Mental Attitude - Dr. Feeny, are you listening?

[Spyder]

During the course of a session I find that my mental attitude toward certain hands has been fairly consistent. When I get AA, KK, QQ or JJ, I always think, "God, I hope they stand up." I play them with dread, knowing that I'll be beat.

I play AK, AQ & AJ with much more optimism. I also have much more optimism when limping with a small or medium pair, or suited aces...even if I'm raised behind.

Intellectually, this doesn't make sense because I know that the big pairs win much more often and much more money over time than the other hands. However, I can't seem to reconcile that with myself.

Can this affect my play? Should it? I don't have much deception in my game right now, I play pretty straight-forwardly and so my play of those hands doesn't change much over the course of a session.

One thing that I HAVE noticed is that if I begin to get frustrated and angry (bad beats, bad cards, whatever) I tend to lose more...even if I don't 'tilt' and I am maintaining my hand selection discipline, I still lose more. I find it's time for a beer and a movie /images/graemlins/smile.gif

I welcome all input /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Spyder

[astroglide]

have you ever had a non-mental attitude? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

people remember losing with big hands more because it's "not supposed to happen". it's natural that it sticks out in your head more, but i can assure you that aces win close to 80% of the time in limit.

[Spyder]

/images/graemlins/grin.gif

As I said, intellectually & empirically, I know this....but, when I get AA, my first and strongest thoughts are always: "I hope it holds up THIS time."

Spyder

[chesspain]

I hear what you're saying, because occasionally I feel the same way. Speaking more from my poker player side than my psychologist side, I believe that your fears have more to do with the fact that your big pairs are going to cost you more money when you lose.

Indeed, when you play suited connectors, two Bdwy cards, small pairs, etc., you usually have a fairly good idea of where you stand throughout the hand, and it's also easy to get away from these hands when you miss the flop. On the other hand, when you have AA in a five-way pot with a two-suit 789 flop, it may cost you a lot of money with a hand from which you may not be able to easily escape.

[miamikid]

I find the perceptions I have when I am dealt my hole cards are very intersting. The very moment I see my cards my brain automatically weights how good the cards are according to the situation. I have only been playing poker about one year now, and what I try to do is develop the proper perception according to how realistically good my cards are. The problem is that as a still fairly inexperienced player, my perceptions are still wrong in a lot of cases and are constantly being adjusted. Put it this way, I do not get as excited when I see AQo as I used to. So, the goal is to get my brain to weight the starting hands properly. It's a weird way to try to explain it, and I wonder if anything I just wrote has made any sense. For now, though, my brain weights AQo equivalent to about 99 or 88, and 89s equivalent to about 66.

I guess my ultimate point is that you want to train your brain to weight and perceive any given hand to be as close to reality as possible.

Again, I have no idea what I just wrote or said, I'm just going to send it and see how it goes, and how I feel about it tomorrow.

miamikid

[ QUOTE ]
During the course of a session I find that my mental attitude toward certain hands has been fairly consistent. When I get AA, KK, QQ or JJ, I always think, "God, I hope they stand up." I play them with dread, knowing that I'll be beat.

I play AK, AQ & AJ with much more optimism. I also have much more optimism when limping with a small or medium pair, or suited aces...even if I'm raised behind.

Intellectually, this doesn't make sense because I know that the big pairs win much more often and much more money over time than the other hands. However, I can't seem to reconcile that with myself.

Can this affect my play? Should it? I don't have much deception in my game right now, I play pretty straight-forwardly and so my play of those hands doesn't change much over the course of a session.

One thing that I HAVE noticed is that if I begin to get frustrated and angry (bad beats, bad cards, whatever) I tend to lose more...even if I don't 'tilt' and I am maintaining my hand selection discipline, I still lose more. I find it's time for a beer and a movie

I welcome all input

Spyder



[/ QUOTE ]

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
Indeed, when you play suited connectors, two Bdwy cards, small pairs, etc., you usually have a fairly good idea of where you stand throughout the hand, and it's also easy to get away from these hands when you miss the flop. On the other hand, when you have AA in a five-way pot with a two-suit 789 flop, it may cost you a lot of money with a hand from which you may not be able to easily escape.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree with this 100%. If I bet out into a ragged flop and am raised with AQo, it's easy to toss. But KK is a different matter. I know I should 3-bet, but I find myself calling way too often. This is the worst of both worlds -- I'm missing bets if I'm ahead, and I'm not finding out if I'm behind.

[Dov]

The problem is that you are concerning yourself with the outcome of THIS hand and THIS session.

It really doesn't matter if you win or lose the hand, as long as you play it correctly.

If you try to become decision oriented, rather than results oriented, these problems will grow less severe for you over time, and eventually disappear.