Hi all, just wondering how you all get over the whole adrenaline fight or flight response to agressive players?

When I think I have a hand down and make a bet hoping for a call and the villain shoves on me. Suddenly I have adrenaline rushing through me, and my responses come down to. What? Why did you hit me? Here take this and call.

This is stopping me actually thinking about a hand in more logical way and clouds my judgement and makes me make some awesome hero calls and at the same time, far more vomit chips away calls.

Recent hand of mine:



First of all, this is the second time this villain has 3bet me, the first time he raised my 3bb open to 10bb with KK. When he opens this size I think he has more AK and weaker in his range.

I hit and think, woop, result. I bet hoping for a call from AK, AJ etc and he agrees. Turn I bet expecting a fold and him being annoyed with me. He shoves! Now I'm lost, I'm almost certain I'm ahead, he could have QQ/JJ here but he has so many other hands. My call was based on me being sure I was ahead on the flop and nothing else.

I want to be able to think more clearly, I have - since I started playing - played over 100k hands and still have this problem (I don't put in a lot of volume), so how did you all get over this?

Why the donkbet? You obviously got the result you were looking for, why not let him cbet?

Thanks for the comment, the post wasnt really about the hand I was just using it as an example. But the reason for the DB is I think its unexpected and causes the villain to make more mistakes. I do when it happens to me

It seems your not thinking enough about the hand(which is something I myself am guilty of often).

If you have any stats you should post them with the HH.

First thing you should be thinking is lets assign a range.
So the last time he 3bet you he had KK so it is yet to be proved that he is 3betting light.
So since at 5NL most people aren't going to have wild 3betting stats lets assume we give him a pretty standard value 3betting range of QQ+,AK.
Next is work out how you do vs that range. When stoved AQs vs QQ+,AK you are a 28% dog. So the hand should stop here. Its a fold pre. This is without even noting that your OOP and don't have the initiative.

The flop looks nice for you, TPTK... great. However you are crushed by QQ+ and AK isn't going to be that happy to put a lot of money in the pot. Your best hope is to X/C a cbet from AK. You may get a call from AK if you donk but most of the time your drawing slim when he calls.

On the turn you bet again and he raises and you call. Honestly what do you think you beat here? You best hope is KQ with the K of clubs but we aren't going to assume its in his range until proven otherwise. I would think his most likely holdings are AA, KK with a club or AKcc. Against this range you have 16% equity.

If in doubt follow the balgua theorem which says that if your raised on the turn when you have a one pair hand you should most often be folding.

The answer is in the hand.

There are only 2 reasons to bet. To make worse hands call or to make better hands fold. You were 3bet pre, so he's not folding but anything but AK (assuming he is standard, since we have no stats) on that board.

Thanks both of you for comments. But I should probably left the hand history out of the post. The reason being, in this hand I had a read, my read was correct and I was ahead in the hand from flop to river.

But the shove on the turn made me stop thinking about the hand and start assigning hands to him that preflop I just didnt believe was in his range anymore based on my read. I was hoping to get some ideas about firstly, if people actually have the same problem as I have and secondly, if so how have they overcome it.

A fundamental response to your question is to always have a plan before you act. This actually shares a lot of similarities with chess play.

Before you bet, check or raise, always ask yourself, what will I do if villain raises me or shoves? You will find the answer might make you reconsider whether your current course of action is correct, and finally by having a plan you will not have to make a decision during the adrenalin rush period because you would have already know what you were going to do when the raise is made. Good luck and I hope that helps.

What we're trying to say is that if you have a plan coming into the hand, and avoid getting fancy (your donk bet) you won't run into situations that cause you anxiety, because that feeling is called "gambling".

Experience. The more you get into these situations, the less you'll feel the pressure. Wait til you start playing live haha.

