Am I A CHICKEN!!!!

Okay! Only been playing for about four months now. At the beginning, I was quite nervous, but I played hands. Now, it seems like I am nothing but a scared little girl, unable to commit to any hand.

What's happening? I can't even get myself to commit to a flop unless I have something rather impressive from the start.

I've been told by one (thx a bunch) to start focusing on just betting pre-flop or how to handle the hand pre-flop. That makes perfect sense. But how do you suggest I fix this?

ANY suggestions/help would be GREATLY appreciated!!!

Im in the same boat and have seen my winrate drop. I was hoping at my level that tightening up would improve my winrate but it has done quite the opposite. I am no longer involved in as many pots with the fish as I used to be. Im starting to loosen up and play more postflop poker. Not sure of the results yet but hopefully they will be better.

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Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Im in the same boat and have seen my winrate drop. I was hoping at my level that tightening up would improve my winrate but it has done quite the opposite. I am no longer involved in as many pots with the fish as I used to be. Im starting to loosen up and play more postflop poker. Not sure of the results yet but hopefully they will be better.

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This is EXACTLY where I'm at!!!! I REALLY tightened up!!!! And it's not in a good, pleasurable way! ;) And now I rarely play hands. Agh!!!!

the BEST way to check this is to post hands here. When you are playing make a note of hands that you were unsure of - then post them here with your question.

If you want advice on pre-flop, just post that part of the hand. If you want advice on the entire hand post it (minus the results).

btw, what both of you are experiencing is VERY normal. You will go through many ups and downs as you get better and better. Fortunately these ups and downs will smooth out over time.

good luck!!!!

Me tightening up preflop was thinking it would help me have less difficult decisions posftlop. However, I realized that I'll never learn anything about poker nutcamping so now Im trying to get into more difficult situations and learn about them at the lower stakes where the damage is more minimal.

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Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Me tightening up preflop was thinking it would help me have less difficult decisions posftlop. However, I realized that I'll never learn anything about poker nutcamping so now Im trying to get into more difficult situations and learn about them at the lower stakes where the damage is more minimal.

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Just remember that the lower in stakes you go, the more you need to play straight up poker.

hey lady.

listen to the man...gator, as he is right.

you will eventually get to a point where you say, "screw this tight bs. if i am going to win, i need to get over my phobia and play." at that point you will still be selective pre-flop, and slam psb's into drawing boards on all streets with TP or sets. all of a sudden you will have your confidence back when the idiot chasers miss their draws...and paid premiums to chase them.

play good cards pf (i know you know which these are)
bet flops when you hit
charge draws high prices
fold into RRes

you are playing lower stakes, right? dont get cute...and dont get scared.

we've all been there, and you will giggle at your "phobia" when things undoubtedly turn around.

What will probably happen is you'll get overly aggressive to make up for your scared play. You'll probably lose a little money doing that and then say, well wtf do I have to do to learn this game??

When that happens, be patient. You will have to find that balance between being aggressive and being too passive or scared. Thing about poker is that no one can give you a set of rules that say what to do when. People try to do this to help you start out by suggesting what hands you should play and how much you should bet etc, but you will not be a winning player until you realize that you can't play from a chart or by using generalizations.

When I started learning cash games (I already knew donkaments and therefore had a pretty good grasp on poker), I used Renton's guide and pretty much followed it religiously for a while (he wrote a FR guide and I kinda applied it to 6 max). It got me through 50NL okay, and then I went to 100NL and got whacked around by people who were way more aggressive. So I thought to myself, okay I gotta learn to be more aggressive or else I will never beat this level. I turned up the aggression, but I did it too much and still couldn't win. What it did was teach me when to be aggressive and when to back down, though. Right now I'm starting to find the balance, and now I find the game much easier. I was actually trying to figure out what caused the change and why I find it so much easier now, but I don't know why. It's just about playing and learning and losing a bit of money and then getting it back after you figure out why you're losing money.

I hate it when I make silly rambling posts. Hope some of that made sense.