Your overall poker performance can generally be broken up into three levels of play: your A-game, Your B-game and your C-game. The extent of each of these levels varies from player to player, and determining exactly where each level starts and ends is your own responsibility.

Your A-game is the best you’re capable of from every respect. When you’re playing you’re A-game you’re virtually unstoppable. You’re hitting your draws, you’re keeping your opponents honest and you’re dominating your table. Playing your A-game fills you with confidence and offers you the best possible poker experience.

Your C-game is the exact opposite of your A-game. Nothing seems to click for you and as a consequence of the string of disasters that befalls you, you end up losing a lot of money. There’s absolutely nothing pleasant about the C-game and most players will naturally seek to forget about it as soon as possible.

Your B-game is between your A-game and your C-game. Parts of your B-game may be profitable, parts of it will cost you money. The bottom line is, the majority of the time, you’ll be playing your B-game.

 

The problem with most poker strategy articles and books is that they focus on the A-game alone. Quite naturally, the A-game is the part of the game players are most willing to discuss and tweak too. Since it’s a pleasure to play when on your A-game, you won’t find yourself disgusted of ever having to bring it up. The catch is though that your A-game is not where you can make the most significant adjustments. There’s only so much you can do to maximize profit when you’re playing well, but there are a whole bunch of tweaks that can turn your C-game into more of a B-game and thus to cut your losses. After all, you may not feel this way, but money not lost is just as sweet as money won. Those willing to get dirty and to take a closer look at the C-game will be in for a pleasant surprise: they’ll find it much easier to improve than those who continuously tweak and optimize their A-game.

How do you go about improving your C-game?

The idea behind it is quite simple really, and at the end of the day, it all comes down to discipline. Identifying the worst part of your C-game is your first task. Suppose you’re a really nasty tilter. Cut that part of your C-game out and toss it aside. Whenever you feel you’re on a tilt, just get up from the table and leave. Once you’ve done away with the absolute worst element, indentify the next worst factor and then toss that into the garbage as well.

This way, you’ll manage to continuously shrink the size of your C and B-game, while maintaining your A-game as it is.

The five biggest factors in cleaning up your C-game act are: Playing on scared money, tilting, simply being out-classed by the other players, being exhausted and being distracted.

Some of these factors are easier to defeat than others, but by knowing exactly what to look for, you’ll find that lopping off your C-game is much less challenging.

Tilting can be avoided by simply terminating play when you feel a tilt coming on. If you’re distracted, get up, take a walk and re-consider joining the table. After all playing poker is your goal and not staring at the TV or at a cocktail waitress.

Exhaustion is another simple matter. If you feel like the call of the sack is becoming too big to resist, you simply shouldn’t struggle on. There’s absolutely no point in it. Recognizing that you’re out-classed by the other players is a tad more difficult though, especially because ego comes into play here as well.

Playing on scared money is a matter of bankroll management: get that right and you will find yourself willing to lose money in order to make money.

 

Signing up for a rakeback deal can contribute to the lopping off of your C-game too. A rake back deal like the full tilt rakeback or the cake rakeback will offer you a significant edge over those who play without rakeback.