Poker

Receive 2 cards, you are the only one to see your two cards

Dealer reveals 3 cards that all players can see and use in their hand

Players bet

Check - if you have enough bet but don’t want to raise

Fold - if you need to put in more chips but don’t want to

Call - match the amount of chips bet by others

Raise - increase the amount of chips bet by each player

Dealer reveals another card

Players bet

Dealer reveals final card

Players bet

Best hand wins

You have no control over the cards you are dealt or the community cards

The only control is whether you take the opportunity given to you or wait for another opportunity

If you are wise about the opportunities you take and the ones you don’t, then over time you will win more often than lose.

When deciding how much to bet, you determine how often you would win out of 100 rounds with that hand (winning percentage) If you would win 1 out of 100. Then you wouldn’t want to bet much if at all because you would have to get 100x what you lost each round when you win just to break even. But if you would win 50% of the time then you only need to double your loss when you win which if you have more then 2 players is likely going to happen.

In life, you don’t get to choose where you start, who your parents are. You only have a small control (usually) over what other people do to you. But you do have the opportunity to choose how you react.

When you have a bad “hand” you can fold and just ignore the situation, you could also bluff and try to learn some things about the other players.

Sometimes, when I have someone who is purposefully attacking me (verbally). I often find it’s a good strategy to bluff and assume that they are joking with me and I laugh along with them. Oftentimes this either softens them up or at least confuses them enough that I can leave the situation.

Sometimes you are given great opportunities and you should determine your odds of success and how much you are willing to bet on that opportunity.

Most of the time you are just dealt average hands and you can try to make the most of it and be willing to adjust as you go.

If whenever you get a bad hand you get angry at chance and think it’s not fair, you will be a poor poker player. Use your bad hands to learn. Be creative, is there any way to turn this into a win, even if it’s a small one?

Remember, we are playing the long game, it’s not about winning every hand, it’s about winning the whole pot. This happens by consistently making good decisions and correctly determining probabilities.

Great players can turn bad hands into successful rounds. It’s all about the mindset

https://www.thrivetimeshow.com/podcast-guests/sean-stephenson/

Clifton Taulbert