If you want to play good poker and make money playing poker, you need to learn how to minimize how many mistakes you make – be it a cash game, sit n go, or multi table tournament.  The person who makes the fewest mistakes has a better chance to make the most money than the one who makes several mistakes throughout a cash game session, sng, or mtt.

You can minimize your mistakes by playing fewer hands to start with.  The fewer marginal hands you decide to play, the easier your decisions will be when your chips are on the line and you flop top pair with your K6s or similar.

You can make better decisions when you are rested.  I just started a cash game session today and quit after only 32 hands because I didn’t realize how tired I really was.  I had spent most of the day running errands with my girlfriend and we were out in the sun and that wore me out.  Trying to play good poker after a long day is not one of the better decisions to end the day.

If you still have to play poker after a stressful day at work and you just want to blow off some steam, drop down a level or two so if you do happen to make a bunch of mistakes, the financial consequences won’t be so bad when you come back to your sense and get some much needed sleep.

Now I’m tired and going to bed.

Good luck at the tables.

-A