running bad/feeling good/trying to be careful/inner thoughts

[tdarko]

september was my worst month since april of 2002 and i had been actually running pretty good for about 3 months so i was actually expecting variance to catch up to me.

then october hit and the drought has continued. this isn't really what the post is about though b/c i have been through this a million times and i understand how poker works.

here's where the post starts. i have been posting hands in PL&NL Mid/Hi for a while now and figuring some things out and reading everything i can, and what i have learned is that i am actually playing ok. tonight i had a terrible session, but i left pleased. i played pretty good, i made some decent plays and saved myself a butt load of money and called it a night.

i am wanting to know what is the longest anyone has ever ran bad? i am not talking about tilting away their bankroll, that isn't what this is about. i am very careful and i protect my BR. if the poker Gods or my leaks continue to dwindle my BR i will of course adjust my game choice accordingly.

another question i have is this: does anyone think that their inner emotion that they carry to the table has to do with the way things "turn out?" i am not talking about emotions that make you play different but more about positive thinking as supposed to negative thinking. does negative thinking breed negative results and vice versa? does anyone believe in this?

the people that do believe in positive mindsets and positive results i would be interested in why you think this works. plus, after months of consistant bad running how do you get yourself in the right frame of mind? i understand that players tilt all the time when they don't realize they are tilting this is apart of the dangers of tilt, and it affects the +EV of big hands b/c you push people off b/c you get scared of people drawing out on you etc etc etc, i undertand these concepts. i am mainly talking about being in a positive frame of mind so that it will breed positive results, if negative results still happen thats fine, b/c i will always deal with that.

sorry about my rambling, its late and just finished a session and had some thoughts.

thanks.

[MicroBob]

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does anyone think that their inner emotion that they carry to the table has to do with the way things "turn out?"

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I know it's silly of course....but I sometimes can't stop myself from feeling this way.

It's not a mindset that I have on purpose and it feels awfully Hellmuth-ian.

I know perfectly well that thinking 'happy thoughts' won't make the internet-poker-gods any more likely to deal me AA and have it hold-up for a big pot.

It just feels that way to me sometimes and I can't help but feel that.

Maybe I make more creative plays or slightly better folds when I am in this confident 'zone' as it were.

Obviously this type of thinking also leads to me avoiding playing if I'm in a bit of a bad or negative mood which I think is a good thing.


Do you think that anyone who has been involved in athletics would be more inclined to feel this way?

You're supposed to think positively when it comes to your golf-swing or sinking a free-throw or hitting a baseball or whatever.
Go in with a negative expectation and you will likely realize that.


We have a young kid on our rec-league soccer team who has trouble controlling (trapping) the ball on long kicks.
One play happened right in front of me when I was on the side-line and I observed that he already had an expectation and that he already knew that he was going to lose the ball out-of-bounds BEFORE it happened.


I don't know.
Seems somewhat related to me.
And I think someone with sports experience might inadvertently try to transfer some feelings of 'positivity' that don't fully transfer over to poker.

[KaneKungFu123]

how many hands are we talking in sept-oct?

[tdarko]

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how many hands are we talking in sept-oct?

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~30K hands

[tdarko]

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Do you think that anyone who has been involved in athletics would be more inclined to feel this way?


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this is kind of why i feel i am making my own bad luck as they say. like my father always said, "if you throw a pitch and you think the hitter is going to hit it he probably will."

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does anyone think that their inner emotion that they carry to the table has to do with the way things "turn out?"

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Yeah, I've noticed this myself. Not sure why.

Apparently Doyle Brunson believes this too (I swear I'm not a WPT fan-boy /images/graemlins/tongue.gif). After he found out that his cancer had miraculously dissapeared he won in like 50-something poker sessions in a row.

[KaneKungFu123]

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how many hands are we talking in sept-oct?

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~30K hands

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its very easy to break even over 30k hands.

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how many hands are we talking in sept-oct?

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~30K hands

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its very easy to break even over 30k hands.

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Actually it's almost impossible to do this.

i believe that if you arent feeling confident or happy you will end up doing worse. As someone pointed out before you have to have a positive expectation. I am a collegiate discus thrower, and I find that having a positive attitude and confidence in your ability helps you not only in competitions, but getting through practice, and correcting your mistakes. It goes a very very long way. Successful people in any field are usually very confident (borderline cocky) in their abilities.

[tdarko]

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its very easy to break even over 30k hands

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you are right, this is the longest i have gone on a perpetual downswing and usually its never one problem but a dynamic of problems rolling into each other to form one big problem.

i am actually glad you commented in here b/c i do have a question for you. i have actually been broadening my game (you might have noticed in the strat forums, probably not...it doesnt matter) i have recently been taking stabs at bigger games. i have had the BR to do this for a long time but poker has always been something "fun" that i do has a hobby and nothing more (still is) and i was always content with staying at 2/4-3/6 NL with the occasional splash around at 1/2 NL when a game was juicy. lately i have been playing 5/10 and the strange thing is that i have been doing better with this game than the 2/4-3/6.

are the mix of games messing me up? i seriously doubt it, but i know you have taken shots at bigger games and succeeded but you play poker and i make my money from other things. its far fetched i know but just curious why i am running well in the bigger game and so God-awful in the game i am "comfortable" in.

