Learning to become disciplined in poker is one of the biggest weapons a modern day poker player has in his arsenal. If you do not have any or even just a little discipline then nine times out of ten you will not go far in the game at all. You should make this top of your learning list if it is not already as this is the main cause of most players losing more hands than winning them. After the deal if you have a good pair of cards then it puts you in a good position to win the current game but that is where the discipline ends for most people.

The excitement that you go through when you are dealt a good hand tends to make you think about how you are going to spend your winnings other than how to win it first. The emotions that you experience are the cause for many a poker player being left with nothing at the end of a hand and this is probably the main cause for people to lose in the game of poker.

When you feel excited at the hand you are dealt then this is a bad place to be they tend to react to instinct rather than what they should do and what they have learnt to do. You will loose you inhibitions so to speak and your game plan will go out of the window and you will make bad judgements and throw all you have as you truly believe that you have the winning hand.

The most experienced and successful players have the ability to access the situation first and decide what to do before going in all guns blazing. This will prevent them from making bad decisions and also, more importantly, still have chips at the end of the hand.

The discipline is being able to select what you are going to do and stick with it, but of course many players change their minds and this is where they make mistakes. It is easier and cheaper to fold than follow your gut instinct as it will usually cost you a lot of chips and your stack will seem considerably lighter at the end of it.

Players fall into this trap when they are dealt hands that they believe are good starting points of the game but this is not usually the case. For example, the hands to avoid are nine and ten, paired with an ace or worse is the jack, queen combination as the amount of hands that can beat them are in the high numbers and you will usually be beaten so you should fold.

It is the hardest skill to learn in poker but it is the skill to learn if you want to become an accomplished player because if you play without it then the chances are that you will end up worse off eight out of ten times because you did not think it through and read the game first.