Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
4.Intermediate players have gaps in their knowledge:
Players at an “intermediate” level, by definition, have incomplete knowledge about the game. In some cases this is reflected in their understanding of the play of starting hands. Perhaps these players learn other areas of the game before refining their pre-flop play.
Though I would suggest to a beginning player that the first major area to focus on in learning holdem (or any other game) is the play of starting hands, some learn instead by circuitous routes.
5.Some very good players are “instinct” players:
There are players who have become highly skilled at poker without reading books or pursuing formal learning of any kind. They have a good “feel” for the game and have learned by experience, perhaps having stumbled onto a winning approach for a particular game, such as holdem. While they may be excellent players overall, their lack of formal learning (reading, studying, analysis, and so on) means that they too will have certain weak areas in their knowledge. Most of the time they will have a fairly good sense of what hands to play, but their standards will be slightly flawed and imprecise, tending to undervalue certain poker hands while overvaluing others.
Such a player may, for example, undervalue a hand like
In unraised, multi-way pots, while overvaluing something like
(offsuit) under the same circumstances.
6.A few skilled players don’t play seriously:
There are very few players in this category for a simple reason. I believe that in order to become a good player you have to play seriously during a prolonged learning period. Thus, someone in this category would have to have been a serious player, and then, for some reason stopped playing seriously. Given the number of people who play poker this probably does occur, but only very rarely.
(Note that some good players may try at times to convince themselves and others around them that they are not playing seriously, as a way to rationalize going on tilt. This is a separate phenomenon).
Playing Too Many Hands-I / Playing Too Many Hands-II
Bad Plays Good Players make / Self-Weighting Cold Calls
Do You Pass the Ace-Queen Test /
Conjecture on the Limits of Tell Detectability
Quick Indicators / Afterthought