Stuck

[Masquerade]

A flush still beats a straight though, right?

For a player whose image is very non-ABC it would be very profitable to switch styles for a while.

[Nate tha' Great]

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How many tables are you playing? Have you considered playing fewer tables and working on hand reading and play balancing?

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I've played four tables for a long time now.

I did feel like I was thinking particularly well when one-tabling (obviously) in Vegas. Reducing tables online isn't something I'm super keen to do, since if anything it tends to make my concentration drift more and make me more conscious of the swings, but stepping down from four to three might not be a bad idea.

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Also, some of the problems you describe with pounding too much are probably just running bad.

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Agreed, and the example you cite is a good one. It might not be a matter of needing to change my game in general as much as changing pace when table conditions warrant.

[joker122]

not that Tommy isn't an exceptional player, but how much does he know about the nature of the super high, short handed games you play when his main game is the ABC=$$ 20/40?

[bicyclekick]

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ABC is the worst thing you can do at these limits.

If you want a winrate below 0, then play ABC. This is why nobody does that there.


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Schneids and I play a pretty ABC game these days and are killing the mid/high limit games.

You can get so much value out of your hands just playing them overly straightforwardly versus the overaggro high limit players who are stuck on raise and call down too much. It does make for some weird feeling calldowns, but these players just try to get you to fold all the time, so pump your good hands against them when you have them, just call them with your decent/mediocre ones and dump when you don't have anything. At first these goofballs gave me fits but it's becomming more and more clear how to play them.

[ChicagoTroy]

Terrific post.

The point that piqued my interest is that your game has approached a level where it is more difficult for you to find holes in your own play. As they get smaller it's going to be tougher to see how the marginal situations you might modify affect your win rate, since by definition they aren't frequent/expensive enough to come up all that often and sample sizes grow slowly. Since the answer to a lot of poker questions is "learn to play better," you are kind of stuck. In other pursuits, this is where you'd definitely want to get a mentor or coach. Here I think it's kind of tough since, again, the places you are making real theoretical mistakes are rarer.

OTOH, an ever growing percentage of mistakes we make as we get better are going to have to do with psychological factors. I know that gets pooh-poohed a lot here, since it doesn't lend itself well to the logical discussions the typical 2+2er is good at. But looking at other "sports" where physicality can almost take a back seat to mental preparedness, it's pretty clear to me that poker is likely not an exception to the rule. Mental preparation, exercise, nutrition, etc., in addition to being solidly proven to improve mental acuity, is going to have enough benefits to general well-being that it may be worth a shot even if they don't help your game. OTOH, improved thinking in turn may help you identify technical holes in your game.

I have some experience in this, but have some friends/mentors who have a lot. I'll shoot you an e-mail or post some possible suggestions in the psychology forum if you like.

BTW, some of this is stating the obvious, and I don't mean to condescend; I just think you need to provide an argument before mentioning psychological/physiological factors in poker [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[turnipmonster]

learn to play NLHE, and learn PLO. at your level this might not make a huge impact, but learning PLO really helped me. start out smaller in PLO than you would in NL, it plays bigger. when I get burned out I play stud8.

--turnipmonster

[1800GAMBLER]

This is crazy, every single paragraph you posted is exactly what is happening to me and my thoughts apart from i've also totally lost interest in poker. I just decided to quit for a few weeks. Ray Zee should add this to stages of a poker players life.

[Lawrence Ng]

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This is exactly why the fish get broken so quickly in NL.

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Let me tell ya, there are a lot of fish and they keep coming from lord knows where.

NL pwnzzzrrsss..

Lawrence

[Nate tha' Great]

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This is exactly why the fish get broken so quickly in NL.

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Let me tell ya, there are a lot of fish and they keep coming from lord knows where.


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The 30/60 game? [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

[Joe Tall]

The 30/60 game?

Every game, any level.