Poker Maturity (long and self-indulgent)

[Genitruc]

I'm pasting this from my blog (Operation, whatever...) because I find this very very embarassing but I think it's important that I face this. If I don't I'll never come even close to making the money I'm capable of making at poker.

All comments are welcome, as always, but to be honest, I know what I have to do and I know I'm capable of it. It's just a question of doing it. I'm a very happy person who lives a very rewarding life outside of poker (knock on wood) but I don't want to pass up the opportunity to make life-changing money because I'm emotionally weak-sauce.

This is the second time I make a long-winded post about my problems accepting the swings of aggressive poker. Many highly respected posters here have already gone out of their way to discuss this stuff with me so I hope they don't feel any need to reply to this, I'm not particularly interested in becoming FTR's #1 basket case.

This is more a question of me calling myself out in front of my peers than me looking for attention and encouragement.

(post from blog) :

I think I have some serious self-management issues to overcome.

Most of the money I made at nl400 (15 buyins or so in past few weeks)came from playing short, ***perfect*** sessions. Usually that just means that I didn't get called in any big bluffs and finished with a profit.

Today I continued playing nl200 (plan is to play 5k hands before going back to nl400) and quickly made about 750$.

I then dropped at least 1k in the space of about 140 hands.

1 buy in was CLEARLY due to tilt. Blind vs blind I got limp-reraised by a 24/6 who had stacked me on the very last hand when I shoved on his river blocker (after raising UTG and firing 2 barrels on J high board) and he snap-called with TPTK.

I insta-shoved over his limp-reraise and his AK held up over my AJ.

Nothing... and I mean NOTHING, tilts me like spewing away winnings. I ALWAYS tell myself "well, if you'd only stopped"...

What this suggests is a basic gambler's mentality. It is COMPLETELY irrational. It means that I am playing poker for emotional fulfillment. It feels good to win. I always want to be happy. Booking wins feels good.

But the need to feel good has gotten in the way of my long-term profits. If I look back over the past 12 months or so of play, I can count the sessions where I've played very well for more than 1k hands on the fingers of one hand.

This is a very very bad sign and means that, while in a bubble I may have some sort of poker proficiency, I lack the emotional discipline and the equanimity necessary for poker.

It's funny, because this isn't something I really feel like I'm lacking in other aspects of my life ("handling your ups and down" lol) but I've somehow managed to never get over this hump in poker.

When I was grinding up my roll playing the Back 2 Back in the good old days of their huge bonuses, I was a very very aggro regular at the nl100 euro games.

My old laptop with the results of those days is shot, but I think I made about 15 ptbb/100 over about a 40k sample. Back then, I had maybe 1/3 of the poker skill and experience I have now, but I had a much much better approach to variance. I would regularly get it in light vs other regs and just accepted the fact that the swings would be huge. Most of the regs ended up just giving up vs me since they were only there to nit their way to the bonuses so I was in a great spot. I also had the comfort of knowing that even if I spewed a little bit too much, I had big bonuses waiting for me at the end of the day.

Nowadays, I'm playing solely for profit from the tables. For whatever reason, I get extremely tied to results. Like, it's just fucking unbelievable. If I run a bluff that works, then it's brilliant and I feel great and I'm on top of the world (and vice-versa obv).

What's stupid though, is when I'm losing, I often have no problem rationalizing what appears to be a good play that didn't work out. I just chalk it up to variance that some dood make a crazy call or I got kicked in the nutz by someone rivering a 3-outer when I was trying to control the pot.

If, however, I'm winning and one of these marginal plays doesn't work out, it drives me off the deep end. I start telling myself that I should be "holding on" to my profits and not spewing and this just puts me on huge tilt.

This is really really bothering me right now and I have some serious soul-searching to do before I continue with anything poker-related. At the very least, I have to try to start playing with a bit less intensity and less focus on short-term results.

Fuck me. It's very hard to be patient when I've been struggling with this for over 12 months.

[Galapogos]

You sound like me. I'm just not letting myself have fun anymore and I get really pissed off when a hand doesn't hold. Plus lately I've run really bad in big pots and I'm letting that drive me insane where before I would just say fuck it and go do something else.

