At the end of the day whether you are playing poker online or in some live casino, psychology will come into play at some stage. With regards to online poker many people will argue that psychology plays a very minimal part in the game simply because you cannot see or hear your opponents. There is some truth to this although I feel that it is extremely misleading because psychology plays a huge part in online poker and do not let anyone else tell you otherwise.
Even if you are playing online poker, behind each and every one of those avatars is a human being and these human beings have emotions just like anyone else. So it doesn’t really matter whether you are playing online or live poker, the underlying emotions are the same with regards to the players who are playing the game.
One of the underlying facts about poker irrespective of where you are actually playing it or against who, is that it is obviously played most of the time for money. Depending on the individual and their own unique circumstances, each person will respect different amounts of money to various levels. There are a tremendous number of emotions that are exhibited by people around the poker table and those emotions are brought about by people risking money.
So what this means is that one of the dominant emotions in poker is often fear. This fear can be brought on by numerous situations. In fact I would go as far as to say that the word fear may be too strong a word. In most cases it could be down to nervousness, apprehension, anxiety or caution that prevents players from playing optimally.
Some of the very best players in the game exploit this anxiety. If for instance some players are playing at a level in which they do not have an adequate bankroll then this can lead to overly cautious and timid play. Sometimes of course the reverse is also true, some players who take shots at higher levels do so with small amounts of money and play in a very aggressive style.
But this fear of losing can also be connected to tournament poker, quite often this is one of the underlying reasons for why novice and intermediates poker players cannot attain positive long-term expectations in this form of poker. The fear of losing can also be expanded into the fear of being knocked out or the fear of being eliminated before a certain stage of the tournament has been reached.
For instance many strong tournament players exploit this fear by attacking players near to the bubble because they know that many players are going into their shells trying to last until the money stages. The top players are not interested in creeping into the money, on the contrary they are going for the big money of the top three places.
Quite often it is the ability to be able to put your tournament life on the line in situations where novice and even intermediate players refuse to that will be your greatest advantage over your opponents. The number of chips and pots that you will win when playing highly aggressive poker will be numerous. You will force your opponent to make difficult decisions constantly and often for their tournament life.
Quite often like life itself, fear can be debilitating and stop you from achieving what you really want to achieve. This is exactly the same with poker and some of the most successful players in the world are the most aggressive and fearless around the poker table. Fear is dominant in poker because poker is so seductive in nature, it appeals to people of all personality types including the ones who are by nature very cautious people.
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