Before you can think about making any money at the tables you first have to stop losing it! It may sound silly, but not losing money is actually a very difficult level to achieve. Even a well-read and trained player can lose money. Here we present a few of the quickest ways to lose a lot of money quickly. Avoid them!

Invincible aces

Getting pocket aces is great. They are a hand worth raising and re-raising pre-flop. But once those three flop cards are shown it really is a different story. A single pair of aces is not a particularly strong hand if there is a possible flush or straight. Even a two pair of anything will beat that pair of aces. Many people seem blind to the flop and assume their aces will win no matter what.

Blindly betting and raising with aces is a quick way to deplete a stack. Any opponent with a strong hand will simply call to the river and then make a move. The player with aces will likely call only to see their hand beaten. Once beaten the invincible ace people often get irate, claiming how unlucky they are. Sometimes they will berate the other player for making stupid calls. In any case, the aces lost and made a big dent in the player's stack.

Monster blindness

New players are particularly susceptible to getting overly excited about flopping a monster hand. In particular the straight seems to get them into trouble. Getting a made straight is something of a delight, and it often blinds a player to higher straights and flushes on the board. Such a player may even see those outcomes and discard them as unlikely possibilities. Of course statistics play little role when the other player is calmly calling the big bets.

The first error is something known as the idiot end of a straight. A player with T9 who sees the flop of JQK often fails to see that AT would beat them. Worse, on the river the ten comes up and now anybody with a single ace has a higher straight. This tends not to sway the player intent on giving away their money.

Just as common is colour blindness on the flop. Say that the cards on the flop are suited such as J♠ Q♠ K♠. It is quite possible that somebody has a made flush, or at very least a flush draw. Even if somebody doesn't have the flush now, an aggressive player could make this a very expensive pot. The reckless straight holder may even slowplay in this scenario, or put in small bets, further encouraging an opponent to stay to complete his draw.

Chasing a dime with a dollar

A flush draw is certainly a respectable drawing hand to have on the flop. It is however just that: a drawing hand. No actual hand has been made yet, meaning more cards must be drawn. Incomplete hands imply risk and thus loss. Chasing a hand is okay, but only if the pot odds are acceptable. Calling with negative expectation guarantees long-term losses.

A proud holder of a flush draw will likely be thinking they have a good chance to make their hand on either the turn or river. First off they are just wrong. Second off, very good is not really a workable strategic term. Their chance to complete the draw on the turn is just 19%, 20% on the river. Those aren't good odds. Only calling a small bet can be justified.

But there are two cards left, so the chance to make the flush on either the turn or the river is actually 35%. True, but those odds still can't justify sizeable calls, and to truly understand the expected value here requires venturing into implied pot odds territory. A player can only use the two card chance with careful consideration as each additional card will cost more money. When in doubt, only the one card chance should be used.

Playing too many hands

Many players come to the game after having watched a bit on television. On TV it looks as if people are playing every hand, nobody ever gets a walk, and the hands almost always go to showdown. Add the occasional 2♠ 7♦ win and you get a very skewed perception of the game. So along comes Mr. Excited. He sits down at a table and attempts to replicate the TV experience.

Lo and behold, hand after hand his money is taken from him. He'll scream foul, call the system rigged, and talk about the incredible luck the other guy is having. Even when smart enough to fold bad hands on the flop, his stack is still being depleted by all the pre-flop limping and betting. Of course he will get lucky sometimes and take down a massive pot. This will only encourage him to continue in his bad habits.

Certain starting hands have a better chance of winning, and more importantly, are easier play on further streets. This is simply a fact. Being very selective is a point repeated in virtually all poker books, and the selection criteria are very tight. The vast majority of hands should simply be thrown away.

Assuming the other guy is bluffing

From pre-flop to the turn the betting has been aggressive and now the river comes up. The guy from the far end of the table now pushes his whole stack in. Our new player figures it is one last attempt at a bluff and calls in turn. The cards come up and the guy at the far end of the table takes down the pot.

In one of Dan Harrington's books he mentions the chance that an opponent is bluffing is at least 10%. Often new players get this backwards, thinking that bluffing is the key to the game and that their opponent is only being truthful 10% of the time. They fail to notice that they themselves have set up that all-in move on the river. Their opponent does an honest bet on the flop and gets raised. Another bet on the turn and this time a call. That player now has every reason to believe that if they go all-in they will get called.

The new guy didn't just misread the river, they thought the bet on the turn and flop were also bluffs. This isn't reasonable. A player who bluffs the flop, the turn, and the river will most likely lose in a spectacular fashion on many occasions. Sure, it may work a few times, but it is so expensive when it fails that it just isn't a winning strategy.