[KaneKungFu123]

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its very easy to break even over 30k hands

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you are right, this is the longest i have gone on a perpetual downswing and usually its never one problem but a dynamic of problems rolling into each other to form one big problem.

i am actually glad you commented in here b/c i do have a question for you. i have actually been broadening my game (you might have noticed in the strat forums, probably not...it doesnt matter) i have recently been taking stabs at bigger games. i have had the BR to do this for a long time but poker has always been something "fun" that i do has a hobby and nothing more (still is) and i was always content with staying at 2/4-3/6 NL with the occasional splash around at 1/2 NL when a game was juicy. lately i have been playing 5/10 and the strange thing is that i have been doing better with this game than the 2/4-3/6.

are the mix of games messing me up? i seriously doubt it, but i know you have taken shots at bigger games and succeeded but you play poker and i make my money from other things. its far fetched i know but just curious why i am running well in the bigger game and so God-awful in the game i am "comfortable" in.

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whenever i move up, i always seem to play my A game. its exciting to play at a higher stake, and it makes me concentrate and brings out the competitive edge in me to beat the guys above me. so for me, moving up in stakes is fun. playing at my game is work.

but i think youll find that just because guys play a bigger game doesnt mean they dont completely suck.

"just curious why i am running well in the bigger game and so God-awful in the game i am "comfortable" in."

how well you are running is different then how well you are playing.

[FreakDaddy]

K, this may sound a bit silly, but about 6 months ago or so I started pre-session ritual where I would clear my mind, eat some fruit(or something with citrus) and center myself. Then I'd start my session. I still had a bout of tilt once after some really bad beats, but for the most part it's helped my state of mind and in turn resulted in solid poker decisions. It does become abundently obvious, the more you play poker, that 'things' that are going on in your life are going to effect your state of mind, which in turn WILL influence your play to one degree or another.

I'm a NL player for the most part, and I've been playing professionally since July. I noticed this phenomena where I always seem to get stuck whenever my bankroll reaches the 10k mark. Not really sure why, but I lose my drive to earn money, and spew chips from playing carelessly. To counter this phenomena, whenever I find myself stuck at a 10k mark, instead of sitting down at a NL table and grinding it out like I normally do, I play SNGs for a few days. For me it's important to keep things fresh, because I play terribly when I'm bored.

[MicroBob]

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eat some fruit(or something with citrus)

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i'm not a food expert or anything...but what non-fruits contain citrus?

[flair1239]

I had an ungodly downswing in July over the course of 8,000 hands. It was a 500BB drop. It took me from July 19th to about Mid-late september to climb back out.

So call it 35,000 hands.

Then I went on a 350BB upsing over 9,000 hands... go figure.

[Toms]

FWIW I have been on a 175bb downswing in october, in fact I have not won in october. /images/graemlins/frown.gif I have tried to play optimally and not tilt and for the most part have accomplished this but in going over my stats I have noticed my pfr has been steadily creeping down so I think my mindset is becoming conditioned to bad beats and becoming weak tight. I wasn't concious of this but starting today I am going to try and ratchet my aggression back up and remind myself before every hand to play it optimally and try to push the results aside. So in a round about way I am going to start my sessions with the attitude I am a winner inspite of these short time results.

[tdarko]

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so I think my mindset is becoming conditioned to bad beats and becoming weak tight.

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this is a great thought.

i have really been trying to be very careful to not let this creep into my game b/c in bad times playing scarred is very easy to do.

[SlowStroke]

Why do you do better in the bigger games than your comfortable games? I have a theory about that.

I play SNGs and find I do best in the $55 and $109 games. I don’t do quite as well in the $22 or $33 games. And I do poorly in the $215 and $320 games.

The smaller games are loaded with weak players. They call too much and bluff too much. All you have to do is play solid and bet for value. Don't bluff much because they will call. Their bad play does create problems for me though, they are hard to read, I have to fold the best hand often and I have to call with the worst hand often. But over time my solid play gets the money.

Many players learn to beat these games by playing a solid but predictable game, it is easy to multi table playing this way.

The bigger games are full of these kinds of players. They still win moderately because there are still enough weak players around, just not as many.

I beat these bigger games by playing solid against the weak players and taking advantage of the predictable play of the solid players. It takes work to determine who is who, so I can only play one table at a time. But I get a very nice win rate this way. Against the solid players I bluff successfully, rarely call with a loser, and rarely fold a winner.

My troubles begin again when the limit gets too big. Now there are too many players who are very solid, but mix up their play to the point where they are hard to read again. For me, that starts to happen at the $215 games.

[FreakDaddy]

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eat some fruit(or something with citrus)

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i'm not a food expert or anything...but what non-fruits contain citrus?

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Although my use of language was bad, I meant drink juice etc... not eat it.