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Assumptions you shouldn’t make when playing online poker

I think everyone is guilty of making assumptions to a certain extent when playing poker. Overcoming and dismissing some of the predetermined ideas you have in your head every time you sit at a table might be one of the biggest obstacles for some poker players.

The ideas I cover here are more applicable to online poker than live poker, and I’ll note important differences when I feel they should be pointed out. A lot of the concepts I’ve come up with here are from talking to fellow poker players and from reading online forums. And I’ll be pointing out the flip side of some ideas, because I think different players are guilty of making different assumptions.

Bad assumption No. 1: Everyone you play against is an idiot
Make no mistake about it: There are lots of bad poker players. But when you sit at a table, the chances of them all being idiots is very slim.

Sitting down at a table and assuming you are the best player at the table can be good and bad. Having the confidence to think you are the best player, and having the track history to back it up, is obviously a good thing. It gives you the ability to make plays, reads, folds and calls that lesser players may not. And, let’s face it, if you don’t think you are one of the best players at a table, you shouldn’t be sitting there in the first place.

But there’s a big difference between thinking you are the best player at a table, and automatically thinking that the rest of the players are not good. It may seem like just semantics, but I think there’s a big difference.

Assuming every other player doesn’t know what he or she is doing – or at least that they are wrong more often than they are right – can lead to problems. There are good players at every level, with a lot more of them at higher buyins. Not respecting other players can lead to bad plays, bad calls and bad moves. Some players are simply playing well on a given day. Sometimes players catch cards. Some are simply…good. Believing you can constantly outplay your opponents is not a good idea, unless you are, quite simply, one of the best players in the world.

The key is having confidence in your game, rather than disrespecting everyone else’s. Remember that, and I think it’ll be good for your game.

Bad assumption No. 2: Opponents are always rational players
Sometimes, good players make this assumption in coordination with the first bad assumption. Which is kind of mind-boggling. You can’t think a lot of the people you are playing are not good or not bright, but also assume that they are going to act like rational poker players.

But, often, this assumption is made on its own. The player assumes everyone plays like they do, making calls based on pot odds, only playing quality hands, etc.

Just like the idea that everyone is bad at poker is incorrect, it’s also false to assume everyone you’re playing with will play poker in a rational manner. (Obviously, players play more rationally at the very highest levels of poker, usually, but less so at lower levels.)

At almost every table you sit at, people are going to call when they shouldn’t, play hands they should muck, try to raise when they should be checking. I constantly see people amazed when other players make simply awful plays – over and over again they talk about hands like they expect the other player to play like he or she knows what he is doing.

Instead of expecting rational play, pick out the players who are irrational, and increase your stack against them. It should be pretty easy to pick them out, even after a few hands.

Remember, not everyone who plays poker has read a poker book; not everyone knows what fold equity and pot odds are. Find them, and take their chips.

Bad assumption No. 3: I have a table image
This is one place where online poker varies wildly for live poker, in my opinion. When you’re sitting and looking at people in a brick and mortar poker room, you look into their eyes, watch them all closely, and form opinions of them. You are only sitting at one table. Your attention is focused solely on poker and the people you are sitting with.

This is not always the case for online players. Most are a.) playing multiple tables and/or b.) splitting their attention with other things.

Not every player at your table has watched everything you’ve done, in all likelihood. In a brick and mortar casino, you may get credit for folding 20 hands in a row – if you feel like making at a play at a pot when you have nothing after that track record, you may get the benefit of the doubt. Online, you probably won’t. People may not realize how tight you’ve played, for a variety of reasons — from not paying attention, to concentrating on other tables.

You cannot play in most tournaments or ring games assuming everyone has a table image for you. Players are more likely to have a table image for you at single table tournaments and ring games, when the turnover at the tables is much less; conversely, you are less likely to have a table image in a multi-table tournament, where the turnover on each table is much higher, at least in the tournament’s early stages. Just because you have been playing loose or tight, don’t assume anyone else knows that.

Bad assumption No. 4: Nobody pays attention to what I am doing
This is the flipside of the third bad assumption. While a lot of people may ignore what you are doing or have done, some make it a point to know what you’ve done in the past and to watch what every player is doing at their table. This player is probably more uncommon than the player who is oblivious to what other players are doing, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t exist.

And sometimes it doesn’t take an uber-observant player to form a table image for you. For example, if you’ve open-raised three or four hands in a row, people will probably notice, no matter how much their attention is split. One player constantly raising and taking pots without showdown will likely stick in a lot of players’ heads. Or, say you raise three times in a row preflop, then fold to an early bet postflop. These are the kinds of things that are hard not to notice.

Remember, you are not playing poker in a vacuum where no one pays attention to what you’re doing. Your actions and history will stick with your opponents to varying degrees, and your image will grow more complete the longer you sit with them. Once again, people pay attention a lot more at single table tournaments and ring games — it’s hard to not get some information after sitting with the player for a decent amount of time.

Bad assumption No. 5: I’m good enough to avoid variance.
Wrong. Variance will hit everyone. And it hits the best players in the world, too.

Playing tournaments or buying into cash games at higher levels than your bankroll will allow will catch up with you eventually. Maybe you’ll get lucky and hit when you play a few big tournaments that constitute a big part of your bankroll.

More likely, however is that you will end up crippling yourself by playing bigger buyins than you should. Always play within your bankroll. Convincing yourself that you don’t need to is one of the biggest mistakes you can make as a poker player.

Bad assumption No. 6: My good hands get sucked out on more than other people.
This one always floors me, especially when I hear it from very good players who know better.

Statistically, it’s highly unlikely over thousands of hands that the percentages of poker work against you. You’ll win races half the time. Your pairs over pairs will hold up four out of five times. Statistics do allow for anomalies: It’s possible for some players, even over thousands of hands, to find that these percentages are out of whack for them. But the more you play, the more likely it is that the percentages approach expectation.

But if you really believe that your good hands don’t hold up as often as they should is usually silly. People remember bad beats more than the hands that hold, and more than the bad beats they put on others. Play the hands like the percentages say, not based on the perception that you can’t hold when the percentages say you should.

In summary, don’t make assumptions when you join a poker game, unless you actually have some prior knowledge of the players you are sitting with. Coming to a table or a tournament with an open mind and assumptions cleared from your mind should give you a positive outcome in the long run.

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