Tilting and BR management
Just getting over a really bad tilt/spew in the last couple weeks and have finally posted some wins, so I thought I'd share what I think the problems is/was.
- Playing to aggressively
- Playing to loose
- Ignoring proper BR management
#1. To much aggression - There is a tendency to press to win pots when you run bad, trying to make up the loss you get into this mode of I MUST WIN NOW. So that led me to float a shit ton of flops and check raise the turn on any kind of scare card, completely ignoring pot sizing and equity, fancy play syndrome. Then when villain would call me down with 2nd pair it would tilt me more (How the hell can he call that??) Then the pattern would continue until everyone at the table is in all your pots calling you down lightly and you basically have to leave or keep spewing. I chose the latter.
#2. Playing loose - This happens because you cant WIN RIGHT NOW if your not in a lot of pots. So lets open our range and bet my way out of problems later. The problem here is as you become more active you get less and less respect at the table. I use to have a friend that would c-bet 100% and he got pissed because everyone would always float him. He couldn't figure out that when you fold you actually build up image equity that you can use later. Also once you get pegged as loose everyone starts playing back at you more, something that makes poker much harder. Additionally the game gets harder as well because you end up connecting with marginal holdings 2nd or 3rd pair hands shit kicker etc. No respect and crap holdings = spew
#3. BR management - I've been trying to do this and was fine for a long time, but when tilted you go insane. Jump up in stake to recoup losses and lose more faster. Now there have been occasions where I've jumped up and won, it feels great but it is wrong. At that point your just gambling and thats not what we are trying to do if we are trying to win at poker. I'm never playing a stake where I don't have 30x the buy in period.
Another comment about micro-stakes: a TAG style is easier to play and dominates the micros. For a LAG style to work your opponents have to be able to understand what your doing/representing and at micros most players are only looking at their hand and will call down with TPWK. I've always been very active and LAGGY and have a great red line, but have struggled through micros. My stats at 25 and 50NL are better then at 2nl and 5nl. Until recently I didn't figure it out, have switched to basically a straight forward TAG style and that has gotten me back on track and winning again.
