The Map Magazine

As a poker player, it’s hard to keep your starting online poker hand standards and stay flexible. You need to adjust your play to the personality of the table that you’re playing, and you also want to vary your play to keep your opponents from recognizing your style and reading your hands. Once you’ve gotten used to varying your play, though, it can be hard not to start playing lousy starting hands. It’s a whole new challenge to maintain your standards, because once you play a 9-8 unsuited successfully against a passive table, it’s a slippery slope to limping in with a 5-2 from the early position. If I don’t pay attention, I’ll find my starting hands drop drastically in quality during a game. After one of the few poker online hands where I’ll vary my play to keep the table in the dark about me, I’ll find myself betting into a hand with similar hole cards a few hands later. Before I know it, I’m pot committed with a hand that can’t possibly win. The best thing you can do to avoid letting your standards slide is to set a standard and stick to it. Pick the absolute worst hands that you’ll play from early, middle and late position, and don’t stray from it unless you’re making a conscious decision to.