All right guys, this is Daniel Cates. I'm going to tell you the biggest mistakes of every different player category from beginners to intermediate players or struggling pros to decent pros to good pros and then to Very good pros and what differentiates them between the top player So the beginners mistakes the first one has got to be pre-flop pre-flop is the biggest thing you got to work on It's boring as f**k at least in the beginning But if you can get the preflop right as a beginner, if you get like 90% of it right, I swear, you'll be beating your competition. That's really the biggest part, and this is how easy it is to win.
If you're playing against a bunch of other soft players, and you get that preflop right, you're probably going to win. As long as your postflop's halfway decent. We'll get to that in a little bit. So after that, it doesn't know the value of the hand.
I like to break down the different kinds of hands into various categories between 1st street value hand, 2st street value hand. The one street value hands are like third pair, some second pairs, etc. Two street value hands are good second pairs, maybe some good semi-bluffs even.
Three street value hands are top pair, top kicker, over pair, bad two pair, that kind of thing. And the nuts, which is infinite street of value hands. But there's roughly four streets plus to five streets, five streets being the nuts. Or like how good a flush is, or how good an over pair is on a flush board, that kind of thing. And they don't know when they have like a full house on 2-2-2, whether it's really good or not, or not so good, etc.
They don't know a lot of relative hand strength. This is something to work on. The reason why I break things down into these categories is because this is a pretty simple way to summarize and give a bit of an intuitive idea of how valuable your hands are.
You can also look at gut shots and open-ended straight draws a bit this way. You can look at flush draws a bit this way. bluffs that are worse than that, ace highs that are worse than that, but this way.
And these pretty much all hands have a certain kind of playability according to this category. If you have a good understanding of that plus preflop, and you're a beginner, you're gonna win. You're already basically like a pro almost, and at least you're gonna win in soft games. 100%. As long as the rake's reasonable, that'll be another thing you really have to watch out for if you're a beginner player, or if you don't get paid.
This is something important to look at. Another thing is how the structure of the game is played. They'll often do things like bet to find out where they're at.
They'll often do things such as bet in ways that waste money, that don't really accomplish anything in the form of pushing equity, getting people to bluff. They bet in ways that don't really accomplish things in terms of getting people to fold worse hands or betting to get value from other hands. Now, generally speaking, bets... will either fall under two categories bet to get value and a bet to get people to fold worse it's not universally true but it's a good way to think of things as a starting point you're not going to be betting to really directly anyway to find out information what about what people have ever and you don't want to use money to get information or to like buy a free street etc on the whole in poker so that's another large theme of mistake The last thing to mistake is they tilt super hard in some kind of direction or another.
If they lose pots, they start playing very differently. If they win pots, they may start playing very differently and playing more loosely or even tightening things up a lot. These can be really big mistakes and definitely the kinds of things you need to work on to get to the next level.
Okay, so the difference between an intermediate and or struggling pro to get to becoming a decent pro. The biggest mistakes I would say is that they bluff too little actually. And they...
conversely are very exploitable meaning in a lot of smaller spots where their hand strength the relative hand strength is not very strong or the other players hand relative hand strength is not very strong they often give up way too much value and they let people run them over a lot of the time and only spots where they don't really have all that much but neither does the other guy and it's quite hard to have it uh i would say that this is a pretty high leverage point of especially the intermediate levels getting lots of value this has universally been true throughout my career it's hard to know 100 but the more i watch and go back i see that people basically do kind of tell you what they have a lot of the time and this exploit has just really really worked over decades for me and for others that i've taught another thing is not being able to hand read very well um and see just uh this is this is the category where you really need to start being able to read your opponents and distinguishing the subtlety of how they play the different sorts of hands whether they're going to slow play the nuts in certain spots or play take a few lines with the nuts or they're going to be more direct and fast play their bluffs this is the situation where you really need to start picking up on that this is going to be a big source of value they project their thought process this is another big form of leak that poker players on the whole have but it's very very prevalent at the intermediate step stages where people assume that people are thinking on a say blank wavelength as what they are and this by the way is a common theme in real life as well as people often project their thought processes which is not at all true people think in all different kinds of ways And this is very true for poker, where people will do things for reasons that don't seem to make a whole lot of sense to you. They will play the nuts in ways that don't make any sense to you, like go all in on the turn instead of betting smaller and trying to reel you in. They'll super slow play the nuts when it doesn't make a whole lot of sense to you. They'll miss lots of value with their top pairs. They'll check call and spots to protect when they lose loads of value a lot of the time, when it's not appropriate in game theory.
They will... Not bluffing situations where you would expect them to bluff loads of the time. They will not turn hands into bluffs as you may expect them to do.
Speaking of which, that's another leak that these guys have at the intermediate or struggling level. They don't turn hands into bluffs in enough spots where they're just never ever good. This is a good source of value to get to the decent pro level or higher.
