I expect to fold

[Demana]

I realized something rather surprising last night:

When I play, I expect to fold.

This is surprising because for the longest time, I expected to play every hand and I've now gone to the other extreme.

When I first realized this, I thought that it was a good thing. Playing tight is good and being willing to fold is an important part of that. But then I thought about the expectation itself. By expecting to fold, I am creating an emotional attachment to any hand that I do play because it is now out of the ordinary (beyond expectation).

How have other people gotten over the expectation of folding?
Is the key to simply look at each hand individually and consider the alternatives when it is my turn to act?
Or is simply a matter of putting in the time necessary for this expectation to go away?

[Josh W]

I hear ya. When I was playing in the WSOP, I would get dealt two cards, look at them when my turn to act, and instinctively would start to fold.

Then, I got dealt AQ in MP, and all folded to me. I looked at my cards, and started to muck, just out of instinct. I tried to stop, thought about raising, then thought about what it would look like (steal), so I just continued with my muck.

Ever since then, I've tried (but not always successfully) to take a deep breath, pause, and tell myself what my raise will be if I have a raising hand.

When I'm not nervous (i.e. not in a big buyin tourny), then I don't have this problem. But whenever you have the problem, I think the key is a deep breath a little peptalk before you look at your cards.

Good luck,

Josh

[Demana]

Thanks, I have been working on a ritual to follow every time I get dealt cards. It helps and it also allows me to get into a poker face before looking at the cards.

Good luck to you too [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]