[AviD]

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Anyone who does not see any fault in their own game is just not looking hard enough. It may well be that this game was as good as you say it was.. but 20 hour sessions are usually a recipe for disaster. Especially when running cold. I recently had a similar experience in AC.. lost about 30 BB in a 27 hour session... and couldn't figuree out why icouldn't beat this "great" game. Then after a week or two of not playing i was able to look back at that session and realize how many dumb mistakes i made that did not involve hand strategy. I think if you think back on this session you will see many of the same mistakes I made.

1. I played tired- I STARTED the session after being awake 14 hours already that day between going to work and travel time. Add in the fact that i was out partying the night b4 and only got 3 hours of sleep it is amazing to me in hindsight that i was up very early in the sessionm when the table was full of fish.

2 I failed to adjust when the game changed- the fish were VERY plentyfull when i 1st started playing. I went up 35 BB's in 3 hours. However, as soon as the group of freinds that were donating money to the table left, I failed to adjust to the new style the new players brought to the table. The table went from loose-passive to loose-aggressive with 5 people CAPPING BIND preflop and i was still trying to get away with playing junk hands and trying to get lucky flops.

3. I let outside influences keep me playing longer than I should have- I drove down with a friend from work who also plays poker. Instead of getting up and leaving the casino or requesting a table change once i was at a table full of maniacs. I continued to play at this table b/c i enjoyed playing with this person i see everyday but had no clue was a poker player as well. So I let my ego take over b/c i wanted to show what a great player I was and not "wimp out" by changing games to one i could beat.

These are just a few of the MANY mistakes I made that session that had nothing to do with hand strategy. I think if you examine your session you may find similar mistakes made by yourself. Especially playing 20+ hour sessions. You cannot POSSIBLY be as sharp at picking up tells and other signals that are obvious when you are at your best, and the worst part is you don't even realize you are missing these signals and assume you are still playing your best.

hope this helps... I know it did wonders for me when i was honest about the "non-strategy" mistakes I was making during my sessions.

Pocket Trips

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PT:

Excellent response, and thank you for taking the time to type it all out.

I absolutely agree that no player can be as sharp at 20 hours as they are at the 1st hour. And I'm certain there are some things that I am not seeing that are minorly (at least) and maybe majorly compromising my winrate. But on the same token, I was fully confident I could beat that game and in this specific instance felt like I was just running bad (questioning the normality of it).

As far as adjusting to the table texture and players, this game shifted quite a bit over the course of the day, and I was in full recognition of that throughout my play. In fact I'm in a mental mantra style of play during a session where I'm constantly thinking about how I can get the most out of a given player or set of players whenever I am involved in a hand. The fact of the matter is, I just wasn't involved in a hell of alot of hands this session. I'd imagine most loosen up overly or start playing too many trash hands because they get impatient as a session goes on. And when they are running bad, they loosen up even more. That just wasn't the case, I'm pretty disciplined in my play...so much so that I feel like I'm missing something important that is inherently losing alot of value based on my play and resulting in leaving alot money on the table.

But you have made many valid points that are beneficial to everyone who plays generally, and specifically extended sessions.

I am looking back, have been for the last day or so, and there really weren't many interesting hands I played (really just two in the whole session that really caught my own attention) and I folded a high, VERY high, percentage of my hands. Somewhere in the ballpark of playing 1 hand every 2-3 orbits (?), which is a BIG problem when you are paying time and blinds, and in a game where bluffing/stealing (with nothing) is moot and overly expensive because you are getting called down virtually every time, and you are losing about every hand you enter! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Oh well, I'm guessing it was just another day but I'll continue to evaluate it (and days like it) and see where I could have improved. It's what I'm not seeing that is difficult to improve on.