But yeah, the whole idea is to get out of your head and realize that people don't exactly think as you do. That is a huge, huge... thing for a lot of these guys at the struggling level another thing is they have lots of soft leaks this is the area where you really need to start fixing your soft leaks such as not paying attention to the rake is the biggest one speaking of which at in the jungle verse we have a rate calculator so you guys can figure out what beatable rake is and how much various forms of rake are taking away from your win rates one of the features i decided to create because it was such a big and prevalent problem i thought that it was necessary for the poker world at large to use such a tool and be much more aware of it But rake is a big, big, big issue and perhaps one of the biggest cornerstones of issues currently in today's games that is causing a lot of people loads of problems because it takes money from everybody, including the recreational players.
This is also the area where players, they kind of get around to this idea of tilt and that they shouldn't be tilting and playing kind of normal. But you won't see such hard forms of tilting, such as 3-betting way too much or just bluffing huge percentages of the time. But you might see people err more on the side of bluffing very little and not falling through in a bit more of the subtle spots. You might see winners tilt especially, people becoming more and more aggressive as they get a bit more confident.
This also happens at a bit of the higher levels too. You may see some more psychological tilt. This is a big thing, especially when there's loads of pressure, and this is something that even higher level players can have.
But it's especially prevalent in the struggling pro area, where players don't necessarily have a whole lot of... final table experience and you may see them fall in various categories especially in the category of over bluffing or this would be a case of winner's tilt often or also just wanting to look cool on tv which is understandable i don't know anyone who likes to do that and also in the category of not wanting to look stupid on tv or stupid in front of backers etc so those things can be some pretty major factors to look out for Another thing, of course, is pulling the trigger. People can be afraid to pull the trigger in bigger pots.
This is another form of soft tilt as well. You want to look out for all the different kinds of ways people might have a subtle exploit in their game. A leak that is common between the intermediate and struggling pros and the decent pros, especially the decent pros, actually, is sticking a little bit too much to GTO or what they think is GTO and not going beyond that and exploiting.
populations and exploiting players in ways that work very well against what exactly they're doing i see this a lot these days where people have done tons and tons of their little drills or whatever it is and they just know what roughly the lines are and all those basic ass spots like bet check bet or bet bet bet or whatever and they know like roughly what the ranges are but it doesn't really work all that well against all kinds of different players especially recreational players you And so they leave loads and loads of value on the table. And often, by the way, they don't really play GTO because they don't look at the various different forms of extremes. And they also don't look at a lot of different kinds of overbetting and things of that nature. And they don't look at the exploits relating to that. This is definitely where, if you're trying to find where there's missing value in your game, you need to be looking.
They also don't explore a whole lot of alternative possibilities. The reality is that the GTO lines... often have a thin edge versus alternative lines that actually people can be much more exploitable to. An example being just a different kind of bet size in a different spot where it would filter out a huge portion of someone's range to get a huge portion of someone's range to raise where they're not really supposed to.
Or they may raise and then they become like wildly exploitable on the river after they don't raise. If someone had stuck to GTO, they might not look for that possibility and not look for that kind of exploit. One possible line that maybe missed.
If someone doesn't look too closely at the possible solutions is to check raise the turn when players like to bet to protect versus a missy bet on the turn in position. It's actually pretty strong play because most players don't have enough check raises on the turn when out of position. And if you were to follow GTO, you may just like bet all the time and just not trap by check raising in these sorts of spots where people like to bet and protect their hands.
And this is one of the possibilities that... miss if they don't look a little bit more deeply into the game a possible leak that a lot of these guys make once they learn a bit more about all the different possible bluffs that they can do to exploit people is they swing to the other side and they become very very crazy and over bluff in all the spots it's actually quite possible to do this because you have loads of opportunities to do it and this can be a leak for many good players a certain subset of them the ones that are on the crazy end and it can be good depending on who you're playing against But if you do it all the time and you never adjust, then it can be a source of losing lots of money. Bluffing way too much is one of the biggest ways to lose money fast. Another thing is not getting enough sleep.
This can be a really, really big thing. Or if you're partying a lot, this can really f*** up your win rate in subtle ways. If you read Matthew Walker's book, Why We Sleep.
And speaking of which, I need to get whacked on the head from this book because I myself have sleep issues sometimes from not sleeping enough. And it f***s me up big time. There.
is a really high chance if you don't get quite enough sleep that your play will suffer in a way that you're not aware and it will cause you to lose much more money than you should be basically because you'll be operating at something like 70 or 80 percent you won't even know it this is a big thing in this book and check it out if you want to learn more from that book hey guys before we get into that just a quick announcement from the jungle verse the jungle verse is a community that gives you the tools that you need to both crush get support from the right community in order to succeed in poker in your kind of way. In addition to tools that help you to get better at poker, you've got tools that help make your life easier in a difficult world, such as the justice system, rakeback tools, a community that supports you, working together for your best interest, designed to help you find your own kind of way for success, and maps to help you find the best games. The Jungleverse is here to help you. Just click the link below and let's all win together. All right, so let's move on to the, what is it that differentiates the good pros from the top pros uh one of the biggest things i would say is just missing a lot of possibilities again that's really the case just missing a lot of the subtle bluff spots where it's really tough to have these like very specific bluffs that you'll pick up if you look into gto wizard or whatever it is speaking of which gto wizard one of the sponsors they'll get provide the link below so you guys can click on them they're quite good i use gto wizard all the time but yeah if you look deep into gto wizard and think deeply about the game and get those subtle bluffs in You'll have the right bluffs in very subtle spots.
