DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE!

[Crotalusatrox]

I know....you all know this. So do I. Today though I gave prime example of POOR discipline.

I was in 3.30+rebuy tourney, I had survived the rebuy period pretty well. I was stacked at slighlty above the average stack size with a field of 1100ish out of 1400 starting. My mantra to this point had been to stay tight, be aggressive, but don't do anything stupid. I had survived this long playing VERY tight, I had only 2 big pots, but several small ones that were keeping my stack size moving in the right direction.

Here is where it went south. I got Ad6d on the button. Now normally I will not play this in a tourney until the blinds are big enough to start stealing, or if I have a big enough chip lead to start pushing the short stacks around. This was not the case. I looked at the cards and thought "I shouldn't play that...but if I don't hit a set, or a flush I will get out cheap." Yeah right! Here is the hand.

PokerStars Game #2781932964: Tournament #13546956, Hold'em No Limit - Level V (75/150) - 2005/10/11 - 21:34:13 (ET) Table '13546956 148' Seat #6 is the button Seat 1: Damirka (6745 in chips)
Seat 2: jorge5555 (23302 in chips)
Seat 3: TheAtrox (11755 in chips)
Seat 4: coysin (5875 in chips)
Seat 5: burghguy (10691 in chips)
Seat 6: RoyalAsn (7350 in chips)
Seat 7: nothin2gein (11680 in chips)
Seat 8: Xstreme (18648 in chips)
Seat 9: angelbab (12345 in chips)
nothin2gein: posts small blind 75
Xstreme: posts big blind 150
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to TheAtrox [6d Ad]
angelbab: folds
Damirka: folds
jorge5555: folds
TheAtrox: calls 150
coysin: folds
burghguy: folds
RoyalAsn: folds
nothin2gein: folds
Xstreme: checks
*** FLOP *** [8h 6s 4c]
Xstreme: checks
TheAtrox: checks
*** TURN *** [8h 6s 4c] [5c]
Xstreme: bets 150
TheAtrox: raises 150 to 300
Xstreme: calls 150
*** RIVER *** [8h 6s 4c 5c] [Ah]
Xstreme: bets 450
TheAtrox: raises 10855 to 11305 and is all-in
Xstreme: calls 10855
*** SHOW DOWN ***
TheAtrox: shows [6d Ad] (two pair, Aces and Sixes)
Xstreme: shows [3c 7s] (a straight, Four to Eight)
Xstreme collected 23585 from pot

At the turn I see a min bet, so I raise cause "I have a pair, and maybe my opponent is bluffing." Doing a good job of following my plan for this hand so far huh? At the river when I saw the bet I thought "Get out." ahhh, if only I had listened...I then though "Thats a small bet, maybe I can get him to fold, besides I have a decent 2 pair now, I might be able to take it down anyways." Now good raise, or bad(my opinion is bad)...if I had stuck to playing my game as I intended to play it I would never have been IN that pot at all. That last all-in is the final action that busted me out. I say though that was NOT the reason I busted out though. Lack of DISCIPLINE is what I blame for busting out of a tourney that, up to that point I was doing pretty well in.

My game was working for me up to that point. I did one rebuy at the start of the tourney to start with 3k in chips, but I did not have to re-buy at ALL after that. My stack took a few small to mid sized hits along the way, but overall I was moving in the right direction. I didn't lose cause I got sucked out, or outdrawn, or because my opponent got lucky. I lost because I deviated from a *working* game plan. Most of my significant losses I can trace to this exact same type of mistake. I may play the hand perfectly, and still lose, but the fact is that if I was playing my "A" game I never would have played the hand to begin with.

I see a lot of people posting hands, and I do it also asking "Did I do this right, or wrong?". Before doing that though we should ask ourselves "Did I deviate from my game plan?" Playing every hand perfect means nothing if I'm playing the *wrong* hands perfectly.

[Jack'd in]

not that I haven't made similar mistakes,but to take a quote from a post i read a few days ago here...

"2 pair is never the nuts"

that board got fairly well coordinated...you should have got out cheap like you decided before entering the hand

[Crotalusatrox]

True. Main reasons I posted this though are... first as an example of what *not* to do, and second to help reinforce in my mind that this is losing me money, and that I need to stop doing it.

