As a poker player who knows the basic rules of many of the games having read many articles both general and specific on the various games and have played several hands of them yourself, you know what to do with your cards. But can you play? You know how complicated the game can be and if you have any drive, you will not be satisfied with this. Now what do you do?

The obvious answer: read more, play more, observe yourself and others as much as you can. Diligence alone, however, is not enough. Countless aspirants compile encyclopedic knowledge of other people’s discoveries and yet cannot play much better than the average amateur.

What is missing here is intuition. You must make that stretch above the rules, words and concrete experience and become independent enough to let your intuition lead you. It is intuition separates the technical players from the expert players.

Scholars of any subject depend on the thoughts of great scholars of the past. Creative people prefer to form their own thoughts. The truly ambitious poker player enjoys acquiring knowledge independently and discovers learning from his own observations rather than depending on those of others. He takes his own observations and turns them into a unique method. Players of talent will use their imagination and creativity to conceive their own style of poker to put themselves way beyond the reach of not only amateurs but also the most competent of experts.

This is the reason why memorizing rules and playing many hands is simply not enough to make a true player, and why this ilk will forever remain shrouded in mystery. The true player’s strategy is impossible to uncover at its core because he or she formulated it alone. Even the most diligent of amateurs will never solve the puzzle.

The only solution to this conundrum is intuition: meaning that one must not only commit to the technical aspects of poker and practice, practice, practice, one must use their powers of intuition to re-imagine and re-invent all this mechanically acquired knowledge. True players develop their skills at observation and imagination to block the untrue player from predicting his moves. This independence and intuition of yours may appear as ignorance to those around you. In some ways they are right, but you have the power of intuition to ignore exactly what you choose to ignore and are very aware that you are working toward improvement in a well-thought out and specific direction.

No one has the time to read everyone’s insight into the game. The intuitive player will make his own choices on issues that he has specifically targeted. He knows when to stop reading and start playing. Scholars will boast that they have read every book written on the subject, and probably have. But the intuitive poker poet plays better.

The author is a successful limit cash game player. He plays poker online and receives Fat Bet Rakeback and Poker Nordica Rakeback.

categories: poker,card games,games,gambling,fun,entertainment,recreation,sports,leasure,intuition