Playing with discipline

I've been playing live games for about 8 months. Mostly online and well-organized home games; I have only been in a casino card room one time. What I'd never given a great deal of thought to, however, was how much discipline and bankroll and overall "comfort" play into how well one is able to make decisions at the poker table.

If one plays above his bankroll, as I've done in the past, one can easily start making poor, defensive decisions instead of the strong, aggressive decisions needed to win more chips. To me, THAT is the definition of tilt; that feeling that you have to get "up", that you can't lose what you have because it'll impact you in some greater way than it would if you were playing with a solid bankroll. I experienced that feeling many times playing online, and occasionally in my live game, and ended up in a bit of a financial crisis because of it. I'm pulling out of that now, and am determined NOT to do the same things that put me into it before.

Last week I went on tilt again in my 3/6 game. I started playing WAY too loose, putting up live straddles, chasing, calling raises with meager holdings. Next thing I knew 2/3 of my buy-in was gone and I was spewing chips. THEN I had KK cracked by J3s and a set of 3's cracked with 45o. I was totally on tilt, and if I'd had access to more funds I'd have gone back and dumped another $200 at that table. After putting some thought into it I decided I needed to change my approach.

First I acknowledged to myself that even though I enjoy the 3/6 I really don't have the bankroll to play as comfortably as I might. So from that, I decided that I needed to set up safeguards for myself. One of those was to increase my buy-in from $120 to $150+, so I could absorb a gentle downswing or two. Second was to set a time-limit for myself, which would give me a chance to assess my play, my decision making, my stack size, and how comfortable I felt. If I was doing poorly after 3-4 hours, I'd cash out and go home...or if I was playing well (regardless of whether I was up or down), I'd stay a while longer. Third, I decided to concentrate ONLY on making the mathematically correct play, and accepting the results as long as I'd made the right play. KNOWING I had these safeguards in place, I was able to not worry about "having" to get up, "having" to keep some of my chips, etc. This in turn gave me the freedom to play more aggressively, and to take a couple nice-sized pots last night.

I finished up a bit, despite the utter crap I was being dealt. (Out of 240 hands or so, I had 52o, 62o, 72o, 94o, 93o countless times, yet only saw an ace about 10 times, had 3 pocket pairs none greater than 77, suited connectors twice.) It was a good night. Smile

Hi, its recommended that in order to play 3/6 you need a bankroll of $1800, 300 big bets. For a buy in you would want about $600 (100BBs).

Its easy to concentrate on the short term results in terms of $$. I do it all the time, DS said "Think of it as one big session" as you have already realised the most important thing is playing the cards correctly not how much money they make you.

I agree with your comments about playing with scared money, if every pot you play you're thinking "There goes the rent" you will play to weak to make money.

If you are playing for the game and not to win lots of cash, when you play online you can always play a lower limit. Not sure what levels are offered in B&Ms as my local casino doesn't have a holdem game Sad

Hope it works out for you anyway.

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Playing with discipline

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Playing with discipline