If you enjoy playing online poker like me on a regular basis, you’ve probably also already discovered the dark side of using a computer. The worst thing that can happen when I play online poker is, without any doubts, misclicking.

Misclicking is something that doesn’t happen often when you play live because most of the time, you announce your play during a hand. Well, it’s true that you can “misclick” during a live tournament when you mistakenly take chips of another color without announcing your raise. But luckily, this hasn’t happened to me so far. (I probably jinxed myself already for the next tourney by writing this.)

For me, there are three sorts of online misclicks, based on experiences from 2013.

1. The “Oh-my-God-what-have-I-done” Misclick

This is the regular misclick, when I forget to pay attention to my stack and to the stacks of my opponents during action. Also, this kind of misclick happens when I’m actually paying more attention to what’s on television than what’s happening at my table. That’s the misclick I most often did in the beginning when I started to play more online.

Now, I decided that when I play poker, I switch off the television and focus on the tables. Lesson learned.

2. The “Oh-my-God-what-has-that-kid-done” Misclick

Lucky, I’ve only encountered this once. I used to take care of my best friend’s children. There was a one-year-old cutie pie and another three years old, and the last one had plenty of experience in playing children’s games on my friend’s iPad. I was playing a $27 MTT on PokerStars and shifted the image of the computer on the television screen, playing on the couch like a boss with the wireless keyboard on my lap. I felt a little bit hungry, so when the break started, I ran to grab something in the kitchen. I decided to make a sandwich, and unfortunately, it took more than five minutes.

It’s really nice to have the synchronized breaks, but, for me, they are a bit too short, especially when I’ve seen some cooking show before and want to make a 4-star, artisanal sandwich. And this is when the terrible misclick happened. The cutie pie of three started to touch all the keys, which resulted in little miss GaelleGD all-in holding the “princess and the duck.” So there I was, all-in with Q-2, which was no good against A-Q suited.

Next time, I will lock my keyboard or go for a regular sandwich – probably the first option. Again, lesson learned.

3. The “Oh-my-God-help-me” Misclick

This is the misclick that occurs when you raise or open for an amount you didn’t want AT ALL. For example, I played the WCOOP at a friend’s place. It’s always nice to have someone to grind with all night and chat with during tournament breaks. I have the tendency to fall asleep when I play late at night, so having a friend to wake me up was a good solution. I won a ticket for one of the events, which already was a nice accomplishment for a newbie like me. I was playing for several hours and managed to build a pretty decent stack.

So I had J-T suited and wanted to raise. Instead of making a bet of 800, I misclicked horribly and made it 28,000. So, I only had 2,400 behind. Brilliant. Of course, during that terrible misclick, I got called by the chipleader at the table with A-K suited. That resulted, by the way, in me closing my laptop a little too hard out of frustration, which broke it. Very smart, I know. Another lesson learned.

After thinking back on all of my misclicks from 2013, my resolution for 2014 is simple: No more misclicks!

And for all you beginning players, why learn from your own mistakes if you can avoid them by learning from mine? Don’t try playing 20 tables at a time when you’re just starting out because that will increase the number of possible errors. Don’t eat or watch TV or polish your nails (for the ladies) or make a deluxe 4-star sandwich while you play. Focus, play just one or two tables at a time, and concentrate on it 100 percent.

See you at the tables in 2014!