i've played a lot of hands over a lot diff stakes over the years, and i have found my sessions go one of two ways -
i'll be hitting everything and anything - every hand I seem to have sick TP holds, opponents spewing at me with mediocre hands, backdooring a flush when I'm barreling a solid reg who is slowplaying me -
then there are the bad times, where I can't seem to hit anything or people seem to run better than jesus against me every made hand
I've found this is almost ALWAYS the case for me- I can't figure out if it's a result of mindset, my aggressive style resulting in large swings, or just the nature of the game itself, but I wanted to ask you - have you ever experienced this phenomenon and if so, how do you deal with it? I have always felt like I play great during my boom sessions and awfully during my down sessions.
I'd be interested too. What's funny is this is exactly how I feel. Run OUTSTANDING. Run OUTSTANDINGLY HORRIBLE. Can't find that grey area in between.
it's just your mind looking for/finding patterns where there aren't any. if you put in tons of sessions/hours/volume you're going to have lots of sessions where you end up even or only winning or losing a little. but, those aren't very sexy or memorable so you don't remember those as much in the long run, and instead remember the huge wins and huge losses.
and yeah, what you're describing sounds like one form of variance - sometimes you just run white hot, and sometimes you run ass-cold.
as far as not letting results/temporary variance affect your play, there were times when i wouldn't look at results for reasonably long periods of time (the best i ever did was a whole month but i did days and weeks many times). there were other times when i would check after each session and stop loss myself for the day if i was down a certain amount.
i mean if you feel like you're playing terribly then you should end your session, and not keep playing. i'm sure if you tallied up all your session results for a month or a year (-34 BB, + 39 BB, -7 BB, etc etc) you'd find lots of them being in the range of slight loser to slight winner. now, if you're constantly looking at your results while you play, and having your play be affected by that (omg i'm stuck bad i'm gonna lag it up to get even, omg i'm stuck bad i'm gonna nit it up, omg i'm on fire gonna 3bet atc), then it's possible you're skewing the distribution of your results. but that's hopefully something that a good mental game will avoid.
i've played a lot of hands over a lot diff stakes over the years, and i have found my sessions go one of two ways -
i'll be hitting everything and anything - every hand I seem to have sick TP holds, opponents spewing at me with mediocre hands, backdooring a flush when I'm barreling a solid reg who is slowplaying me -
then there are the bad times, where I can't seem to hit anything or people seem to run better than jesus against me every made hand
I've found this is almost ALWAYS the case for me- I can't figure out if it's a result of mindset, my aggressive style resulting in large swings, or just the nature of the game itself, but I wanted to ask you - have you ever experienced this phenomenon and if so, how do you deal with it? I have always felt like I play great during my boom sessions and awfully during my down sessions.
Nature of the game, although people that are not MMTing will notice if you're up or down and will play back at you if you're down more. It's always a balance between trying to not spew with draws/bluff too much with a bad image and avoid weak-tight tilt. OTOH, if you're winning it's easy !
Edit: Oh sorry, didn't realize it was Babar's well, didn't want to intrude with him answering
Bella, you or anyone else are welcome to post. Don't be silly imo.
Heh, of course! But you know how I mean it, me acting all authoritatively in your well
How's Vegas? I am in a constant back and forth between jealously of all you guys being there and gladness of not being there degening it and actually getting stuff done here.
i didn't cash in any events, but was up a bit in cash games, and got to hang out with lots of friends, eat some nice meals, and do some fun stuff. so overall it was a good trip imo. you gonna be out there next year too?
in 5 years, wow. not a pro, definitely. i'll go back to school soon and at some point take a regular-ish job down the road and have poker as more of a hobby. with a regular steady job i could set aside a dedicated roll and take shots at higher games without worrying about going broke. in the short term i do see myself still playing online and down the road as well. i would like to coach poker but i don't know if that can be a full-time or lifelong thing. i'm definitely accepting new folks right now if anyone is interested in coaching or talking about it!
well, it's almost been 5 years. how does your life now match up to where you thought you'd be?
well, it's almost been 5 years. how does your life now match up to where you thought you'd be?
where do you see yourself 5 years from now?
pretty crazy - 5 year thread!
i was somewhat right and somewhat wrong in my predictions i guess
i'm still doing poker for a living - haven't gone to grad school yet. haven't gone back to the "workforce" yet. still enjoy the free time and flexibility and travel that comes with the lifestyle. 5 years from now i feel like i will be into the age limits where i'll have to start making Real Life Decisions and maybe move away from poker somewhat, but then again that's what i thought 5 years ago. for now i'm just content to take it one day at a time. if it ever stops being fun or if i stop doing okay at it then i'll stop doing it.
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