Playing poker and winning is a very difficult task to do, you can lose most of the times specially if you don't know the little dirty psychology secrets that anybody playing poker for real has to understand.

1. Don't expect people to play like you.

Even good players have different concepts about how to make a good game. Don't count on other good players to do what you would do in a certain situation. There is more than one way to be right.

2. Look your opponents in the eye.

See who they are and study their features. Get to know them. This observation will make you fear them less.

3. Try playing in silence.

Silent play is an image play, sure, but here's something else to consider: When you play in silence, you end up holding more detailed "inner conversations" with yourself, which improves your concentration, and also your play.

4. See things as they are.

Wishful thinking like fearful thinking leads to bad decisions. Make your decisions based on real information, not on what you hope or fear that your opponents hold. It's bad enough to get bluffed by someone else but even worse to get bluffed by yourself.

5. Keep it impersonal.

At the poker table it's easy to get sucked into our opponents' personalities. When you're driven by the desire to beat the player in seat four, just because he happens to be a jerk, you're moving away from your good game and into the dangerous teritory of personality poker. To keep it profitable, you have to keep it impersonal.

6. Respond to change.

A poker game is not static. It's a dynamic, living organism that changes from moment to moment. You have to respond to those changes. Just because a player was bluffing an hour ago doesn't mean he's bluffing now. Has he lost a lot of money since then? Has he had a few bluffs? Be up-to-the-second in your thinking or be prepared to go home broke.

7. Beware subjective reality.

When the hand you folded an hour ago is the hand you raise with now, it's time to get up and go home.

8. Serve your game, not your ego.

Serving your ego in a poker game is not your purpose and it will harm you. It will only cloud your card sense with a lot of irrelevant issues, and also alienate your opponents. Be humble, act humble, and leave your ego at home.

9. Have a scenario.

When you're in a hand against one or more opponents, put them on something. Make your best guess about their holding in light of their betting. It sounds obvious, I know, but so many of us get so caught up in our own hands that we don't stop to consider, really consider, what our enemies are up to until it's too late. If you have a scenario, you may be wrong but at least you have a chance to be right. If you don't think about what they have, then you have no chance of being right.

10. Should you count your money at the table?

Ideally you have so much money that you can't count that high, but try not to do this.

Copyright 2005 Giorgio Maldini