hay hello

[sonam]

I am just so impatient with poker, when I play, I want to win, and win now, and the thing is, I know it doesn't work like that. I push with hands that are really marginal cause i "know" they are bluffing and I go to far with to many hands. The sad thing is I know I'm doing all these things and I know I am wrong in doing so, just cause I feel I need to bluff or think the other player is bluffing

[Pelion]

errr..... dont?


welcome to FTR

[aokrongly]

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[deacon_bluez]

It sounds to me like you're playing primarily out of fear. Fear that you'll be bluffed. Fear that you'll be taken advantage of. Fear that the cards will "take away your money" by helping the other guys hand. Fear you'll lose.

All of this is very very important to you. It's emotional, visceral, personal. It's like you against the world, and everyone against you. You have to prove yourself Every hand against Every other player.

Sound about right?

This is me when I'm losing (like last night... ugh...).

Get the hell out of my head!

Actually, this is very instructive. Now how do I turn all that around?

[aokrongly]

...

[GatorJH]

I am just so impatient with poker, when I play, I want to win, and win now, and the thing is, I know it doesn't work like that. I push with hands that are really marginal cause i "know" they are bluffing and I go to far with to many hands. The sad thing is I know I'm doing all these things and I know I am wrong in doing so, just cause I feel I need to bluff or think the other player is bluffing

Welcome to FTR!!!!

It sounds to me like you're playing primarily out of fear. Fear that you'll be bluffed. Fear that you'll be taken advantage of. Fear that the cards will "take away your money" by helping the other guys hand. Fear you'll lose.

All of this is very very important to you. It's emotional, visceral, personal. It's like you against the world, and everyone against you. You have to prove yourself Every hand against Every other player.

Sound about right?

This is me when I'm losing (like last night... ugh...).

Get the hell out of my head!

Actually, this is very instructive. Now how do I turn all that around?

You turn this around by trying to figure out the "correct" move whenever possible. Unfortunately, determining the "correct" move is difficult in and of itself as it requires analyzing your position, size of your stack, table image, cards, and a few other factors.

One thing you may want to try is focusing solely on looking at the board and determining what hands you are behind based on that board. Then review the betting and try to put villian on a range of hands that may fall within those specific hands available. The more hands there are in this range that beat your hand the less you should call with.

For example:

You hold on the button and two people ahead of you limp. You raise it to 5xBB (3xBB standard plus 1xBB per limper), both blinds fold and both limpers call.

The flop brings the following: and the following happens:

Both limpers check, you put in a 1/2 to 3/4 sized C-Bet, the first limper folds and then the second limper puts in a pot sized raise. Your "gut instinct" tells you he is bluffing as you say to yourself, "self, how in the world could that flop have helped him - he is just trying to snap off my c-bet" and you soooooo want to re-raise him.

Before you slide that bar over to the all-in range think of the hands that he could have and how your hand stacks up to that.

If he has total air, or a semi-bluff hand like a str8 or flush draw you are still ahead and will win the pot more often than you lose it.

HOWEVER, he could have any of the following hands that are quite feasible based on the betting that has happened so far: JJ, TT, 99, 22, ATs, ATo, A9s, A2s (yes this is loose, but fish love to play suited Aces), QJs, QJo (again loose, but feasible). They could even have a mid sized PP and feel like your bet is a missed flop C-Bet so they want to test that out.

With most of the above hands you are woefully behind and since this list is pretty long you should just fold and move on.

On the other hand if the flop were you are in much better shape. You can now add more possible hands to villians range (such as AJ, AT, etc.) however you are ahead of more than these than you are behind and now stand a better chance of being ahead in the hand.

If you can work on this you will take the first step in putting logic in your game and taking emotion out. You may find that you will periodically fold to bluffs, however you will also find that when you do get your chips in the middle you are ahead more often than you are behind.

It is a LOT less painful to fold to a bluff than to lose a bunch of chips/money calling down a suspected bluff that wasn't when you don't have a strong hand yourself.

[GatorJH]

Actually, this is very instructive. Now how do I turn all that around?

It's actually a combination of things. The first is fear. The second is narcisism (sp?).

We'll take fear first. Fear is the anticipation that somethign bad is going to happen SOON. Fear is an emotional condition that is generally independent of any REAL threat. When you put poker into perspective then you can really reduce your fear.

First, you have to ask yourself if the fear is real or imagined (aka unreasonable).

Poker is an artificial environment that you choose to participate in. The actual threat is very minor compared to the rest of your life. First, it's just money. Second, it's not even "real" money, it's illuminated pixels on a computer screen. It goes up and down. When you withdraw or when you get to Zero, then you've won or lost "real" money. But even then it's just a small amount (compared to your income) or it should be. So the real loss is minor and the real threat is even more minor for any particular poker hand. So, put it in perspective, don't turn a low cost hobby into major life stress. People pay for hobbies like Golf with no expectation of profit. (yea, but you want to make a profit right?)

Next, you have to make sure you don't PRE-act. That's the problem with fear. It causes you to not Re-Act, but to Pre-Act. Why are you pre-acting? Because you ANTICIPATE pain and you want to avoid it. The irony is that your Pre-actions are CAUSING you the vast majority of the pain. It's a classic example of Effect and Cause (as opposed to Cause and Effect). Your preactions are causing bad results which then reinforce your fear. It's the kind of thing that's funny but you can't laugh.

To solution to fear is Preparation. This is what people don't Want to do. If you have done everything you can to prepare (i.e. learn, keep records, make calm, clear, purposeful decisions based on a plan of action) then fear will whither. Because the results are based on your APPROACH (good or bad), not on some magic, uncontrollable force.

Finally, you can conquer the remaining fear with Faith. Faith that you have a good plan, faith that you can and will change your plan to improve your play over time, faith that the Odds will always win in the end. So, short-term variance won't affect your long-term plan of action on how to play AND how to improve your play.

Now Narcisism! We all think we're the center of the universe that everything bad happens TO us and everything good happens FOR us. We think we DESERVE to win, that others DESERVE to lose. Add to that the idea that you are somehow the ENFORCER of the poker gods and all of a sudden you're involved in tons of hands, trying to Prove You're Right, and not playing poker based on reality, but on fantasy. Based on Narcisism.

The cure: You're not the center of the universe. You're not the center of the world. You're not even the center of the poker table. Your just a blip on the screen. You're an ant on a beach full of ants. Want to get some food? Be smart, fight for it. Know when you're beat by a bigger ant, and go around. When you see the shadow of a size 12 shoe coming down on you, then RUN!

Sigmund Freud out

FYP

man that was deep!!!!!!!!!!!

[aokrongly]

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[deacon_bluez]

Awesome thread! Thanks for your time, guys.

[givememyleg]

Good post, aok.

Welcome to FTR! Make sure to read the beginners digest (esspeically the psychology of losing and the newbie circle of death really helped me) and I hope you enjoy your stay!

[TerryToma]

good post AOK.

welcome OP.