My leaky, leaky game

OK. I have taken a step back from poker the last few days -- partly because I have lost my ass over the last week, and partly because it's long past time that I reevaluate my game. I think I've figured out the main reasons that I have lost such an embarassingly huge proportion of my bankroll:

1. HAND SELECTION/PLAYING TOO LOOSE
I'm not sure when it happened - maybe the day I took a guy's stack after flopping a house with 54o - but somwhere along the line I started playing unsuited connectors the same way I play suited connectors. I also, strangely, started playing Kx suited as though it were Ax suited. And then, I started calling raises with these hands.

I found myself making excuses to call raises. I found myself saying, "early position my ass -- I might flop the nuts!" or something of that nature.

2. HAND SELECTION/GETTING BORED, IMPATIENT
I found that, in games at which I had lost some money on playing too many drawing hands, I would get bored with folding and start playing Ax too aggressively, or raising off the button with any two cards (at seriously LAggy tables). And, again, if I were in late with 97o and three or four called a raise ahead of me, then I'd be in there too.

3. OVERCONFIDENCE IN MY READS
Top pair, crappy kicker? The dude pushed all in on the flop? Nah, I've got 'im.

No.

There is only one guy I play with regularly on whom I have any read -- and I have a GOOD one on him. I should be satisfied, and stop trying to fool myself into thinking I have anyone else figured out. Generally, when my gut tells me to fold, I find myself walking away empty handed, scolding myself for not listening to it.

4. INABILITY TO JETTISON HANDS THAT HAVE TURNED TO UTTER SHITE.
KK UTG? Heck, yeah, I'll raise the crap outta that pot! Q-hi flop? Bet the pot, or more. Caller? A on the turn? I'M ALL-IN, baby!

Wait...what?

Yeah. Enough said.

5. REFUSAL TO LEAVE WHEN IT'S OBVIOUSLY NOT MY NIGHT.
Yeah.

Anyhow, I just wanted to get this off my chest. We'll see how things go.

Ciao.

Good luck. Identifying leaks is the first thing you need to do to improve your game... not just the first thing overall, but the first thing you do every single time you sit down to retool. Every good player should have a self-analysis like this once a month at least.

I can have the same problems as your first two above - which is my own fault for spending a solid month deliberately experimenting with LAgg play. Once you get hooked on it, it's hard to stop, or even take your foot off the gas a little bit. My recommendation is to just be more disciplined with your folding until you get back into better habits with starting hands. Choosing to call/raise/fold pre-flop can often be a habit, I think, and not something that you are putting a lot of careful thought into on a hand-by-hand basis. So slow it down and think about it again. 79o is not the same as 79 suited. Decent late position hands are not as good as decent UTG hands. Raising should be done for different reasons at passive or loose tables. Etc. You know all that of course, I'm just stating the things I think about when I'm trying hard to play a more disciplined game.

Also in conjunction with that, if you can't slow down all the way, switch to 6 max. If you can be just a bit more disciplined, but still play somewhat loose and fairly aggressive, you're on the right track for 6 max. Sometimes it's just a matter of finding the game that's right for your style, instead of trying to completely rebuild your style to match the game.

Well what can I say, I recognize all of these mistakes and have made them, recognized them and stopped making them...

I managed to avoid this by not playing when I got bored or frustrated which often occured after one hour or more without grabbing a big pot.

So the solution is to simply have a strict rule to just stop playing after a period of 1-2 hours if you feel that way. Do not for any reason keep playing...your game is far from as good as when you started. This is not an easy thing to do but very important.

Great post Molinero. I built up my bankroll on SnGs and MTTs and now trying to crack ring games ... and getting my ass handed to me! I recognised myself in all your points :oops:

Just recently, I've managed to turn things round by focussing on being VERY tight in early position and AGGRESSIVE as hell in late and of course by letting go of hands I previously used to be married to. It's a long haul, but I see the light.

Is this the Leaky Players Anonymous Support Group? Hold on, let me put on my name tag...

"Hello, my name is Storm and I have a leaky hold-em game..."

I call big raises with suited crap when I have a big stack.

I get bored and do stupid things "just for fun".

I play when I don't have sufficient time, when I'm very tired, when I'm distracted, and when I'm drunk and stoned.

I assume people are bluffing too much, and call too many huge overbets.

I don't take every game as seriously as I should, and wonder why I'm not consistently making as much money as I was.

"Admitting you have a problem is the first step to recovery. Thank you for listening to my problems."

Experiencing some of the same. I had a NL session yesterday in which I got KK twice, AA twice, QQ twice, and flopped trips a couple times, and got paid off almost everytime--quadrupled my initial buy-in after about 200 hands. After that run, I started to loosen up to bully and surprise people and never tightened back up again. I didn't get burned that time, but later realized that I was raising KTs from EP, and playing at around 30% VPIP.

My committment going forward is to review my last sessions hands just before starting my next session. When I've done this periodically in the past, it puts my head on straight...