The first step towards becoming a player who does not merely build his poker ego on baseless arrogance and luck or a player who never deviates from a few set rules in order to stay safe against better players, the first step to becoming a good player is to realize that there is always room to improve. Poker is a game of introspection as much as a game of skill, luck, or of reading opponents. You must first decide whether or not you want to take the winding way of the tireless perfectionist (who never achieves his goal) in the first place. Then you want to learn to be frank with yourself and define precisely your current strengths and weaknesses.
Besides bad amateurs and those playing by a fixed set of simple rules, there are those players who discover they actually have a talent, but who do not then try to improve much in any direction. These are rather lazy and uninspired players who prefer to hope that they will eventually knock their opponents out cold every time with one or two great moves.
Hardly anyone excels in every aspect of a complicated process, but to depend on just a few skills is perilous and likely to bring you down over time. Your weaknesses must be acknowledged and tended to. You are not alone at the table and not the only player with insight. Your opponents will discover that you do a few things well and often, and can bypass your play with maneuvers of their own. In the end, they will consistently apply these tactics, and take you by surprise. Why? Because they have taken the time and effort to improve all their poker skills and have the confidence to make a number of creative moves.
Just as there are no one handed boxers, you have to sharpen all your skills, even the weak ones. And you can t make progress on improving your weak points if you do not recognize them. This is a difficult task, but you will not improve without tackling it.
To learn this takes two basic things: to realize that a game isn t worth it unless you intend to win and to acquire a disciplined habit of doing things you dislike. The first may be a subtle point. Some people mechanically try to acquire a habit without know why they are doing it and they eventually give up or don t get far. You must see that to blindly follow a routine or to rely on a single great skill in the blind hope that you will not have to deal with the rest of the game is not engaging the game for real.
The thing to do is to imagine as well as you can what it would be like to be a fully competent player, imagine the rush of inspiration which leads to success and hard won triumph, and decide for yourself whether the possibility pleases you or not. If you can t imagine the triumph and glowing detail of the struggle than be frank with yourself and admit that you have no real idea how to succeed in the field. But if imagining this makes you passionate, start working hard and you will definitely see results, and the effort to work at things you don t like (perhaps you are an introvert technician who might benefit from better communication skills and face reading abilities, etc) is guaranteed to be rewarding.
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