I started playing online poker a couple of weeks ago and got to the point where I could slowly grow my bankroll with 2NL FR game. The problem is, very often when I won about 1 buyin after a number of hands, I find myself in a position where I can either lose my entire stack or just lay it down.

For example:
I have something like AJs in LP, make an open raise and get called from one of the blinds. At the flop I got TPTK or two pair but there is also a potential flush draw for the opponent. He check calls my 3/4P bets twice and on the river comes the third card for his potential flush and he goes all in.

Based on stats I know that my opponent is a fish and would be stupid enough to call me twice, hoping to complete his flush. So at this point it's usually pretty clear that my hand is beat and I tell myself "fold, fold, fold. Don't call!", but I call.

There are many examples where I know that I can't win the pot and yet I just can't lay it down.

Why is that? Did anyone else have to overcome this problem and if yes, how?
This really starts to piss me off, that I just can't listen to myself a lot of the time.

Well I also suffer a lot of that kind of tilt and still do.
But the moment I start to recognized it I started to do what I feel what is best even when your curious to see if your right and hated the fact to lay it down. I take comfort in the feeling a made good laydown. I hope that my opponent will call in the same situation which cost him money and I save money in that exact spot.
Since I changed that mentality my winrate increased and I started to not loose a couple of buy ins every session. Your always kicking yourself when you make a call to see exactly what you already know, it's a horrible feeling but when you change it you feel real great about yourself at least I keep telling myself that.
Also I started to learn from this book Building a Bankroll Full Ring Edition which gave me a better basic knowledge and confidence about what to do versus certain villians.
I'm a 2NL player:-)

About the hand you need to post it in another forum but I believe that wasn't the question.
Hand you can post in another forum and the most here prefer that you convert your hands and give initial reads about the vilians.


GG and GL
:-)

I wonder if the following is what happens: if you call and win, you can shake your head, say they played wrong, but congratulate yourself on making a winning call and having more money now. If you call and lose, you are upset but still congratulate yourself on making the right read.

On the other hand, if you fold, you lose the pot and never know if your read was actually right.

Therefore, calling makes you feel good because you 'win' either way while folding guarantees that you 'lose.' Maybe reminding yourself that you win when you make the right play, not the right read could help?

The call actually feels worse when I made the right read, but there's something inside my head that I need to overcome. I think once I get very confident in my reads it will get easy to fold.

To be honest it's not only poker though. There are many other situations in life where I make really bad decisions eventhough I know nothing good will come from them.

Somehow I got the feeling that if I can overcome this problem in my poker play, it will also help me to stop myself from doing other bad decision.

Maybe wanting to believe that is the bad decision.

Maybe I can't make decisions at all.

Maybe you just want to lose.
The analysis is just a method to disguise this.
Might be other stuff happening in your life that is triggering this desire to lose.
Time to reflect?

If you know it's wrong and feel bad when doing it and don't get any positives from it, then you'd stop doing it. You have to be getting something out of making these calls. It could be as this poster says:

though determining if this is true and why would require a lot of probing into your life/history.

It could be my suggestion, that you are seeking the reward of confirming your ability to read other people.

But perhaps it is indeed something else. The point is that there has to be something. People don't do things without motivations to do them.

There's no way I want to lose. I'm really amibitious :P The problem probably is that, like you said, I needed confirmation of making the right reads.

But I think I'm on the right path. Making way less of these calls since I got kinda confident in my reads.

Also, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

I think this post below will give you some comfort in the answers you seek.

Destroyed 3/6, time to move up (graph)

GL!

Ironically, if you asked around, more than 95% of the poker players would say they're ambitious. It's a generic term that doesn't quite mean what it should mean. For example, Leatherass was playing 12-14 hours of poker a day for
weeks and weeks in a row. The elite athletes spend 6-8 hours a day training, often more. Over the last 6 months of sitting a lot of regs, I'd bet at least 70% of them play the same way against me, even when some of the things I do are fairly obvious to me. I take this to mean that these players never study, aren't progressing, and even stagnating. I'd confidently estimate that most of these players would consider themselves ambitious as well.

Let's say I kinda hate losing. I think that's a more fitting way to describe it :P
But you're right. I too have the feeling that by only playing I'm learning as good as nothing. Probably even get used to making the same mistake over and over again while not even noticing. Oh man if I just knew what I got myself into haha.

A great place to start is to realize that all humans are liars... even to ourselves. if you approach things with a critical mindset like that, hopefully you'll be able to see past the tricks you're telling yourself in order to continue making the errors you make.

Yes, it's a typical and common problem. I'm a pro and I still make horrible calls way too often. And a lot of players both good and bad make bad calls. First of all, these decisions are not easy. You usually have something good but your opponent has something better and you have to realize that. That's why players take the most time on call/no-call decisions. That's when they sigh and moan. Folding when you have something is difficult. Not only strategy-wise but also emotionally.

Everytime you fold, it feels like you capitulated, it feels like you "lost". People and men especially don't like to lose. Our ego is fighting our logical mind that's telling us we have to fold.

Guys above are telling you call because you want to lose. That's bull****. You call exactly because you really badly DON'T want to lose. More precisely, your ego doesn't want to "lose".

