Poker mistakes that keep you from winning: The blame game

The blame game is one of the more common mistakes, especially from people who are learning the game. Once players are armed with some rudimentary knowledge of the game, and become aware of the mistakes they used to commit; as well as seeing all the bad plays made by their opponents, they begin to believe that the only thing hindering them is luck.

When you indulge in what I call the blame game, what you are attempting to do is pass the blame to the most convenient party; whether they deserve it or not. How often do you hear someone say “Man, I played that badly”? I’ve played poker for over a decade, and could count on one hand the number of times I’ve heard a player utter those words.

What you do hear quite a bit is: How unlucky players are; how lucky their opponent got; how poorly their opponent played; how you can’t beat a low limit game; how a particular dealer/site/game is unlucky for them; pretty much anything that was involved in the hand is fair game.

The truth of the matter is very few players are willing to concede they may have made a mistake somewhere in the hand! Maybe they slow-played, or didn’t re-raise, or perhaps didn’t take their opponent’s style of play into account. The point is few players are willing to stop casting blame long enough to look in the mirror, and see if they are responsible for the loss. It’s so much easier to shout from the rooftops about someone else, than it is to turn that discerning eye inward.

Poker is an exercise in self exploration, and if your opponents know what you do right, and wrong, better than you do, you are in a world of trouble. You need to analyze your own play just as much as you analyze your opponents’ play. When something horrid happens, don’t immediately look at the winner of the hand, or curse the poker gods; try reexamining the way the hand was played, and try to determine if there was a mistake by you (no matter how small it may have been).

When you’ve exhausted all the possibilities, then you can determine that it was just luck that cost you the hand.

Not only will this improve your game by fixing some miniscule leaks, but it will also keep your mind off the bad-beat, while you are searching for any potential mistakes you may have committed. It’s much easier to keep your cool when you are being analytical and examining a hand than it is when you are stewing over some goofball’s horrendous play, and even more incredible luck!

So, don’t just attempt to pass the buck, examine all the facts and determine exactly who is at fault; you’ll be quite surprised how many times you come to the conclusion that it was in fact you who played the hand like a goofball.