Learning to Break up
You’ve been here before. You’re dealt garbage hand after garbage hand for the last ten rotations around the table, and finally you peek down and see a pair of queens. “Jackpot,” you’re thinking. So you bet, and get called. And the flop comes A-K-K. But you really just don’t’ want to fold. I mean, it’s the best hand you’ve seen in about an hour. And this is why I say you have to learn how to break up with premium hands, even if you’ve not seen a good one in a long time. It’s a critical skill for all poker players to have: the ability to fold a good hand. And believe me, It’s hard to do, and even harder to master the art of. But it is necessary if you want to truly succeed in poker. Any Ace here kills your hand as does any King. From this point, you’re going to have to play your queens really cautiously. Because if you make one mistake, you’re looking at losing your whole stack just because you “fell in love” with your hand. Once you get a feel for getting out of tricky situations, there will be one more hurdle that you have to jump. There will be times when you lay down the best hand after all is said and done. In the example above, you get bet into and you fold and your opponent turns over an ace. Good fold. Until you see the river, and you see a Q came giving you Queens full over his two pair. This is the hurdle of not kicking yourself when you make a good lay down. Master these two skills, and you’ll be well on your way to poker online success.
