Hopefully you’ve had this experience in your poker games: Your opponent makes a big bet and you just feel that he is bluffing. You haven’t picked up a specific tell; you don’t know why, you just know that he doesn’t have a hand. You move in all your chips to call with a lowly pair of twos and wait expectantly. You smile as he finally frowns and announces, “you got it. I missed.”

Is There Such a Thing as Poker Intuition?

There are few better feelings than picking off a big bluff in a poker game (getting away with a big bluff is one of them). It’s not always easy to do, but sometimes you just know what your opponent is doing. World Series of Poker champion Phil Hellmuth has claimed there are times when he just absolutely knows what his opponent has. At these times he feels as if he is looking right through the backs of the cards to see his opponents’ holdings. Hellmuth is famous for playing up his poker abilities to a sometimes outrageous extent, but given that he has won eleven WSOP bracelets it’s hard not to give his claim some credence.

How Does Poker Intuition Work?

Poker intuition is hardly magic. Rather, it is the result of a combination of signals that your mind is subconsciously picking up on over the course of the session. When you just seem to know that someone is bluffing, it’s probably because there is something in his posture, actions or demeanor that you’ve seen before when he didn’t have a real hand. Because the signs he is giving off may be subtle you may not have picked them up overtly, but subliminally they reached you and are telling you to call. This is the essence of poker intuition.

What Do You Do With Poker Intuition?

In general you should trust it. Man has survived for thousands of years based on instinct. If you have a strong sense that someone is bluffing or strong and no major evidence to the contrary, go with your gut. If your gut has proved consistently wrong, you may want to reconsider. However, these gut instincts are often on target. Be sure what you are listening to is really your intuition and not just your desire. There could be a situation where you have a strong hand and really want to call, or you think your hand should be good but are afraid to go with it because you are facing a big bet. Do not confuse these feelings with intuition. Your poker intuition should be your gut feeling, not necessarily what you want to be the case.

Fact: 90 percent of those who play poker on the Net are losing players, five percent break even, and the remaining five percent win in the long haul. It’s true. Only 1 in 20 actually has a growing bankroll.

This might sound strange since almost all poker players – at least the ones I’ve met – claim to be winning. But the odds are against that I only should’ve bumped into players in the top five percent. No, I think people simply forget about their losses. Something a winning player never does.

Nevertheless, it’s possible to reach positive expectation – you (only) need to be a better player than most of the ones you’re up against. This can be achieved in a two ways:

First we have the category of winning players who have done it the hard way. Learning by doing or learning by grinding. Then there is a category of players who combine their playing with poker studies. They don’t have to pay for all mistakes. Instead they read about other players who’ve done them and learn a winning strategy through others.

Here, I’ll give you a glimpse of what has made me reach the top five percent of poker players, and hopefully you’ll get some advices that’ll save you some bucks at the table.