Realized major leak - suggestions?

[ponyboy]

After looking back over a lot of posts I've made since I started posting here, I can tell that one piece of advice given often to me and probably my biggest leak is that I don't bet hard enough and raise hard enough.

I think mentally this stems back to when I first started playing a couple of years ago and donked away my whole roll (all of $30) in one session and it really affected me.

Now that I have restarted and been successful at low stakes (started with $25 and now sit at $133 playing 5nl) I know that I have an actual proper bankroll for this limit. But for some reason I still don't feel comfortable making those pot sized plus bets or calling pushes even with big hands or when my read is telling me that I am ahead. I'm still raising 1/3-2/3 of the pot when I should be doing twice that and not 3betting pre flop enough with hands that I should be. This means I don't get as much out of some hands as I could be.

So I see two approaches: commit myself to betting more than I think I should and raising more than I initially think of doing (like put a sticky on my monitor telling me to stop being a pussy), or bump things up gradually so that my comfort level goes up accordingly.

Anyone had to get by this leak?

[frosst]

one suggestion, play 2nl and practice making the correct bet sizes. that way the money doesn't matter and you can practice playing better poker, without a huge hit to your roll

[ponyboy]

The site I was on they didn't have 2nl but now I've moved to Stars so I can do that. Good suggestion.

[swiggidy]

Don't make $1.50+ bets (at 5NL) with no plan for what to do with the rest of your stack.

[ponyboy]

I love your avatar.

[asdpikas]

To minimize fear move down one level as said by frosst, or try the cheapest SnGs were your stack is made of chip thingies with no specific monetary value.
To get used to some more aggressive plays, try to play only one table and try to analyze each hand/bet and do the "correct" thing even if it's not what you usually would do.
Start by doing this at a lower level. It is especially important, as results dont always match good play, so u dont want to become results oriented or have fear of losing too much in one specific hand.
Post some HHs here and mention your questions about bet sizing.
You should get the confidence and get used to size your bets correctly regardless of previous results after a while.
Sometimes, after bad sessions/results, we can all be off our game and not play optimally, so we should always try to keep a clear head and analyze the best plays with perspective. Sometimes easier said than done, but practice will minimize this leak.

[asdpikas]

BTW

I sometimes do this, with good results for my game.
I play mostly 25NL apart from limit games, and some days, if i feel i wanna try things, play looser, play tighter, fix my game somewhat... I'll go down to 5NL and play hands there trying different approaches without fear of hurting my roll.

I've learned a few things by trying them at lower levels without fear (since at first i was afraid of trying them at my normal level), giving me confidence to dare some more at my normal level.

One thing though, don't go overboard! I've also learned many things that shouldnt be done at any level, but better to learn them losing a smaller piece of your BR.

[ponyboy]

Just played about 200 hands at 2NL and it definitely made a difference not caring so much about shoving bigger bets into the middle of the table. We'll see how it feels after a couple of thousand.