Learn Texas Holdem

Question: I am relatively new to poker, i have been playing for a few months now and i just have one question for you, i would apreciate your insight on this and maybe some advice.

Why is it that whenever i fold beer hands i wouldve made a two pair or trips on the flop! Its really frustrating as i feel i am playing good poker by folding under large bets but whenever i do they seem to hit on the flop, should i play weaker hands more often, play a bit more loose? or just not get dispondant and play my regular game? Any tips or other info would be greatly apreciated,

Thank you

Answer: Any two cards will win sometimes, even horrible hands like beer hands (72, 94, etc). The problem is that you have no way of knowing when these hands will hit. For them to hit and win, it is purely gambling since the vast majority of time they won't win. Because we never know which hands will hit, we have to be selective as to which hands we play in which spots to limit our risk and increase our chance of winning. Seeing trends in the cards is easy to do.

Thinking you are on a "rush" is common, where you can't play a hand and lose. It is true that there are pockets of good hands, but there is no way of predicting when this happens. Another common trend to see in cards is noticing a certain card is coming up often, such as 8's. Another one would be assuming a particular seat is "hot". Granted, one seat may get more winning hands than another in a night, but there is no mathematical edge given to one seat over another even if the "hot" seat one the past 100 hands in a row. Each deal is a new event and has no memory of previous events.

Be careful when you let yourself get sucked into this kind of "trendy" thinking because it detracts your attention from what really matters -- good sound strategy applied over a long period of time. So to answer your question, no you shouldn't probably loosen up, especially if the reasoning is that you would have won some pots if you had gambled and consciously played losing hands.