Winning poker.

How would you define winning poker? Betting when you’ll eventually win and drawing in as much money from the opposition as possible? Folding before the flop on every hand you won’t eventually end up winning?
Since this is quite impossible to achieve, what you have to strive for is to come as close to the above model as you can. The closer you come to it, the more of a winner you are. This sounds simple-enough, but in reality, winning poker is far more complicated.
Whoever makes money in poker, wins pots, big pots and wins them quite often. This is the general perception of what it means to be a winning poker player, and this is how most rookies think about winning poker.
Most good poker players and pros say however, that winning poker feels a lot like losing poker. Mostly, it’s not about taking big spectacular pots, but about grinding it out, stealing blinds and applying and reapplying small edges endlessly. Some say it is a lot like a day-job: one just needs to put in the hours to make things happen.
Not too glamorous a picture, but most probably, closer to the truth than anything else.
In this dog-eat-dog world of online poker grind, one needs to be able to choose his/her battles carefully. It is imperative that you don’t waste money and resources on a lost cause, but rather focus them where you’ll benefit. In a way, this description looks a lot like the definition of perfect play I gave at the beginning of this poker article.
Being able to choose one’s battles is an important thing in surviving every-day existence. You don’t want to continuously fight losing battles do you? Heck it’s not even interesting to watch a sporting event or a game when you know one of the contestants doesn’t stand a chance to win.
We are programmed by nature to  be able to carefully choose the battles we compete in and to always give ourselves a sporting chance for victory.
Online poker is a lot like real life, in many respects. This one is one of them. If you want your bankroll to survive and fight another day, or to win most of the clashes it’s engaged in, you need to choose the battle carefully.
First rule you should understand in this respect is, that money is always drawn to money. Whoever has the bigger bankroll, will prevail and will dominate, not only in tournaments where this domination is most obvious, but in ring games as well.
Why will he dominate ? you might ask… simply because he will have more options than somebody barely hanging on to a thread of his shredded bankroll. When playing no limit poker, you’ll often see someone with a mighty bankroll, launching a personal attack against this other guy who has is almost busted out.
If he raises exactly the sum the underdog has in his pocket, the message is clear. I want to see you gone, busted out and finished. Faced with such a raise, our underdog doesn’t really have a choice: he can either call and  post his whole remaining bankroll on that bet, or fold and lose the blinds he’s already posted.
It’s a loss-loss situation for him. Even if he gets lucky, calls and wins, he’ll relaunch his roll, but the other guy will repeat the same move on him the following hand. He can’t get lucky all the time.
This leads to another important online poker concept: repetition is the key. Apply an advantage time and again, no matter how small, it’s bound to yield results sooner or later.
Find small advantages: solid blinds play,rakeback, etc…and put them to work.