Quote:
Originally Posted by dunderstron!
My big two symptoms of winner's tilt are:
1) playing a hand lazily, not thinking hard enough about it through overconfidence
2) letting people off the hook when I have a big hand so that I don't get sucked out on and lose my win. Like I I have a set and the board's drawy, I'll GII too fast instead of playing it optimally.
When these things happen I either take a break and refocus or just rack up.
Some of the things you mentioned in your OP may be winner's tilt but can also be optimal strategy. For instance, I will push my semibluffs more often because people give me more credit when I'm up. If out bluffs work more, we should exploit it.
For example, one day I was up $800 sitting on a 1.1k stack. I see the flop with T9 on a QJx board (no flush draw), an unsophisticated player cbets, and I check raise him big. He thinks for a minute and says "2 pair?" and folds. This would've been a horribly incorrect play if I had been losing. But when we're winning, we can often get them to fold all of their non-monster range when we semibluff.
So basically, when winning, we should open up, and do it smart. If we tighten up to lock up a win, or we open up recklessly, it's time to reorient or just rack up.
Some great points in here, Donderstron.
I sometimes find myself playing scared towards the end of a winning session. There is one thing that i've started to do when I have the biggest stack at the table that helps a lot with this.
If I'm afraid that I might begin to play on scared money (and I have the table covered), I
never count my own stack at the table- I just count the stacks of my opponents.
Somehow, counting my own stack allows me to view the chips as mine own. Tallying an actual number on my stack solidifies my win (before its technically happened) and allows an element of possession to creep in which can cause me to play scared, or greedily, or rashly.
When I'm just tallying up my opponents stack, my win is much more abstract (both numerically and in my heart) and than I'm allowed to focus on the action at hand.
Give it a try and let me know if it works for you!
Obviously this only works when you cover the second biggest stack by a noticeable gap.