This is a source of EV. If you're putting against some tough players, you really want to know those weird combinations with blocker draws or to not bluff with the wrong blockers or to make sure you're not over-bluffing too much as well in various other spots if people are adjusting to you. That's quite important too. This is where you really need to start getting quite precise with the bluff combinations you have in more specific spots unless people just for whatever reason have some kind of exploit that you can run them over in.
Speaking of which, they need to adjust very well at this stage. Pros, if they don't adjust well to their competition, they're going to be leaving too much EV on the table. And if they don't adjust to whatever subtle leaks they find in other players'games, they're just not going to be winning very much money. You cannot rely on basic GTO to carry you through as a good proker pro to win a high amount of money. Basic GTO, first of all, is not GTO because it doesn't go through all the extreme possibilities of what we're betting.
doing a bunch of other weird like having various obscure lines at the right percentage of the time uh which most of these basic gto guys don't have a lot of the ev now lies at where the extremes are i would say this is the stage where players need this true understanding of poker as well so that if the format of the game changes or if like a straddle is added we really want to be able to be very adaptable to the situation we want to know how to maximize ev in these situations uh and not rely purely on what the solver says. Because if all we do is rely on what the solver says, then whoever is the best student and just studies GTO Wizard all day, remember, affiliate link, click below, will win all the money. That's not how poker should work. That's not how anything should work. Because us would make it no longer like a mind supporter.
whoever can become the best robot. This is really the area where you need to know how things work, why you bet in various spots, why you have the right blockers, why you have a certain number of bluffs, or what your range advantage is, etc, etc. Speaking of which, these kinds of players will be implementing overbets very well. This is where, again, the extremes lie in various different kinds of sizings, especially overbets, or large overbets, and big check raises. You need to be using those pretty well and relatively balanced.
and know how all that stuff works. The last thing is they virtually never tilt. Tilting seems like kind of a stupid thing to have happen if we're talking about playing a game for money. I can understand it recreationally where you don't really care about controlling your emotions, but if we're playing a game for money and people are taking things like pretty seriously, tilting is fairly stupid.
And this is where like you really need to have the talent for having a bit of a rational mind. You need to be very, very cognizant of what's going on and making sure that one, you're playing in a way that's optimal. for the situation and two that you're not yourself biased and thinking you're doing things one way when it's actually uh the case that you're not playing your proper game all right so what is it that differentiates the top pros from the very best pros that's pretty damn good question the first thing i would say is that we need to preface this with the idea that the top pros are going to have all the talent pretty much it's not going to differentiate that that much at this level you They're going to have the rational mind where they're not going to really tilt or have a lot of discipline and self-control and all that.
They're going to be able to understand their opponents pretty well, all that kind of thing. A big, big factor thinking about all this then really is the work ethic. Because whoever really devotes their thought processes and discipline towards becoming very, very good and looking through all the little possible situations of how they could do what better and...
doing x better than y uh whether betting 50 is better than betting 85 or looking through all the different ways that they can exploit their opponent and making sure that they found the different leaks between you know their missed turn c bet in position or their missed turn c bet out of position or they don't like bet river enough for when you bet check bet or they fold too much versus your bet check bet in both positions And just finding all those little bitty leaks and just being persistent through all of it, that's going to be really one of the biggest differences is where all that energy is going if it's going to actually becoming as good as possible. I think that really is one of the biggest factors between the very best, if we're being really, really honest. And speaking of which, the very best are not necessarily who you're going to think they are, but they're absolutely going to be very diligent in looking at through all the situations in terms of GTO and how to exploit their opponents.
Another thing is they're going to be able to do basically anything. They're going to be able to f*** with people's perceptions of tilt, people's perceptions of them. They're going to be very, very cognizant of their image.
This is the level, really, where they're going to be able to bend the rules in a way that exploits them in strange kinds of ways that don't necessarily follow the format of the conventional levels of exploit. They're going to be able to have a very good idea of what's going on in other players'minds. They're going to be very, very observant of the subtleties of what players do. The biggest factor is really throughout all of this is how much do you apply yourself?
How much do you change your views to making the best play as possible? Change your views and relook at the situations so that you can maximize on your earning potential. How flexible your mind is and how much you're applying yourself is the overarching theme here.
Another thing is how dedicated to doing the rational thing really are you? Rationality is heavily prized in this in poker. So I would suggest using that, not tilting and making the best play possible. So thank you guys. And let me know what else, what other kind of content you guys are looking for and what you thought of this video.
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