Holdem Poker Guru

Texas holdem poker is all about drama, excitement, the turn of the river card. Fortunes lost and reputations gained on the turn of a card. Outrageous bluffs carried off with panache. Players being bluffed out of hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of chips. Without feeling or knowing a thing. That is what Texas holdem poker is all about.

Texas holdem poker is like a war, and the final table is where the war is won or lost. Players can be the finest tacticians and strategists on the face of the planet, with a mathematical brain the size of Einstein’s, if they can be read, they are in serious trouble. Unfortunately, and most of the time without even understanding why, they will walk, or maybe crawl away from the Texas holdem poker table asking themselves why did they lose that last hand.

What they didn’t come to grips with is that Texas holdem poker is a game of psychological warfare and only the strong will survive. If you ever watch a televised Texas holdem poker tournament, you will notice that many of the players are wearing dark glasses or maybe baseball caps held down low over their eyes. The obvious reason is that the eyes betray many emotions and it’s easy to cover them up. However players, over time, may have developed other behavioral tendencies that their opponents will have begun to recognize and will be stored and used to their advantage later. Certain professionals have been known to scan video recordings of their play at televised tournaments to study their body movements in relations to the hands that they are holding searching for the slightest sign of a “give away”. Scratching their chin, coughing or a nervous tic or two.

Players, who have just won a major hand by bluffing, will sell their mothers into white slavery rather than let their opponents know that. Other players who know that they folded when they had the winning hand, will be eating themselves up inside. However if they show any sign of weakness and regret, the rest of the table will take turns to take another bite out of them, before there is nothing left of you but a vague memory and a pair of dark glasses.

This is why Texas holdem poker is not for the faint of heart, and if you fancy your chances at the table, a few hours in front of the mirror practicing your poker face will be time well spent.

This entry was posted on Saturday, June 2nd, 2007 at and is filed under Controlling Emotions, Play like a Pro. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.