A great poker player makes all the plays you dont want them to do and and is always a step ahead. When you think you have the best hand for sure and shove your hole stack to the pot for a win ,the great player has read you like an open book,puts you on the hand you have and shows a better hand and leaves you with nothing but a painfull lesson.
The great players knows to be aggressive on the right moments and most important have a very strong mentality. Like others sports I think there are many players that have the same level of talent, but only few knows how to be decisive on the important moments and for me is all because they have a stronger mentality than the others.
I think the idiom "The devil is in the details" is perfect to describe the difference between a good and a great poker player!!! Sometimes we don't pay attention to very small insignificant changes in the game, which ultimately lead to significant changes in the results!!! I doubt that I can answer what details in the game distinguish a good player from a great one. If I knew, I probably could become a great player too 😀
Not sure you can draw that distinction between the two contrast of player categories from playing a few hands. From these forum or league games that becomes more identifiable. Skill level becomes more apparent with them from many aspects of the game.
Playing in a poker league for many years, history with players was a key to developing that skill you mentioned. Knew when to bluff, get maximum value and keep them in the hand. For every player that good to great is undefined by encounters and outcomes. It easy to look at ROI for that definition to have validity, other wise it just perception.
Playing in a poker league for many years, history with players was a key to developing that skill you mentioned. Knew when to bluff, get maximum value and keep them in the hand. For every player that good to great is undefined by encounters and outcomes. It easy to look at ROI for that definition to have validity, other wise it just perception.
A great poker player is probably one who can fold a very good hand when the pressure is greatest. You see the top players being able to calculate that they are in all likelihood behind in that type of situation. A good player will not make that kind of a call. That alone separates the good from the ‘great’.
Maybe the levels he plays, a great poker player is playing big tournaments, and a good poker player hasn't gotten there yet.
Maybe a great poker player spends a lot of time studying poker, correcting his mistakes, etc., and a good poker player maybe doesn't spend as much time or money studying his game.
Maybe a great poker player spends a lot of time studying poker, correcting his mistakes, etc., and a good poker player maybe doesn't spend as much time or money studying his game.
First I'll define what I think a good player is. A good poker player in my opinion is one that makes a profit above his bankroll and spends it or makes enough to live off poker. Doesn't matter what stakes he's plays. A good player makes a profit.
I think it's pretty easy to be a good player. It's simply a matter of being decent to good at bankroll management, patience, mental toughness/tilt control and a TAG style of poker.
Being a great player now takes all the above plus. Being good at reading people, knowing where you stand in a hand, being hard to read yourself and having the ability to adapt to any table or table of players and their different playing styles. You also have to know and be good at exploiting all them other players and their different playing styles and you have to be able to figure all that out in the moment on the fly. A great player will also know how the other players see and perceive him as a player.
Cheers!!!
I think it's pretty easy to be a good player. It's simply a matter of being decent to good at bankroll management, patience, mental toughness/tilt control and a TAG style of poker.
Being a great player now takes all the above plus. Being good at reading people, knowing where you stand in a hand, being hard to read yourself and having the ability to adapt to any table or table of players and their different playing styles. You also have to know and be good at exploiting all them other players and their different playing styles and you have to be able to figure all that out in the moment on the fly. A great player will also know how the other players see and perceive him as a player.
Cheers!!!
Great thread. You have covered most bases. I would add discipline and tilt. Everybody tilts. However great players have a superb tilt management. They know everything about the seven comman types of tiltSulfuros001 said:
and how to deal with them. This can
hardly be overrated. Gus Hansen from my country could not handle tilt. He told in a Danish podcast that he has lost $20 millions online, mainly due to tilt. Could you imagine Daniel Negreanu having the same problem? Won’t happen.
That does not mean that mr. Hansen isn’t a great player. He is a truly great tournament player. These days mr. Hansen is mostly a family man and has scaled down regarding to poker.
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When a professional player bets, folds, raises or calls, it is merely the outer shell of a much more complex and deeply thought-provoking process.A professional poker player also needs to be able to prioritize what to think about first and when. In other words, professionals have optimized their thought process. They know how to analyze a hand in real time and make the best decision under all the constraints of the game. Their brains are capable of performing amazingly thorough analyses in a limited amount of time.
I think the best players have a great knowledge of the game and are able to recognise good spots, but then they also have the ability to back their reads and decisions without letting the outcome affect their play too much.
In my opinion, a good poker player has theoretical knowledge, but little experience and is also unable to fold some hands, while the great ones, in addition to experience and knowing how to fold any hand in various situations, also have some unique and little-known concepts.