Poker is a game that needs various skills to master. But can you learn these skills, or is it more a case of “you have either got these skills or have not?” Read on to find out more.
Learned Skills
Learned skills are a big subject on the internet. Poker players, from beginners to tournament winners, are all looking for the next big tip that will win them their next game. Study and research all you want if you have the drive to learn. It will not hinder, and it might help.
There is memorizing the rules, obviously, and learning to fold when you are unsure or bluff more as part of your strategy and other strategic moves.
Plus, like any other skill, it takes practice. If you are not a fan of losing your money, you can practice online. Plenty of apps will let you play for free or with real money, and, what is essential, with real people. GGPoker is a site that offers every form of poker game you can think of and will allow you to watch or participate in tournaments. Watch the pros in the GGTeam as they stream their games and learn what makes them the best of the best.
You can progress as you play, starting with playing for free against the app or site and eventually working your way up to live tables for real money and maybe one day winning the World Series of Poker bracelet itself.
Innate Skills
The initial innate skills you are most likely to think of when you think of poker are the ability to read faces and predict moves. This skill helped James Bond save the world, but even innate skills can be improved upon with time and practice.
The internet is full of body language analysts looking at police interview tapes to determine if a suspect is guilty. Two industries described that practice and honed the ability to read faces. Body language experts will be the first to tell you there is no hard and fast rule to determine what someone is thinking, but rather a combination of ideas, so it is not foolproof, but if it were poker, it would be no fun.
And if you walk into any Waterstones on the high street, you will soon come across an enormous self-help aisle. In that aisle is book after book on how to convey confidence, how to understand social cues better, and other guides to understanding the human condition.
A lesser-known talent useful in poker is patience. Guides to strategies in poker will tell you to know when to lose. Stick to low stakes initially, play with players on your level, and don’t open too many hands. Just focus on the one. Maybe that is harder to control or nurture, but it will do well not to think about the pot until you gather chips.
Sure, it would greatly help to have a natural talent for all of these, but so would a natural talent for strategy and creating good hands.
And like anything else in life, if you have a passion for it, you will want to seek out information and improve your skills, and it will not feel like homework. Sure, a certain something that cannot be named or described is in only the best poker players, but if you have the drive to play, you will have the drive to improve and will someday sit amongst them.
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