Improving your Poker Game Before Blaming 'Bad Beats'

As the poker manager for SunPoker, I seem to get a lot of emails claiming that they have gotten bad beats all the time, or that they can never win. Instead of doing the logical thing and looking at your game and comparing your results with others and seeing what they can do to improve their game, they blame the software or the other players.

In the age of the interweb it is very easy to connect with other players that are happy to help improve your game (although if you read my other posts I mentioned helping fish improve is not always the best idea). I am gonna show you a few tools that can help improve your game and can stop making you a victim of the 'Bad Beat'

First things first, Interact:

There are thousands of poker forums online where people discuss everything from gossip to upcoming tournaments to improving your game.

The most well known is 2+2. This forum is run and moderated by professional poker players and they take their time to help answer questions about anything.

Being from Vancouver Canada, I posted on a forum called 604poker. This is where all the best Vancouver players post.

I really suggest searching out local forums as they seem to have a lot of good players that are very into helping other locals learn how to play the game better.

Post Your Hands:

When you have a questionable hand, ask questions on the forums about it. If you copy your hand history and use a program such as the WeakTight.com hand converter, you can easily post your hand to forums for feedback. This is the best way to start learning where you could potentially be making mistakes. For example I used to think King Jack suited(KJs) was a great hand, until posting my hand histories and finding out why it is such a marginal hand when there is already a bet on the table.

Review your Sessions:

We actually offer a program called the SunPoker.com Hand Analyzer that you can put your hand history into and replay your sessions as if you were watching yourself play them live! By constantly focussing on how to improve your game, and where you could have played better or made a fold when you didn't, you will start reducing the "bad beats".

REPEAT!

Constantly focus on improving your game, this is a game that you can learn in minutes but takes eternity to master, there is always room for improvement!

One of the best quotes I can tell you that relates to poker is from Gary Player the golfer when he said "The more I practice, the luckier I get!"

Good Luck at the Tables and I hope this helps improve your poker game :)!