How do you avoid THIS?

I think I know the answer to some of this, but give me some feedback anyhow.
I was playing on the $10NL table .50/.10BB. This was a break from the usual $50NL.
I was on the button, holding QQ, and UTG and UTG+1 were the only callers. I bet .50. I intially thought this too high, and would just get the bets already down. The blinds fold but the two callers call. The flop is 2d Qs 4d. A nice flop. I bet .50 again. Both call. Turn is 8c. I bet $3. UTG calls, as I figured. I had him read for two pairs, possibly queen and low, and figured he was fishy enough try to ride it home. The flop is Ad. This scared me as it was one to a straight, but I couldnt see him riding this far on 5 and anything, or even 55. I check, and he bet $5. My mistake now I didn't put enough consideration into him holding something like Qd Kd, for the flush, which would perhaps make those calls not as stupid. I call the bet, and he turns over 7d 10d for the flush!

Now, my questions are this:
1. How on earth would anybody call UTG with 8-10s in the first place?
2. How on earth would anbody call a 5xBB bet with 8-10s?
3. How on earth would somebody call a $3 turn bet, on a $2.50 pot, for just a flush draw?
4. I was playing these low stakes just for fun, but is this more common the lower the stakes, where players will bet on absolutely ANYthing?

I understand the concept, and utilize it, that fishy players who think things like Ax off suit are the best thing ever and will always play it are who to make money off of. However, with a somewhat bad player, you can read what he THINKS is good. But playing trash like the above, it's so unbelievable that it puts me into full-on tilt, where i suspect no matter what i hold, one of these morons is holding something better.
Holding AK and the flop is A 4 6? Looks good, but you know one of these stupids called your monster preflop bet with 4-6...
Obviously I exaggerate, and am grateful there are players retarded enough to give away their money like this, it's just that I've seen a string of this in the past few days that defies explanation.
And I realize my by far biggest leak is reading what players have by thinking there is NO way he could be seeing the flop for such an price holding rags. In the above example, I normally wouldve given more consideration to folding after the $5 bet, but I just had to see it to believe it.

P.S. My A-A got beat to a 3-5 offsuit yesterday, after the flop only yielded him a pair of 5's and no straight or flush draws and he called my AI, but I can't really talk about that.

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Originally Posted by SonOfAkira

I think I know the answer to some of this, but give me some feedback anyhow.
I was playing on the $10NL table .50/.10BB. This was a break from the usual $50NL.
I was on the button, holding QQ, and UTG and UTG+1 were the only callers. I bet .50. I intially thought this too high, and would just get the bets already down. The blinds fold but the two callers call. The flop is 2d Qs 4d. A nice flop. I bet .50 again. Both call. Turn is 8c. I bet $3. UTG calls, as I figured. I had him read for two pairs, possibly queen and low, and figured he was fishy enough try to ride it home. The flop is Ad. This scared me as it was one to a straight, but I couldnt see him riding this far on 5 and anything, or even 55. I check, and he bet $5. My mistake now I didn't put enough consideration into him holding something like Qd Kd, for the flush, which would perhaps make those calls not as stupid. I call the bet, and he turns over 7d 10d for the flush!

Now, my questions are this:
1. How on earth would anybody call UTG with 8-10s in the first place?
2. How on earth would anbody call a 5xBB bet with 8-10s?
3. How on earth would somebody call a $3 turn bet, on a $2.50 pot, for just a flush draw?
4. I was playing these low stakes just for fun, but is this more common the lower the stakes, where players will bet on absolutely ANYthing?

I understand the concept, and utilize it, that fishy players who think things like Ax off suit are the best thing ever and will always play it are who to make money off of. However, with a somewhat bad player, you can read what he THINKS is good. But playing trash like the above, it's so unbelievable that it puts me into full-on tilt, where i suspect no matter what i hold, one of these morons is holding something better.
Holding AK and the flop is A 4 6? Looks good, but you know one of these stupids called your monster preflop bet with 4-6...
Obviously I exaggerate, and am grateful there are players retarded enough to give away their money like this, it's just that I've seen a string of this in the past few days that defies explanation.
And I realize my by far biggest leak is reading what players have by thinking there is NO way he could be seeing the flop for such an price holding rags. In the above example, I normally wouldve given more consideration to folding after the $5 bet, but I just had to see it to believe it.