[biondino]

Looks utterly, soul-suckingly familiar.

[Les_Worm]

There are 4 cards to a straight on the board you have to be careul. Also you are MP, not on the button.

[Crotalusatrox]

There are 4 cards to a straight on the board you have to be careul. Also you are MP, not on the button.

Like I said, I am aware I played the hand poorly post flop. Thats not the point of my post though. The real point I was trying to make is that I have a game plan for tourneys that works well *when* I stick to it. Same goes for ring games, I have rules for how I will play pre-flop. The majority of my significant losses stem directly from breaking my own "rules" of play pre-flop. If I had followed my game plan I would not have been involved in that hand to begin with, and I would have had a shot at the $5100 first place prize. Instead I ignored my rules; first about how to play pre-flop, then about getting out cheap when my hand missed.

Take the flip side of that and it is still -EV. Say I get in the habit of playing those types of hands with the mindset that "I will get out cheap if I miss.". Then what happens when I hit a couple sets, and start thinking "Maybe I should just loosen up my game so I can hit those big hands more."? Now I might be playing those hands correctly post flop by getting out when I should, and staying in when I should, but I am still playing hands that according to my game style I shoudl not be playing.

From what I have learned(and please, please correct me if I am wrong in this) it seems that one of the most important factors in playing profitable poker, is having a game plan, and sticking to it come hell or high water.

[ollie_c]

Last time this, my coach made me add another post-it to my wall of post-its detailing exactly what I am and am not allowed to do. Breaking with the "I always/I never" format, he asked that I put up:

"MIDDLE PAIR ISN'T SHIT"

And I was supposed to use at least three exclaimation points.

I feel your pain, man. It's that same discipline that's taking me forever to learn, but feels so damn good when I get it right.

[adiamant]

I'm right there with you, and should probably sticky this post to my monitor
Naturally I'm lagg in style, and having started playing a couple of months back with a $100 BR, managed to halve that in a week. I then found FTR, got SSH and read it (twice!), and turned it around. Sticking to discipline (mostly), I got it back to $100, then $140.

Then last couple of days, I started multi tabling SNGs, because I was too bored with playing just one. I added a couple of tables of limit, no limit, whatever, and went back to being too aggressive (both pre and post flop).

Oops - I'm back right where I started

So yeah, my mantra now is: DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE, DISCIPLINE!

[Les_Worm]

From what I have learned(and please, please correct me if I am wrong in this) it seems that one of the most important factors in playing profitable poker, is having a game plan, and sticking to it come hell or high water.

Its is good to have a gameplan but don't treat it like your bible. Different situations require different actions and reactions.

[_KO_]

Discipline is a big key for me. When I've got it, I kick ass. When I don't, I spew chips. Definitely know where you're coming from on this and can truly identify with the poster that talked about 'getting bored' and firing up more tables. When I'm sharp I can multi table, even to the point of playing NLHE, LHE, and an MTT or SnG at the same time, but it's best to take the time to make SURE I'm sharp and able to maintain discipline before doing it.

I think boredom is the true enemy here, so when I feel that way I pick up one of the poker books by my side and read while I play. That always keeps me focused.

[bluedevil907]

Discipline is key. Recently I was playing a small PokerStars SnG and managed to build up a nice chip-stack for the final table by playing very TAGG and really pushing on people after my raises. Scored plenty of folds.

But then I made the mistake of trying to take down relatively small blinds just before the final table with an AI bluff. I had A-high and figured the guy next to me to be pretty tight, so I didn't think he'd end up calling, and even if he did, I wasn't without outs.

Regardless of what he had, it was a stupid move since he had me covered by a 1/3 of my stack. Not to mention that the blinds weren't THAT significant yet, and I could have easily laid it down without hurting my chances at a win. And what the hell were those outs I was dreaming about? An Ace, maybe?

Anyways, he flipped QQ, but I knew it was a stupid play the second he called. Even if he had 72o I still wasn't far enough ahead to be comfortable making that move with the chance to play smart and build my chips for the win.