I assume this is a bit uncommon. I always hear people talk about how much better they play when they are winning. I get that point (getting more respect from opponents, more confidence,etc...) and I also understand not playing as well when running very badly.

But for me, if I am winning in a session a solid amount (rack and half/two racks) I have noticed that my intensity and focus often go down and I get a sloppy and complacent. I tend to possibly play looser and don't try as hard to pick up pots that I would when I am down a little or around even. I get involved in pots that I probably wouldn't if i was playing my best game. I don't put the pressure on others as much as I should and normally would.

The best way I can describe it is I lose my edge when I am winning approx 2 racks. I tend to get complacent and content.

Anybody feel like this happens to them too? Any tips to help plug this leak?

Try thinking about the last bad / losing session you had?

I completely agree OP. I personally feel I play my best when getting a little stuck a little right out the gate, I go into hyper-focus mode. Glad to see someone else bring this up.

If you feel you cannot play your best game after winning some amount, stand up and take a break. Walk around for 10 or 15 minutes.

If you still can't play your best game, cash out your winnings and go home.

yeah i mean the answer seems obvious. Book the 25 bet win and go home. That's how most people play anyway!

I'm going to go on a tangent here, but that's one of my core competencies so hear me out. I read something once where there are like four stages and two dimensions of skill. Conscious and unconscious, competent and incompetent.

You start out as incompetent and unconscious. You don't know what you're doing, and you don't even know what you don't know.

You quickly move into incompetent and conscious. You know what you don't know, and you do your best to perform well, but you are still quite bad.

Stage 3 is conscious and competent. You are pretty good at the task, but it requires full focus on (sometimes basic) concepts.

Finally you become unconscious and competent. The basics are so ingrained that you don't need to focus on them, and you can either perform without focus or find yourself moving to a second level, ignoring the basics and doing interesting creative things.

I completely buy that what you're saying happens. It sounds like you are in stage 3 and get complacent and sloppy. Try not to do that. Keep plugging on the basics (having a basic read on all opponents, looking left, picking off tells, keeping the size of the pot in mind, considering u turn possibilities), because once you get great at them you can start doing really fun stuff.

This fourth stage is the reason that truly great athletes often make terrible coaches. Ask Lebron or Magic or MJ or Mario or Gretzky why he made that redonkulous pass and he probably can't tell you. Ask the coaches son why he made it and he can explain the three things he saw on the way up the floor that led him to fire it.

If you think you are not playing at your best, for any reason, quit and play again when you are at your best.

However, if you feel you don't play at your best when you are winning, you need to be REALLY honest with yourself about this.

The natural tendency of poker players is to book wins and chase losses. And that's a HORRIBLE leak. Because players who do this are engaging in classic short term thinking. They are attaching way too much importance to the results of their sessions, when the result of one session is meaningless in the long term.

So you have to learn to ignore the results of your session. It doesn't matter one bit whether you are up or down. You need to be able to play well either way and not care about the short term.

More broadly, I think the assumptions that players make about table image, winning and losing sessions, and related topics are one of the big underexplored topics in all of poker. The reality is a lot of what people attribute to where players stand in a session is in fact due to random chance, and the "adjustments" that players make to these things are generally huge leaks.

What I always suggest is unless you are an absolutely brilliant player who can honestly evaluate whether a game is good enough to stay in or bad enough to leave, just play a set number of hours every session. If you do that, you take these sorts of decisions out of your hands and can just play your best game.

Jesse- Interesting concept. Makes a lot of sense. Refocusing on the basics might help when I find myself in this predicament going forward. But I am not sure being in stage 3 is the cause of my problem because this problem seems to only show up when I am winning a solid amount. When I play a substantial amount of time around even or slightly losing, I don't have these issues.

That makes me think my problem is psychological. I become pleased and happy with my (up to that point) winnings and I lose my killer instinct for fear of giving some of my winnings back. I get blown off of pots that i normally wouldn't. I get a little timid in spots I shouldn't and I think its because I don't want to put my potential win in jeopardy (which is ironic because playing that way is more likely to put it in jeopardy than playing my normal game). I think my main concern is a fear of losing some of my winnings.

Lawdude - I used to have that leak to some extent. I would play really long sessions when losing which would, of course, occasionally lead to catastrophic losses. I overcame that a long time ago and definitely do emphasize to myself that poker is one long session and it doesn't matter what happens on a day to day basis. I feel pretty comfortable with that concept these days and no longer play uber long sessions when losing. I am comfortable with booking a small loss and getting them next time.

But still, I seem to ease up when I am winning in a session in a game that I feel is profitable and it really bugs me because I see other players have 3-4 rack winning days and I wonder why I lose my edge when I get up 2 racks and what I can do about it. I get very timid usually when winning for fear of giving back my winnings which makes no sense but i still do it. I usually play bad in marginal spots and when I analyze the hand later, i kick myself for pl

I don't think it's too hard to judge if a game is good or bad and I feel comfortable that I can typically do that pretty well. I don't like setting time limits because it could potentially make me leave during a very good game. But i might have to try it out.