P.S. My A-A got beat to a 3-5 offsuit yesterday, after the flop only yielded him a pair of 5's and no straight or flush draws and he called my AI, but I can't really talk about that.

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You say 'nh', put them on your friends list, and get position on them at any table you find them.

Bet the river, fold to a big reraise. well a call would be fine also.
Note that people at this level are stupid as hell so consider starting to use raises of 10x the BB. Trust me, you'll get callers.

Also work on your poker jargon, clearly the Ad didn't come on the flop. :)

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Originally Posted by IowaSkinsFan

Bet the river, fold to a big reraise. well a call would be fine also.
Note that people at this level are stupid as hell so consider starting to use raises of 10x the BB. Trust me, you'll get callers.

Also work on your poker jargon, clearly the Ad didn't come on the flop. :)

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Go easy, that wasn't a poker jargon mistake, but a dyslexic typo, I meant the river was Ad. :)

But I'm on full on tilt right now. It was even talked about in one of these sections, I think hypermegachi talked about it, with everybody calling everything, the amount of outs against you is increased so much... What i'm asking is should I just avoid the lower stakes games and stick to the mid level and not let any craziness bother me from the lower level?

I play 25NL so take it for what it's worth:

I stopped playing 10NL because I found that preflop raises got no respect. 5BB, 10BB (10% of a full stack!) - it was a lottery.

More importanly, I found that I couldn't treat my stack with respect - it was easy to call a potsize (say $0.75) flop bet on a decent draw because
a) "It's hardly any money"
b) implied odds are thrown out of whack by the small blind sizes.

So far I haven't run into these problems at 25NL. As for the case of the problematic river -

Many low-stakes opps are very passive. Blocking bets on the river work reasonably well if you want to show down a hand for cheap. Of course if they come waaaaaaay over the top it's time to close up shop.

Bet more than 1/3 the pot on the flop with trips with 2 suited on the board and 2 opponents?

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Originally Posted by Blinky

I play 25NL so take it for what it's worth:

I stopped playing 10NL because I found that preflop raises got no respect. 5BB, 10BB (10% of a full stack!) - it was a lottery.

More importanly, I found that I couldn't treat my stack with respect - it was easy to call a potsize (say $0.75) flop bet on a decent draw because
a) "It's hardly any money"
b) implied odds are thrown out of whack by the small blind sizes.

So far I haven't run into these problems at 25NL. As for the case of the problematic river -

Many low-stakes opps are very passive. Blocking bets on the river work reasonably well if you want to show down a hand for cheap. Of course if they come waaaaaaay over the top it's time to close up shop.

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I'm learning the hard way it's like that. Though, i've found it's that way with the 25NL as well. I feel crazy, because I play the lower stakes games when the higher ones stress me, but i've found it much harder to make money at those because of the reasons you mentioned.
To address the other post as well, he said 'trust me, you'll get callers' but the concept, to my understanding, is that you don't want callers, at least not a slew of them. Hypermegachi made the excellent point that you can have excellent odds against any maniac or two, but 4 or 5 who are calling anything your odds are greatly diminished. If EVERYbody can see the whole board for free, hands like KK would diminish in strength incredibly. Like when you muck, say, 6-9 off suit, and the flop is 6-9-9, and you think the foolish thought, only for the briefest of microseconds if you're a strong player, hey maybe i'll play that next time... Well, it strikes me that the lower the stakes, the lower the respect for the money, and every hand there are players doing this exact thing. Somebody just tell me, should I just stick to the mid-level and higher stakes where i'm pretty proficient? And if I start to go on tilt, just walk away, not play lower stakes, where the stress of the money isnt great but the insanity of the plays will increase the tilt?

Personally haven't run into problems at 25NL yet - in a very small number of hands I'm doing ok. Probably on a burner...

FWIW on Party I find that a 4bb ($1) preflop open-raise gets a reasonable amount of respect with a TAGG image.

