Study Confirms What Winning Poker Players Already Knew

One of the mantras of a winning poker player has always been, “It’s not how many pots you win; it’s how much money you win” and a recent study performed by Cornell University has the data to back up what many winning poker players have known all along: Players who win a lot of pots, are also losing a lot of pots, and a lot of money!

For casual poker players the idea that winning a lot of pots leads to losses seems strange to say the least. The reason this is the case, is because in order to win a lot of pots you have to be competing for a lot of pots, and going a lot further along in hands than a winning player does. In poker parlance; you’re loose and sticky!

The Cornell study focuses mainly on the positive reinforcement gained from numerous small wins, which override the big losses you are also suffering. The study also goes into detail on why small-stakes players tend to better with small pairs than mid-pairs (to save you a little lengthy reading, mid-pairs are harder to let go post-flop) and a few other reasons I won’t get into in this article. Instead I want to focus on the negative aspects of playing the loose/aggressive style that some of the top pros seem to implement.

I don’t think new and intermediate players realize the many downsides of playing loose, and speculating with a lot of mediocre hands. This really is a style only meant for the top 1% of players to utilize. Too many players think that as soon as they invest any money into a pot they must try to win it at all costs. And it’s this thinking that gets them into serious trouble; as the study points out, these players tend to win a lot of small pots and lose the big ones.

Loose play leads to higher variance, and variance is one of the main causes of tilt. When you decide to speculate with a lot of mediocre hands, your hands profitability is miniscule at best, which leads to very large swings in your bankroll. And it’s these swings that often lead to players going on tilt. The only way a loose style is profitable is when you are playing your absolute best; the small advantage you have will be gone the moment you go on tilt.

Another problem is that when you’re playing a lot of pots your opponents can get a better read on you, even though you are supposedly more unpredictable with your hand selection. Always remember, the more hands your opponent sees from you the better read they will have on you. So, by showing down a bunch of hands you are giving your opponents a lot of information on your play, and the more astute ones will patiently wait to stack you off.

Finally, loose play leads to more difficult decisions post-flop. A lot of the players I’m talking about -casual to intermediate–don’t take into consideration the times they will flop ok, instead they think about missing completely -where they will likely try to bluff their way to a win-or when they hit a monster. However, when they call with a 78 off-suit, and the flop is T82, they have no idea what to do! And the looser you play, the more of these borderline, difficult, decisions you will be faced with.