I have been kicking around the idea of leaving and going to get something to eat or take a walk and come back an hour or two later and see if that helps...

That might help. When reading your OP it struck me that it sounded a lot like what pit players do: They get up and then bet more bec they are 'playing w/ the house's money.' If that's your mind-set you really ought to leave the game.

To everyone who always says "if you're not playing your best you should quit immediately" I mean come on get real. If you're a recreational player you only have certain times where you can play; you can't just always quit you'll never play. And if you're a pro you need to log the hours. And either way playing through adversity is the best way to get better, which is the whole point.

Sure if you're on monkey tilt you should quit, but just because you're not playing your A+ game doesn't mean you should walk it off. I'm on monkey tilt right now and my answer was to check out of the game and post on 2p2.

Well, long term, you need to be able to do that.

But short term, you have to make a judgment call.

It's not much different than, say, managing drinking. In the long term, you have to make sure that excessive alcohol consumption doesn't interfere with key parts of your life (such as your work, your family, driving, etc.). But in the short term, you may still have to decide how to handle a situation where you are drunk.

Until a player gets this sort of thing totally under control, there can be situations where the correct decision is to get up and leave because continuing to play is -EV.

Damn you

Jesse- Do you ever leave or cut your session short if you are up a good amount (or down) or do you play an approximately pre planned amount of time?

I will quit if I get murdered and am obviously snake bit, wounded, etc. I'll never quit short up.

Now that I'm "a pro" again i try to play thru a lot with good results. I won 6 racks in a 1/2 game cause I played til I had to go, and turned a 3 rack loss into a 4 rack win the second time.

But I'm rolled for anything now, not like 2010 when I posted about playing 40/80 professionally with a net worth of like 60

Jesse8888 is absolutely killing this thread.

I'd say that f you start playing super loose without killer focus, that's the place to start. Preflop play should be boring. Understanding which hands to play and when can be worked on via equilab. Also feel good tilt is real, and time may cure -- especially when you become aware of your own tendencies.

It is a rare winning limit hold 'em player whose win rate will suffer by playing a few more hands a little more aggressively.

Sure. Until he starts three betting 64s vs a calling stating because he's up a rack. Even if not going that far, making a few bad calls due to "I'm running well and have a good image" or whatever reason, they can be the slow death. If you become a losing player once you're up, the long run will get to you.

you are going to have a much higher winrate when you are winning. When I'm up a lot I try and play forever. try and turn the 2 rack win into a 5 rack win into a 15-20 rack win.

When you are losing even if you play the exact same you are going to have a lower winrate. So unless the game is amazing, if i'm stuck 3-4 racks I quit.

this is bad advise if we are playing our B game because we are winning but the result of us winning is other people are now stuck and playing their F game. This is a much better spot than just posting up and having everyone play their best

I only agree with you in the case of people who play for money AND have a good handle on their game.

People who don't play well don't need to put in tons of hours grinding a B game when their A game is mediocre at best. It leads to all sorts of spurious correlations where someone's sitting there tilted thinking overlimping 84s is fine because at least they're not overlumping 84o like everyone else. Worse yet, they may win a lot of money and then decide "**** the A game, I just crushed it by playing my B game."

And I agree if you're a pro playing 20/40 and your B game at $20/hr is still better than going home, you stay and play your B game. But if you're a small stakes player and your B game is $2/hr instead of the full $4/hr, jeez, just go home and watch a DC video.

To succeed in today's poker climate you can't afford to pass up really profitable situations like this. I think 10 years ago you could put in hours only when ur "on your A game" Now you need to have that "A game" at your disposal at all times, in all conditions. Preferably at more than one form of poker. Leaving a good game when ur ahead for no rational reason should not be an option. Staying in the game and playing sub-optimally should not be an option. You basically just need to suck it up and play tough. One thing I can advise if you start slipping next time you are up big is watch the next hand from start to finish. Then the next one, preflop, who's in, all streets, who won, everything. Force yourself to focus on the game so your mind won't wander to "how much am I up" "where does this put me for the month" "how much was i up 10 mins ago" and other nonsense that creeps into your mind. Remember you are always in control, if you need to take an extra few seconds to really think before you put those chips in the pot thats fine. Sticking it out and learning to play tough in all situations will benefit you more in the long run than any kind of stop win strategy.

So what happens when the game is always good and runs 24/7?

I totally understand when it's MSLHE and the game goes infrequently and it's not good all the time it runs. But SSLHE games are almost always good and they run all the time.

That's a fair point. The only thing I could say is dealing with this issue while you are beating small stakes games will help you if you aspire to move up.

Of course you have a point. But I think most people I know who post on here and win could play a few more hands and bluff a little more.