Planning things ahead of time is also important. It keeps you from getting the deer in headlights effect.

yea but you have no bluffs in your range there do you?

also, a very small part of your opponent's range has any reason to raise there.

and if your opponent is aggressive enough to raise or float your donk, he's probably aggressive enough to barrel at least once when checked to him.

as played, you've kinda got exactly what you hoped for when he shoves on you. like, you're probably dead, but you played the rest of the hand in a way that calling is probably justified.

so the problem is with the entire hand, rather than just the call, is what I'm saying

So does everyone practice this off the tables when reviewing hands or is it solely an experience thing?

In this situation I had opened this hand UTG trying to get in a pot with the guy in the BB who was loose. If anyone else had 3bet me I would have just folded as the table was pretty tight as I recall. In fact I would have folded to a 10xbb raise from this guy as he had pretty tight stats. So in this situation my mind was changed at the last minute.

Do we consider a plan from pre to river before acting?

Also do we have plans versus various board textures before the flop comes?

its a lack of understanding/experience of/in the game that causes these emotions

it's good to have an idea how you're going to continue, for if anything, it gives you justification for continuing in the first place. eg, if the majority of flops you hit are going to be flops you hate or don't feel comfortable putting money in, you should probably fold pre, thereby getting away from reverse implied odds situations before they arise.

however, you still have to re-evaluate when situations arise, because you cannot account for every single card combination or action for the rest of the hand. continuing in a hand with purely with the plan of re-evaluating the next street is icky, but isn't necessarily a bad thing, but you still need sufficient justification for continuing in that situation.

for example, in the hand you posted, you need sufficient justification for calling the 3bet pre. that's not to say there's not a line you can take that is very good, it's just that you won't know what it is, and that increases the chances of you taking a line that is very bad, which is what you did. and the entire hand was mistakes compounding on one another due to lack of a plan.

lets look at the hand in more detail. if you forced me to play that situation without any knowledge of table dynamics, I would fold AQ pre because:
-I'm OOP
-Villain has no reason to believe I'm raising light from MP2, therefore I have no reason to believe he's 3betting me light
-I'll have no plan if I miss the flop (70% of the time)
-I'll have no plan on extracting value if I hit (30% of the time)

however, taking into account table dynamics, these might change, eg:
-I have reason to believe I'm being 3bet light
-I have a plan to continue if I miss
-I can extract value if I hit

Now, any or all of these reasons can be sufficient justification for calling, as long as you have the reads to justify it. however, as a minimum, you have to acknowledge this very simple plan:
"If I hit an A or a Q I'm getting it in one way or another"
because if you don't acknowledge this, you're putting yourself in a "what the hell am I hoping for" situation, and folding becomes superior to calling in every way.

If your opponent is so spewy that you feel he's going to stack it with a wide range very often (say he bets flop shove turn 100% of the time), the plan of c/c flop c/c turn every time you hit A or Q and c/f every time you don't is a very good one. If villain is more sophisticated than that, you have to have a more elaborate plan.

An example would be if villain is 3betting the flop not only extremely light, but extremely polarised (meaning he never 3bets a mid hand like 99, choosing to call with them instead), and will fold to 4bets, and he also continuation bets in position liberally, then calling the 3bet with the intention of check/shoving lots of flops is a good plan. if I was to take this line, I would do so with a lot of my air hands, but also when I flop an A or a Q, to be consistent.

Anyway, that's an example of a possible justification for calling the 3bet. Notice how in the examples I listed I'm either check/folding, check/calling or check/raising the flop. That's not to say there can't be a good reason for donking the flop. I just can't think of one off the top of my head right now.

You definitely can come up with standard lines that you're comfortable playing when you're reviewing hh offline. Most plans though have to be villain specific, session specific (are they tilting, are they never folding, etc.), and take table dynamics and stack sizes in consideration.

A lot of people at low stakes get lazy and just go on auto pilot with the bet/fold line if they're playing a TAG style so they avoid having to do too much planning, but personally I think this leaves too much money on the table. Just think about what your plan will be if you get raised before every bet.

Thanks for the advice. I have started talking out loud my during hands, talking about who I am folding to when I open, why I am opening, why I am calling and what I intend to to do on the flop. Etc. This has helped tons. I still am spewing a little with stupid call downs on the river but feeling a lot better while playing.

So thanks all!