The 14 Virtues of a Winning Poker Player: Focused

What it Means: A focused poker player concentrates on the game, and doesn’t let distractions get in the way of their real goal of crushing the poker game they are currently playing in. Focus is the ability to follow the action, watch your opponents for tells and betting tendencies, and focus completely on the game and not on the TV or a pretty face across the table.

The Flip-Side: Distracted, bored, and tired is no way to play poker. If you’re not able to focus entirely on the game, you are missing the vital pieces of information that end up making you a profit in the long-run. It’s this focus, or attention, that dictates what you do in difficult decisions, if you haven’t watched for these little bits of information that you will just be guessing in close situations.

How it relates to poker: The ability to focus while you’re playing poker turns break-even and slight losing situations into winning situations. Acting promptly and quickly, watching your opponents for body language shifts and tells, and keeping track of the hands your opponents play is where your money comes from in poker.

A good basic strategy, experience, and knowledge of the game is what will allow you to break even in poker; it’s the little things -which you gain from staying focused-which allow you to become a winning player.

Acting promptly gives you the chance to play more hands, and if you ask any winning poker player they will tell you, “In poker more hands equals more money.” So even if you only are dealt three extra hands in an hour, if you have a long-term expectation of $.50 per hand, that’s equivalent to a $1.50/hour raise: Just by acting in a timely fashion!

Watching your opponents for subtle clues gives you the capability to turn situations where it’s 50/50 into 55/45 or better, and that’s a huge difference! Instead of guessing you will have a solid edge over your opponent if you have picked up on a subtle change in posture, or another type of body language clue. These situations are what will give you the edge over other solid winners.

Tracking your opponents’ hands and betting tendencies is perhaps the most important part of focus at the poker tables. By noting what hands your opponents are playing you will be able to put them on a solid range of hands in the various scenarios that come about.

How to cope: If you have a lack of focus at the poker tables you need to overcome the boredom or distractions that are causing you to lose focus. Always keep in mind that you need to take advantage of every small advantage if you want to be a winner, so concentrating a bit harder on the game shouldn’t be too much to ask for.

How to improve your focus: Obviously you shouldn’t be playing drunk, tired, or high, and avoid distractions like the television or newspaper, or surfing the net.

However, you should also see what causes you to become distracted: Do you get distracted after a certain amount of time? Then set a time to quit the game after so many hours. Do you get bored playing in a certain game? Then avoid that game and find one that better suits you.

Finally, an excellent way to stay focused on the game is to try to read the hands of the remaining players in the game: Act as though you are playing the hand. Also, watch one particular player for tells and such over 20 hands, then move on to the next person. If you try to watch the entire table it just becomes information overload and you won’t learn anything about any of your opponents.