Please don’t let the title confuse you, this short article is about poker and will take a closer look at various aspects of the daily grind that involve ”size”. Even though it might look pretty simple on first sight and appears easy to learn, it still takes a lifetime to master this fascinating card game and you will only be able to gain and maintain an edge over your opponents if you consistently work on your game and poker education.
The main goal is getting as much knowledge as possible about all different aspects of the game and short term success might not be able to compensate a long term loss. It is a matter of sample size to determine if you can beat the competition already or if you are currently on an upswing within a few hundred hands. Obviously it is by far easier to track this progress at online poker, since there are several tracking programs to help instead of depending on your own memory at the live poker tables.
But why is sample size that important? It gives you a basic understanding of your performance and the consistency and with the help of tracking programs, you can analyze your game and find leaks that you would have otherwise barely noticed. Because otherwise a different size might take over control and that is the size of the ego. If you don’t analyze your game and try to find leaks, you don’t know for sure how profitable you actually played or if you missed out some equity in different situations.
Don’t get me wrong, ego and personality at the tables are important and it helps a lot when you have confidence in your game. But emotions should never fully take over control because in this case, you will most likely not be able to make the most logical decision. Sometimes you have to listen to your gut feeling, but don’t let trash talk and prejudices have any say when you need to decide whether you want to fold, call or raise.
Another size is more of a basic when it comes to poker: the size of the pot. Especially at Pot Limit games it indicates how much you can raise if you are still active in the hand. Even though No Limit Texas Hold’Em is the most popular poker type, games such as Pot Limit Omaha are slowly catching up in popularity and it becomes more and more important to master this aspect of the game as well.
The pot size should already be a very common aspect of the game, because it can also determine if you will still get called on a value bet on the river or not. Finding the right betting size is a fundamental criterion and you have to find the right balance, because you don’t want to scare off a potential customer that will pay you off on a premium hand. On the other hand you also don’t want to give away any odds for other players that are still involved in the hand to jump in and see a cheap flop, turn or river.
Bankroll management (BRM) should give you an indication what size of your bankroll you can risk without causing too much damage if you end up losing. It might reduce the potential win as well, but you should not underestimate the important of the safety aspect. Even if you end up losing a portion of your budget, you can still come back in the next session and at tournament poker, a good fold is better than a bad call as well.
Another important aspect that involves size is the stack size, be it in tournament or cash play. The deeper you sit in a game, the more options you have to make moves and plays that you could normally not afford or push through due to not enough fold equity. You can play big pots in position or just push out short stacks on the bubble, a gamble here and there doesn’t hurt your stack as much and in general you can take more risks and get away with it or paid off big time.
The more we learn about this card game, the more we realize that we might not know as much as we think we already did. But that is just another motivation to consistently work on the game and always approach situations on and off the tables with an open mind. Sometimes we have to trust our gut feeling, or think twice before making a decision.
Poker offers a lot of challenges and lessons in every hand that we play, but if is always up to us if we are willing to learn from it or not. It is a question of dedication and how much time, efforts and money we want to invest to improve and standing still doesn’t increase the odds that we will be more successful.
One last thing: What came to your mind at first when you saw the title of this entry? Be honest and you will get an idea how open minded you really are, this will also help you at the tables as well.
