The biggest leak in my poker game, all the way into 2019, is still how easily I am tilted. When a few things don't go my way, my brain just like is so fixated on those things and stops being able to poker good. I've become decent at recognizing it and packing up my session, but that cuts short too many sessions for my liking. I'm still struggling with finding a solution to this, which mainly involves #1) improving my C-game, and/or #2) figuring out some way to trick variance into signing a peace treaty with me. I always figure that "more volume" is the best solution to #2, but then I run into the issue where I'm tilted and NOW WHAT? In the past, I've viewed it as an opportunity to practice #1, but that hasn't worked out well for me.
So my goal for my next week in poker, is to try to implement playing MUCH tighter when I'm tilted. Think this is a pretty critical step for my progression here.
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To be fair, let's also share something I think I'm good at. LIVE poker A game, specifically LIVE. In the past few years, I've surrounded myself with poker friends who think you should never 3-bet 83o in live midstakes (probably because most good players think that, sigh), and I had let them convince me of that. But now I gotta believe in myself, and I think they are completely wrong.
There is so much information out there, I mean just for example, how many times have you met up with a friend and they IMMEDIATELY know something is off, or vice versa (for me the latter is actually kinda rare because I suck at that). How many times do you think OtB_RedBaron/etc. squeezed out a +EV solver-disapproved hero play against another top player purely based on a timing tell, literally a piece of information so microscopic it can be conveyed with a single number. Now imagine yourself, a serious student of poker with thousands of hours of experience, making a hero play against a recreational player who cares more about who wins the boxing match on TV when you are sitting 5 feet away from him. I mean it's not THAT uncommon for some flustered recreational nit to LITERALLY sigh like "ah I don't want to play this hand but
Piosolver Norman Chad said I should open it" then raise the button, now think of all the other equivalent spots that exist everywhere.
So yeah, I owe everyone who told me not to ever 3-bet 83o a big fk you
It's fine though, because even though I've missed out on quite a few well-deserved fk yous (e.g., everyone who led me to believe that bovada 1/2 was <50% fish), I owe them so many more
that I failed to give too (sorry about that. Thanks everyone
).
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Talking to my good friend Rinky (
who also has a PGC) and they suggest therapy, I feel like this thread is my therapy (for the record, I definitely think some nice actual therapy would help a lot, but it's also an investment with some variance as I've been disappointed before)
At a meetup where I didn't know anyone beforehand, something I haven't done in awhile. Been feeling like I really badly need to start hammering down the walls of my comfort zone