Join Date: Jun 2009
Posts: 63
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Tonight I learned a lot in an up and down multitabling session. Anything important I learn, I make sure to write it down in the 1st post as a note to myself. Those notes I reread every time before I start a new session. They're things that I've learned from my experiences. If anyone has anything to add to those notes, either to tell me I'm wrong or just to elaborate further on the note and add the perspective of someone with more experience, feel free.
Most of them are likely "well duh" notes but I'm beginning to make them more detailed as the greater my understanding of poker becomes, so maybe some aren't. If all of them are "well duh" notes, then that's good because it means I'm on the right track.
After this session, I've realized my two biggest holes and how I've lost a majority of the big pots; they're common ones that all noobs have I'm sure. The first is, "I'm 100% positive my top pair is the best hand, he's probably bluffing that reraise". After drowning myself in the Beginner's Digest, I've completely gotten rid of that hole.
The other is another obvious one that I think all poker players experience every once in a while and that's emotion. The big pot I lost today was entirely because of emotion. I was up against an opponent who I'd faced many times earlier and I was really annoyed with his callstation play. I went all in an open ended straight draw all because I had this mindset of "I want to beat this guy".
After that, the following happens and this has happened before, I briefly mentioned it in an earlier post. I go on tilt for about 5 minutes, and start going, "GOD DAMNIT, I'm gonna be super aggressive, out play, and beat these mother #@$ers". Then the 82 or K3 comes and asks me, "You really wanna do this with garbage bums' wipe their ass with?" and I go, "Er...on second thought...". My tilt starts fading, I'm coming back down to Earth, and my mindset goes in a different direction.
I start playing my normal TAG game but this time, I feel focused and energized. It's because I want to win. This is different from my usual mindset of "This is a marathon, yawn, take your time, just use logic, and grind". Instead, I start playing real poker and was asking myself great questions (something I've realized is absolutely essential to good playing) which lead me to good folds and good bets. Eventually I made up my losses and ended the session even.
Now that I know there's a higher level of play I'm capable of, it'll still be a dilemma on how to bring out this focus, the change in attitude from, "This is a marathon, survive until the nuts but be very careful!" to "I want to win, let's play some damn good poker". Maybe drinking coffee or energy drinks will help, I dunno. Something to keep my mind sharp. Next session I'll see what happens, if this is just in my head or what.
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