Quote:
Originally Posted by knowtheledge
I'm by no means a great poker player.
I'm not here to put you on blast.
It does seem like you complain a lot about running bad.
I know this kind of graph. I've seen it before. It comes from and playing bad and then tilting and playing worse. I did this for years.
If you haven't already, go check out Hokiegreg. His PG&C thread is very educational and will help you a lot.
Try to stop being so results driven. Poker is all about making correct decisions and controlling your emotions. If you consistantly make the right decision, the results will come over time.
Good luck in your adventure. Hope you go on a life long heater!
Thanks for the suggestion to go check out Hokiegreg’s thread—I just took a look and already found a couple of really good posts. It’s reassuring to see that other people have suffered with big EV downswings. The more normal it seems to me, I think, the less I will tilt. According to the book The Poker Mindset, there are four emotional stages of evolution as a poker player (most of us are constantly shifting up and down between them). The last stage (and a stage the author speculates many players rarely ever reach) is total indifference: you don’t care whether you end up losing the hand, so long as you know that your play is +EV over the long term. Instead of focusing on the fact that you lost the hand and how unlucky you are, you focus on the fact that you got it in as an 86% favorite and were able to exploit a leak you found in the villain. The fact that you lost, as you will 14/100 times, is insignificant, because you take comfort in the fact that you will win over the long term. I have a very tough time adopting this mindset, even though I know if I could it would be massively +EV. Instead, if I get it in as a favorite and lose three games in a row, I start to take it personally and think the world is out to get me, and that I’ll never be able to win with such overall bad luck. Even worse, sometimes after a particularly bad string of bears I think I unconsciously set myself up for situations where I try to suck out to even the score, which is ridiculously dumb. When I tilt, I’ll often just keep playing “until my luck evens out,” even though I’m typically playing much worse and playing at all is not +EV.
With due respect, I don’t think the graph comes from generally playing bad. My honest assessment is that I have a very good edge against most players at the 33s and at least a small edge against most 55s regs. I think the main problem that has held me back is tilt (and, generally, running under EV). That being said, I’m realizing my game isn’t totally solid. In fact, (and I can’t elaborate on this, b/c good villains read this thread) I’m starting to think that I do some things that are fundamentally unsound, but have historically ignored these problems because I do a good job compensating via very good hand reading and picking up on villains’ tendencies quickly. However, some moves are always –EV, no matter how well you know your opponent, and I need to adjust accordingly.
Anyways, I really appreciate the support from everyone in this thread. Work has been really busy lately, so I don’t know how much I can play over the next couple of weeks. I don’t really expect to hit my goal by February 1, but that’s OK—it’s a nice improvement to finish the year up a decent chunk online. I wouldn’t have been able to do that last year. This thread has helped a lot in receiving encouragement, advice, and helping me keep me accountable to myself. As such, I'm going to keep it going regardless of whether I meet my goal (I'll likely set a new one). Hopefully I have a very profitable 2011 to look forward to