Mindset at $1-$2 No-Limit

I mentioned in my last article that I recently spent some time playing live $1/$2 no-limit hold’em cash games in preparation for my exclusive monthly webinar. Near the end of the webinar, I discussed many mindset flaws that most of the players I played against demonstrated. If could teach my opponents one thing, it would be to stop caring about the money.

Early in one of my sessions, I was dealt A K from middle position. I raised to $7 and a tight, passive 50 year old guy went all in from the small blind for $60. I made the trivial call. My opponent showed 10-10. The flop came A-8-6-4-10, giving the pot to my opponent.

In my mind, there was nothing to see here. This was a simple all-in and call scenario that both players played well. I was somewhat surprised to see that no one else at the table felt the same way. Some of the players were trying to console me for the horrible beat I took (because the 10 came on the river). It should be clear that when you get all in, the order that the cards come off the deck does not matter in the least bit. Other players were congratulating my opponent because he got his money in good with a “made hand” and I only got my money in with a “drawing hand”. This is also asinine because both hands are fairly premium, given my opponent’s choice to play with a tiny stack. The fact that one hand is paired and the other is not is irrelevant. All that matters is both hands will win roughly 50 percent of the time.

It was interesting to me that the players even cared about a pot where both players put in 30 big blinds with premium hands. In high stakes games, most players typically swing at least 200 big blinds over the course of a long session and don’t blink an eye. However in the small stakes games, everyone really cared if they lost any pot over around 10 big blinds. The entire player pool seemed to not understand that swings in poker are inevitable. Instead of accepting this fact, most of the players were only willing to invest significant money when they were confident they had the best hand hand. This led to most of the players playing a blatantly straightforward strategy that allowed me to constantly steal small and medium-sized pots with little risk of losing a significant pot.

You must accept that you will win and lose pots when you play poker. If your game plan is to wait around for the nuts and hope your opponents pay you off, unless most of the players at your table are blatant maniacs (I only encountered one in my sessions) you will slowly blind off and lose the rake. In order to crush small stakes cash games, you must be willing to get a bit out of line in order to steal small pots when it is clear no one is interested. That being said, you must also be capable of making somewhat big folds when it is clear your opponent loves his holding.

It seemed like all of my opponents cared about any swing in their stack most likely because they were playing with a short bankroll. If you only have $500 and take $200 of it to the poker table, I completely understand why you would care about the swings. I imagine most players would lose their minds if they put 40 percent of their disposable income or more on the table at one time. Even though most of the players adopted a style of play that indicated they clearly did not want to gamble, their likely poor bankroll decisions said the exact opposite.

I think that learning to think in terms of equity, instead of dollars, is a great way to conquer this fear of losing money. If you understand that when you get your money in good, such as when you get all-in with A-A versus 7 6, you will win in the long run, you will not care if you win or lose because you know you profited, in terms of equity. Instead of being happy for making a good decision, most of the players I played against would be incredibly unhappy if they lost that all in. When you get all in with 77 percent equity, you must understand that you will only win 77 percent of the time, not 100 percent of the time. The other 23 percent of the time, you will lose. Most of my opponents did not fully grasp and accept this concept. You must become comfortable with the standard swings of the game if you want to move up to the higher levels, where the variance will almost certainly be much higher. If you lose your sanity every time you lose any half-way meaningful pot, you are almost certain to fail.

In the webinar, we reviewed 30 educational hands I played that led to me winning a significant amount and also covered a few additional mindset flaws. You can find the recordings of the webinar at JonathanLittlePoker.com/livecash. ♠

Jonathan Little is a two-time WPT champion with more than $6 million in tournament winnings. Each week, he posts an educational blog and podcast at JonathanLittlePoker.com, where you can get a FREE poker training video that details five things you must master if you want to win at tournament poker.