It is well known that the amount of mistakes made in a poker game will immediately affect the number of wins. If a player makes less mistakes, then he will have a better chance to win.
But is every mistake as bad as another?
Eventually the better poker players will have more victories than the bad players, but luck is of great importance in every round. But players can still frequently make mistakes without even knowing or realizing that they are making a mistake. It is even possible to make various mistakes in a single round, and still be lucky enough to win the pot eventually.
There are small mistakes and big mistakes. The difference between these two is really big. Here is a common example of a small mistake. Open shoving when you have a great hand and you are really confident that you will win the round. Beginners might say that this is not a mistake. This way you will just raise the amount in the pot. But they are not right, people who bet too much money at once will just scare the other players. This way your opponents will fold much sooner. You should definitely never bet too much at once, when your overall strategy is to play safe and without risk.
This is not a big mistake, because you probably will win the pot either way. Small mistakes are things like not betting on the last card enough when you have the best chance to win, or calling too many raises with low cards. When you do not value the bets on the river enough, you will not get check-raised. Eventually you will just leave money on the table.
A big mistake is to throw money away every hand. Big mistakes make a difference between an overall good player and an overall bad player. Good players will not make these big mistakes, while newbies frequently make them. Once you begin making big mistakes, they will occur every single orbit. Big mistakes will only affect the number of victories in the end. An example of a common big mistake, which might look like a small mistake, will be to call raises out of position with dominated hands. If this is your regular mistake, then it will not matter how good your game is for the rest. You will not become a winning player.
When you play with a worse hand that is out of position you will just be an obstacle for yourself. You will see that you will be in a terrible position that you can not come out of. You will just end up throwing away your money each time you play.
Another big mistake often made, is to call too much. People who made it their routine to play too many hands. They also will go too far with cards that they should have folded. Because people who call a lot throw money away almost every hand, they will hardly ever leave the table with more money than they entered it.
The difference between small mistakes and big mistakes are that small mistakes will just keep you from winning more money when you win. Big mistakes will eventually turn into overall losses.
But do not forget that every poker player makes mistakes every now and then, no matter how good or appreciated they are. Most mistakes will not result in permanent losses, but will just not let you be as much of a winner as you could be.
