37offsuit
09-17-2005, 12:49 PM
Ladies and Gentlemen you too <font color="brown"> CAN LEARN FROM MY STUPIDITY </font>
For a limited time only!
Now you can recognize why you get beat bad more often after your first couple of sequential bad beats!
There's good new: you are probably a good player! The SST forum is not glamerous and does not attact players who aren't trying to improve their games.
There's more. Good players get bad beats more often. Why? Is fate looking out for the STUPID? No. You get in there with better cards in better position. You use chips as tools to control the game. You aren't splashing them around (unless you're trying to control your image). You know who's trying not to go broke and who doesn't care. You've watched as the same player has made the same size bet when he bluffs in position and have the stones to take the pot away with air!
Your opponents see their hands and the cards on the board. They may be vaugely aware of their chip stack or that of those around them, but they don't understand really how that effects the time and place they are in.
Yet sometimes they suck out on you and sometimes this seems to be happening more frequently than it should.
Well it is.
Seriously though, this is what I learned about my game just recently and I hope it will help you.
I had a bad couple sessions where nothing would go right. AK losing to AJ, my set of tens losing to a rivered backdoor flush draw, that sort of thing. Time and time again. Then as the bad streak went on, I'd sometimes catch lucky early and have a nice stack only to have it dwindle away and lose on the bubble.
These things were happening for a reason and it struck me over two hands what was wrong. The first one was a T3s hand where I miss clicked with 4 people left (top 3 pay). A funny thing happened. I raised and the blinds folded. I hadn't meant to raise, as a matter of fact I had stopped raising in situations like this at all because my blind steals had gotten caught once or twice.
The second hand I had AA cracked by AJ when the flop came with a K T and rivered Q. I was calling for that queen. I knew it was coming. And IT DID! The problem was clear then. I was playing differently. I was slamming my hand on the table when I lost and when I finished second or third (WHAT LUCK!) I was mad about missing first.
What's more, I was playing either weak tight or crazy loose depending on where my mood was at, but I wasn't playing ABC plus poker anymore.
Sure I'd get beat with my big pocket pairs, but it was because I didn't protect my pot. I expected someone to suck out so I bet less to lose less. I knew the loss was coming. If my big hand heald up, I felt blessed, but also cautious, as if this was just some way to build me up to knock me back down.
I was check calling my big hands to "trap" only to complain when they got cracked on the river. I had forgotten the equity part of fold equity, and it is this: If you have a hand that will win 60% of the time and you force your opponent to fold you're winning 100% of the time. That's 40% more often than if you allow the hand to complete.
When you check call your top set and your opponent is betting a flush draw, he's not making a mistake because you're not letting him. He may not have fold equity, but he does have chips left when he misses and more of your chips when he hits.
My bad streak is over now and if I can remember this and apply it, maybe I'll be able to believe what I know, that variance, and not bad luck or fixed shuffles or worst of all MY OWN BAD PLAY is what controls swings and that the money is made in good decisions over time.
For a limited time only!
Now you can recognize why you get beat bad more often after your first couple of sequential bad beats!
There's good new: you are probably a good player! The SST forum is not glamerous and does not attact players who aren't trying to improve their games.
There's more. Good players get bad beats more often. Why? Is fate looking out for the STUPID? No. You get in there with better cards in better position. You use chips as tools to control the game. You aren't splashing them around (unless you're trying to control your image). You know who's trying not to go broke and who doesn't care. You've watched as the same player has made the same size bet when he bluffs in position and have the stones to take the pot away with air!
Your opponents see their hands and the cards on the board. They may be vaugely aware of their chip stack or that of those around them, but they don't understand really how that effects the time and place they are in.
Yet sometimes they suck out on you and sometimes this seems to be happening more frequently than it should.
Well it is.
Seriously though, this is what I learned about my game just recently and I hope it will help you.
I had a bad couple sessions where nothing would go right. AK losing to AJ, my set of tens losing to a rivered backdoor flush draw, that sort of thing. Time and time again. Then as the bad streak went on, I'd sometimes catch lucky early and have a nice stack only to have it dwindle away and lose on the bubble.
These things were happening for a reason and it struck me over two hands what was wrong. The first one was a T3s hand where I miss clicked with 4 people left (top 3 pay). A funny thing happened. I raised and the blinds folded. I hadn't meant to raise, as a matter of fact I had stopped raising in situations like this at all because my blind steals had gotten caught once or twice.
The second hand I had AA cracked by AJ when the flop came with a K T and rivered Q. I was calling for that queen. I knew it was coming. And IT DID! The problem was clear then. I was playing differently. I was slamming my hand on the table when I lost and when I finished second or third (WHAT LUCK!) I was mad about missing first.
What's more, I was playing either weak tight or crazy loose depending on where my mood was at, but I wasn't playing ABC plus poker anymore.
Sure I'd get beat with my big pocket pairs, but it was because I didn't protect my pot. I expected someone to suck out so I bet less to lose less. I knew the loss was coming. If my big hand heald up, I felt blessed, but also cautious, as if this was just some way to build me up to knock me back down.
I was check calling my big hands to "trap" only to complain when they got cracked on the river. I had forgotten the equity part of fold equity, and it is this: If you have a hand that will win 60% of the time and you force your opponent to fold you're winning 100% of the time. That's 40% more often than if you allow the hand to complete.
When you check call your top set and your opponent is betting a flush draw, he's not making a mistake because you're not letting him. He may not have fold equity, but he does have chips left when he misses and more of your chips when he hits.
My bad streak is over now and if I can remember this and apply it, maybe I'll be able to believe what I know, that variance, and not bad luck or fixed shuffles or worst of all MY OWN BAD PLAY is what controls swings and that the money is made in good decisions over time.