So what you need to redefine what is losing and what is winning. Ego is dumb and thinks that winning or losing a pot equates to "winning" or "losing" respectively. You need to teach your ego that winning = making the best play/decision while losing = not making the best play/decision. That way when you fold and it's the best decision your ego can feel like it won and it will actually be helping you fold when you need to rather than trying to make you call.

Interesting word.... "can't"!
"Can't" stop doing XYZ!

I mean, what is the difference between "Can't" and "Won't"?

The answer is personal responsibility and self-belief.

"Can't"= Lack of control
"Won't"= In control

The question I would ask is why the view that it is out of your control?

I've also heard of the theory that one would subconsciously "want to lose", as if there were some deep-seeded drive to self destruct brought on by self-fulfilled prophecies of low self-esteem or whatever pop psych term you could drum up. The "crying call" i.e. in hopes that the guy is bluffing seems more often the case. Even though the hero may say to himself "everything about this betting line tells me I'm beat, but there might be a chance this guy is bluffing so I'll call" or something along these lines.

I also wonder if there is any research out there that may point to a hormone or neuro-chemical reaction to "tilt", whether good or bad. What if there were some sort of crash that comes along with the adrenaline rush felt during the bigger hands and that may have something to do with the fact that some people spew in later hands.

Taking a breather after a big hand may help. I am probably wrong but there should be a logical reason why even "good tilt" can cause horrible decisions in later hands. It seems to happen more often than most think.

If you must know (and I am qualified in Psychology up to Masters (postgraduate) level) it is something called the Amygdala Hijack.

The Amygdala Hijack is where excessive emotional stimuli (Fear, Over-Excitement....etc) inhibits Prefrontal Cortex Activation ("logical brain") resulting in us being fuelled by emotions only and subconscious control. This is done by our emotional center of the brain called the Amygdala!

The purpose of this is to simplify and speed up our reactions allowing us to get out of physical danger. As you can probably tell, it is part of our "Fight, Freeze or Flight" response (AkA Fight or Flight).

Consistent excessive emotional levels (both good or bad) can lower the threshold required for an Amygdala Hijack resulting in this "fear-like" response being activated sooner.

The emotions are mainly brought up by the anticipation of losing and not the losing itself. That is why it is often a relief for people who have an Amygdala Hijack to purposely lose the game. By playing stupid and busting out, it allows the player to not feel threatened anymore as the event has already occurred. If the event (losing) has already occurred, what is there left to be stressed about?

I was thinking of writing a kindle ebook with all stuff like this in, maybe I'll get round to it someday.

Does that answer your question?

Do it.

I also agree with 90% of what you wrote, great stuff. The Amygdala Hijack is probably responsible for the biggest losses and dumbest decisions in poker. I know it's been responsible for mine. The decisions that you ask yourself about: "how in the world could I do THIS???" and you find no answer except "I was stressed/under pressure/etc".

The part about the "trigger" (AH trigger) emotions being emotions of anticipating a loss - err, not so sure about that. By your logic people are stressed/worried/afraid of a loss so they do something to make the loss happen to make the worry go away. Seems far fetched.

I have another version. People prefer to take an action that removes the uncertainty (call) and also gives them a possibility of a win to an action that is a guaranteed loss (fold). So two factors at work here: 1) people's discomfort and desire to avoid uncertainty. a fold will always leave you uncertain as to whether you had the best hand or not (unless V shows which is rare); 2) people don't like to lose. they'd rather take a path that allows them some probability of winning (although small) rather take a path that results in guaranteed loss. So in two words my theory is: 1) uncertainty aversion 2) loss aversion.

Had this problem, still kind of do. A lot of people can't seem to fold because of the moment, one thing I found that helped me was that I lifted my hand off the mouse before make each decision post-flop play. I let three of my fingers slightly hover over the mouse, after a while you build a habit where your fingers naturally are over the mouse. When it was my turn to make a decision, I force myself to give one reason as to why I'm going to do what I'm doing and then I let me hand back on the mouse. It just helped me, maybe it could help you. GL

You put to much weight on your hand, to advance you must consider a hand nothing but what it can do there is nothing in aj but what it makes treat aa like any hand, thery all have their adv. But are nothing in themself odds same to get aa as 22 , top pair cannt beat a.flush so fold could just as well be top pair of 54 and a royal flush pair is out. One thing is.the.hand strenght charts.are just a start you have to move up to what playing is going on. U in a game were donkey call down then 2 pair is time to jam or fold at a bet, suckers who call down and hit don't rep that hand to much accept it " you need a big hand too" player most get onto.the.game as.it is not the.right plays

Just make.a.game of a.game , you get that situation again go all in at the turn ifhe calls and draws out find out the odds he had and count that neg exp. Your gain!

Look into M Caro's training games, he suggests you visualize the hand backwards, before you make that last bet. Etc. Great traning,

Learn to really hate loosing and lover your treshold for loosing. Imho: Making horrible decisions isn't really affecting/bothering you, really deep down yet. You think it is, or would like to beleive it, but it isn't.

GL.

Worst advice ever? It's precisely the ego and the dislike and fear of losing which causes people to overcall (when they should fold) and incur huge losses.