simply once you figure out your chance of hitting/winning, you divide the size of the pot at the river (i.e. the current pot plus the amount of money that you think will be added through future bets) by the amount you have to put in. If you have a 20% chance of hitting and the bet to you is 50, if the pot at the river will be greater than 250, call. If not, fold.
• Math skills are the most basic knowledge- it's day one reading. Anyone who doesn't understand these concepts should not play in a game until they do.

#2 - Discipline

• Good poker players demand an advantage. What separates a winning poker player from a fish is that a fish does not expect to win, while a poker player does. A fish is happy playing craps, roulette, the slots; he just hopes to get lucky. A poker player does not hope to get lucky; he just hopes others don't get lucky.
• Good poker players understand that a different game requires a different discipline. A disciplined no limit player can be a foolish limit player and vice versa. A disciplined limit player is always very tight preflop. He or she will not play too many hands, only the ones that have a very good chance at winning. However, a disciplined no limit player is VERY different. This player is not so concerned with paying too many blinds; instead, he or she does not want to get trapped. The main difference between a disciplined limit and no limit player is that the limit player avoids piddling away his stack bit by bit while a disciplined no limit player avoids losing his whole stack in one hand. Hence, a disciplined no limit player can play a lot of hands. Preflop, he or she can be extremely loose and limp in with hands as odd as 35 offsuit. However, a good no limit player knows when to toss hands that will get him or her in trouble.
• A disciplined player knows when to play and when to quit. He recognizes when he is on tilt and is aware when a game is too juicy to just quit while ahead.
• A disciplined player knows that he is not perfect. When a disciplined player makes a mistake, he learns. He does not blame others. He does not cry. He learns from the mistake and moves on.

#3 - Psychological Skills

• A good player is not a self-centered player. He may be the biggest SOB you know. He may not talk about or care about anyone but himself and may enjoy stealing food from the poor. However, when a poker pro walks into a poker room, he always empathizes with his opponents. He tries to think what they think and understand the decisions they make and why they make them. The poker pro always tries to have an answer to these questions:
  1. what does my foe have
  2. what does my foe think I have
  3. what does my foe think I think he has
• Knowing the answer to these questions is the first step, manipulating the answers is the second and more important step. If you have a pair of kings and your foe has a pair of aces, and you both know what each other have and both know that you each know what the other has, why play a game of poker? A poker pro manipulates the latter two answers by slowplaying, fastplaying, and bluffing in order to throw his opponent off.
• Good poker players know that psychology is much, much, much more important in a no limit game than in a limit one. Limit games often turn into math battles, while no limit games carry a strong psychology component. I would NEVER play against a solid computer bot in a limit game. However, in a no limit game, that bot would be toast.