[Jack Sawyer]

I have a blog titled the same

I've been struggling with this too, for a very long time

Until I become some sort of an emorobo, I'll continue struggling.

2 short term fix I've found that works for me:

1. play overrolled. Play with like 100 BI's. I'm able to concentrate more, and be much more comfortable.

2. Also, not keeping track of how much I won or lost during a session. If I keep track, my game gets affected.

[bair]

i do the same thing, obsessed with short term results. i dont have a ton of money, but if i'm not playing at least 5/10, i cant play good for a long period of time. and i am nowhere near rolled for 5/10. after i win a lot, some of the close plays that I have been winning with everytime stop, and i get really fucking pissed, then i tilt off my winnings making light calls/moves.

[will641]

yeah i have a very similar problem. like yesterday i made 5 BI, which is a good day. I stopped to eat some dinner and after thought, hmmm, i think ill play more. got sucked out like a fucking monkey every single time i had a hand, and dropped like 7 BI and i just wanted to break my computer. And, it was there (and after posting a similar hand earlier that got much criticism) that i found my biggest leak. here are the two examples. maybe its similar for everyone else too, idk:

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($135.20)
Button ($39.05)
SB ($58.50)
Hero ($123)
UTG ($75.45)
MP ($102.05)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A, 7.
UTG calls $1, 3 folds, SB completes, Hero raises to $6, UTG calls $5, SB folds.

Flop: ($13) K, 7, K (2 players)
Hero bets $9, UTG calls $9.

Turn: ($31) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG bets $20, Hero raises to $108, UTG calls $40.45 (All-In).

River: ($151.90) 2 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $151.90
actually won this one because he called with 8 7. LOL.

PokerStars No-Limit Hold'em, $1.00 BB (6 handed) Poker-Stars Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

CO ($113.65)
Button ($99.50)
SB ($99)
BB ($204.45)
UTG ($24.75)
Hero ($114.75)

Preflop: Hero is MP with 8, 9.
UTG calls $1, Hero calls $1, CO raises to $4, 1 fold, SB calls $3.50, 1 fold, UTG folds, Hero calls $3.

Flop: ($14) 6, 5, 3 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $8, CO calls $8, SB calls $8.

Turn: ($38) 4 (3 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $26, CO calls $26, SB folds.

River: ($90) 8 (2 players)
Hero bets $76.75 (All-In), CO calls $75.65 (All-In).

Final Pot: $241.31

villain had 44. sweet!

I think this is what causes me to lose more $ than anything. i get caught up in okay villain is total retard and my hand is okay but i know a lot of times they have utter crap so if i just shove i can get them to fold their crap. alas, it rarely works, and even more rarely i get called with a worse hand.

sorry to steal the spotlight from you genitruc, but the 'venting' atmosphere was in the air.

[eugmac]

Good post... Reminds me of a section from Super System 2 where Mike Caro writes "Don't manufacture a winning streak." I find this advice so hard to follow... I think i *definitely* have this leak, standing up being up 2-3 buyins when the table conditions are great, and staying up all night trying to break even if I'm down. I'm especially terrible with this if I'm playing sit-and-goes... I just have to keep loading up new ones till I win at least one.

[zook]

Genitruc: I recognize some of my own emotional leaks in your op, but I can't imagine many poker players who wouldn't. A couple of things I try to do to combat them are play for a set, pre-determined amount of time and not look at my winnings/losses within a session. But I'm not always successful, especially with the latter.

What I think would be more helpful would be to devise an evaluation method for your play that's not based on profit or winrate. That would get around the problem of being happy with sessions you played badly and won or being pissed about sessions you played well and lost. I think it's difficult to value self-evaluations of hh's strongly enough to overcome results BUT maybe if they came from another poker player it would solve that problem. So if you found a poker buddy and exchanged your 10-15 biggest winning and 10-15 biggest losing hands from each session and reviewed them critically for each other, you might gradually start playing with the goal of satisfying your partner's (hopefully high) expectations instead of monetary goals. I know this isn't a new idea, but it's the best I've come up with.

I'm actually interested in doing something like this. If any 2/4->5/10 regs are interested, pm me or post here. I don't play nearly as much as a lot of people (average ~12-14k hands/month) so if you play a lot more than that I might not be an ideal partner.