the way u describe winning at poker is like what a super novice would imagine one of the dumb ridiculous hands of poker be like in those movies rounders or casino royale lol.....limping in with stong pocket pairs or premiums,waiting for big monster hands house flushes or straights and put on a poker face and bet with trembling hands and finally push all in when ur straight flush comes on the river only to be in shock when ur opponent turns over the royal flush.
anyone whose played omaha or plo the four card variant of poker will know u make sets,straights,flushes and houses so easily that ur fortune changes with every street and you must be prepared to toss ur hand if u even have the slightest suspicion ur opponent has flopped or turned or rivered a better hand,even if u have a beautiful hand urself.....while on the other hand no limit holden the two card variant of poker,it is so hard to make a hand that 99 percent of the battles are not won with sets,straights,flushes or full houses.99 percent of the situations the hand is won with mid pair.bottom pair,ace high or air or complete junk......its a game of who dares wins,the more aggressive player,the guy who floats and steals the pot on a later street cause he suspects ur initial aggression is false or trying to exploit ur tendency of betting way too much with way too little,all about odds and probabilities and guts,or even the first guy who dares to take a stab at the pot when everyone else has shown weakness even though he has junk himself,3betting,raising reraisingbluffing ur opponent's bluff because he has constricted his range too far by checking the flop and is now desperately trying to cover up and take a different line,pushing and repping scare cards urself while still ensuring u still have sufficient equity in the pot.the winning strategy here is to call call call and keep floating all the way down with a set of iron clad balls with a pocket pair lower than 2nd pair on the board,not because ur a calling station,but becauase u have clear understanding on the hand from the beginning to the end,the underlying theory and thought process,the board texture and how it interacts and how ur opponent interacts with it,meta history of ur opponenets,ur opponents tendencies and behaviours,a clear understanding of how the general population at that stake plays and thinks,confidence in ur own analysis and knowledge and theory and most importantly balls.the opposite would be to go on the offensive,attack,attack and attack!!! like a flurry of dempsey rolling barrage of punches to ur opponents ribcage or wing chun chain fist punch till ur opponent crumbles!!!!!cause god knows,the good players know how hard it is to make a hand in holdem,the chance of u making a pair on the flop is only 30 percent,and that may not necessarily be the top pair,u could be playing junk or medium suited connectors and flop bottom or middle pair,then what?the odds of flopping 2 pair,set,trips,straight draws,flush draws,are even rarer........11%?3%?2%?0.8%?ur gonna sit around all day and wait to make good hands?ur not gonna get very far.
one of the theory of poker states that and also one of the reasons people dont understand how money is made at poker........yes sklansky theorem states that u make money when the amount of mistakes u make is less than or smaller than ur opponent's......alot of people think u make money from ur big hands and getting value from it......thats not true,everybody makes money from their monsters,ur supposed to,in the long run everybody including ur opponents gets roughly the same number and of premium hands preflop and monsters postflop,of sets straights flushes and full houses,playing and waiting for big hands,thats just abc,standard,mediocre poker.most of the money is made during the other 99 percent of the situations when u and ur opponent possesses a less than stellar hand,when theres doubt and insecurity and confusion.......using high aggression,cunning and wit and sound poker theory and logic,forcing ur opponents into making more and bigger mistakes they shouldnt have and thus widening the gap of profitability between u and him.
most novice players and even many regs are bad at dealing with aggression or being aggressive themselves.....