THE FIVE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLE OF WINNING POKER

Many players who have gambled at poker for years have lost track of the fundamental winning principles of poker. When any of these principles are violated, a losing situation presents itself. Therefore, we must study one more the five fundamental principles which can assure your victory at the poker table. The only purpose in playing poker is to win money. Be alert at all times. Play only in games you can afford to play in, either financially or emotionally. Have sufficient capital for the game you're playing. Know when to leave the table.
1. The only purpose in playing poker is to win money
This is very important. Unless you're playing penny-ante poker with your mother and maiden aunts, you're there to make money. The final count of chips and/or cash determines who has won and who has lost. The losers have less money and the winners more money. Simple task that, but arriving at that goal of winning takes many factors. When you sit down for a serious game of poker, don't think in terms of how much you're going to lose. Think of winning, and turn your head around so that winning is the most important consideration in the game. If you do this, you're on your way to becoming a winner. There are many other pastimes for fun and recreation. Serious poker is not one of them although winning is a wonderful thing.
2. Be alert at all times
In the movies, the tough poker player can afford to swig from a bottle of gin, or pour himself endless belts or shots of rye. After all, he's playing from a script, and if the script tells him that he's a winner, then he'll be a winner. Nothing like that is foreordained in real life. There is no script everyone is following, and therefore, the player must be at the top of his form all during his session of serious poker. In order to do this, he or she must not feel weakened by a cold or illness. If that's the case forgo the poker game and curl up with a good book or some chicken soup in your bed. Don't play if you are worn out or tired. Don't drink while playing and don't go to the table with even one drink under your belt. Alcohol impairs judgement, and even worse it makes cowards into brave men, gets them up until reality hits them, and then the depression begins. Sometimes a drunk goes crazy at a game and runs over all the other players with an incredible run of good luck. But more often, the drunk is the loser, the sucker, the chump at the table. I've been at games where there is one roaring drunk in on every hand betting and raining the limit. Do you know what happens? Suddenly the whole character of the game changes. We may be seven strangers facing the drunk, but an unwritten rule emerges; everyone goes for the drunk. Sometimes the strategy backfires, for players will stay in with weaker cards, knowing that how weak their cards are, the drunk's will probably be weaker. Then that player will lose out to another player in with stronger hands, or will lose to the drunk, who will draw a high pair or some card to beat the player's weak cards. The important thing to remember is this ; don't you be the drunk or the chump. Stay away from drinking. If everyone else at the table is drinking, fine and dandy. That makes your chances of winning even stronger. You'll be playing with a clear mind while the opponents will have their judgment impaired.
3. Play only in games you can afford to play in, either financially or emotionally
There are two forms I personally know a millionaire (And God, he's cute!) who can't play beyond a certain fixed limit, whereas he can afford financially play at five times that limit with his money. The reason he doesn't play at bigger games is because he can't afford to emotionally. His heart starts racing during playable hands; a loss devastates him, he appears to be a motorcycle at the table with the engine revved up to max torque, but the cycle isn't moving. He knows this about himself, and he sticks to lower level games. On the other hand, I know a few guys in Vegas who call themselves pros who are always at games they can't afford to be at - financially. If they take a big loss, they're devastated financially, as well as emotionally, and it may take them a few weeks for them to lick their wounds and raise some money to get back in action. Then they go and play in too big a game, and hope for a run of good cards to get a monster in, but usually the result is the opposite. They're playing with scared money, money they can't afford to lose because they are under-capitalised at the table. They play more cautiously and don't raise when they should to drive other players out. IN other words, as we shall see in the various theorems of winning poker, they're playing like chumps, the losers! Other players smell out scared money players, and they're hit with checks from all sides of the table. Anyway, the scared player is rained and re-raised when he has any kind of playable hand, till his head is spinning and his hands are shaking. He stands no chance against perceptive, intelligent and aggressive players.
4. Have sufficient capital for the game you're playing
This is the corollary of the above principle. Most games in casinos require a minimum buy-in, but this amount is not sufficient for real play. For example, in the £5-10 poker games on the London, the minimum buy in is £50 which means that the prospective poker player, when he sits down, must have £50 in front of him, ready for play. After the sit down, the minimum buy in rule is waived. Thus, a player who started with £50, may be down to £10 after losing a hand, but he can play with the £10 and doesn't have to buy more checks to stay in the action. He not only has scared money now but he has no chance of making any money, because after his £10 is used up, he's going to have to sit and watch the action in the game. He'll be "all in" and not able to make any future bets, and only a portion of the pot will belong to him if he wins. If there's one thing that I've seen over and over again in my years of poker playing, its foolish players who are all in just when they get a monster hand. I watched a pot build to £1,500 once, and the winning hand was 4 8s, held by a player who was all in, and could only bet £20. His share of the pot was about £100, while Aces up took the other £1,400.
5. Know when to leave the table
This is extremely important. If you are going to play poker either professionally or as a way to make money, then you can't look at Poker as individual sessions of play, but as one long poker game that's going on indefinitely. You step into it and step out of it. It doesn't matter if you won £250 today, if you've lost £6,000 a week before. You're not a £250 winner; you're a £5,750 loser. You should keep a running count of your wins and losses. It doesn't matter if you win more than you lose in terms of poker sessions, or vice-versa. What is important is how you stand at the end of your last play. Are your ahead or behind? If you're ahead, you're a winner; if you're behind, you're losing, and nothing you can think about or rationalise about is going to change this.