Anyways, there are some important questions to ask, SonOfAkira:

1. You say you're a pretty proficient mid to higher stakes player. Are you really? I mean no insult and don't doubt that you are, but are you being true to yourself? If you are a winning player, don't bother with lower stakes games unless you want to beat up on fish... or go on tilt.

2. Bankroll. Are you properly bankrolled to play at the upper stakes? The more proficient players on this site have continually stated that you can NEVER be playing with scared money. You should NEVER be stressed by the money.
Scared money is dead money.

Being "stressed by the money" will affect your play and your decision making.

If you go on tilt, just walk away from the computer. Tilt just leads to bad decisions, more lost money, and even more tilt.

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Originally Posted by Blinky

Personally haven't run into problems at 25NL yet - in a very small number of hands I'm doing ok. Probably on a burner...

FWIW on Party I find that a 4bb ($1) preflop open-raise gets a reasonable amount of respect with a TAGG image.

Anyways, there are some important questions to ask, SonOfAkira:

1. You say you're a pretty proficient mid to higher stakes player. Are you really? I mean no insult and don't doubt that you are, but are you being true to yourself? If you are a winning player, don't bother with lower stakes games unless you want to beat up on fish... or go on tilt.

2. Bankroll. Are you properly bankrolled to play at the upper stakes? The more proficient players on this site have continually stated that you can NEVER be playing with scared money. You should NEVER be stressed by the money.
Scared money is dead money.

Being "stressed by the money" will affect your play and your decision making.

If you go on tilt, just walk away from the computer. Tilt just leads to bad decisions, more lost money, and even more tilt.

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No insult taken whatsoever. :)
Though, and this might take things well outside of the realm of this forum, I grew up very poor, so being stressed by money, however slight or subconcious, will always be there. It's made me question how much stock I should put into poker, the whole time i've been playing, whether i've had a good day or week or a bad one.
But when I said "stressed by money" I suppose I meant specifically when i'm bad beat at a higher stakes game, and at the verge of tilt. But instead of stopping playing altogether i'll go to a lower stakes table, because I enjoy playing so much, and up until a few days ago this worked fine until I caught a string of nonsensical hands at the lower levels, and it has really demoralized me. Seriously, at the low point of my poker history. It's what prompted me to post in this forum, mainly looking for tips and advice in the psychological arena and how to overcome psychological mishaps.
I, and to answer your question truthfully, am more than proficient at the mathematical and logical aspects of the game. I had two extremely helpful and gifted mentors, two math majors who now are professinal poker players. It's the psychology, the feeling that you'll never win a hand again, that's swooped in out of nowhere.

Hrm.

Well, if I'm really tilting but absolutely can't walk away from the computer, I buy in to a cheap SnG. I'm probably still losing money but instead of blowing an entire stack of $25 I might "only" go through $5-10. Plus you can play like a maniacal idjit and sometimes build up a nice stack :).

Usually by the time the SnG is over I can walk away.

Good luck with solving your struggles! Keep posting on this forum - we all learn from shared insight.

PS - have you read aokrongly's Psychology of Losing?

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Originally Posted by Blinky

Hrm.

Well, if I'm really tilting but absolutely can't walk away from the computer, I buy in to a cheap SnG. I'm probably still losing money but instead of blowing an entire stack of $25 I might "only" go through $5-10. Plus you can play like a maniacal idjit and sometimes build up a nice stack :).

Usually by the time the SnG is over I can walk away.

Good luck with solving your struggles! Keep posting on this forum - we all learn from shared insight.

PS - have you read aokrongly's Psychology of Losing?

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Lol.
See, I knew I wasn't the only one who did this... Played a lower stakes game when things were screwy. Maybe both of us are doing the wrong thing...

Maybe instead of playing a low stakes game, play a cheap SNG. Even a $5 SNG will have better players than the ones you are running into after about 30 minutes and the real donkeys have busted out. At that poinit it can become an enjoyable game, with no risk if you are on tilt. But really you should probably learn another way to manage tilt other than playing poker.

No the play at the $5 sng is just as bad. Yes they go all-in with flush draw everytime at the low level. If they bet the river after calling and there is a flush or st8 on the board fold the donk has it.