Learn to Lose

In the 2003-2004 Premier League football season, Arsene Wenger led his Arsenal team through the entire league season undefeated.  That was 38 consecutive premier league games without defeat. That record is mightily impressive and it is one that will never be repeated in poker.

In poker, you cannot win every session of poker based purely on your skill. This is because luck plays such an important role in the game. When The Invincibles (The name given to Arsenal after that season) went on their run of 38-unbeaten games they no doubt had their fair share of luck, but luck plays such a different role in both games.

So because poker has the luck factor you need to incorporate this knowledge into the framework of your game. When learning how to play poker, you need to get used to losing. You need to be able to finish a session without winning and be happy with the way that you played.

A good method to introduce is to review your game and instead of recording your wins and losses record the number of mistakes you have made. Ignore the money and just focus on reducing your mistakes to a minimum. 

Obviously trying to find every single mistake will take more time than you reserve for playing. Instead go through the big hands you won and lost and ask yourself if you played the hands correctly or if you made any mistakes.

This is true across all types of poker, such as Texas Holdem, and Omaha poker. Not only should you train hard and learn to win, but you also have to eat some humble pie and learn to lose.