Tips for learning to love the fish?>

Hi all,

Long time lurker here finally decided it's about time I started posting. A quick thanks to you all for the excellent advice and experience(s) you have shared.

Back to my question - I have been playing around 15 months, mainly online in £20 and £30 STT and MTT tourneys (im in the UK)

I have had very good results but there is one thing I do have an issue with - I find it EXTREMELY hard not to get really mad when the fish are outdrawing me yet again just because "it was suited" etc. I would point out that i DO NOT berate the fish, laugh at them or even say a word the majority of the time. All my emotion is kept my side of the screen. I know they ultimately are why I am winning but I really could use some calming techniques.

How do others cope with this - it really pushes my stress levels through the roof for a few minutes even though that one beat barely scratches my bankroll overall. I really think I over react.

Any tips from more experienced players? My wife would be so much happier if my ranting stopped [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Weirdly the times I have played in B+M, I am calm as anything, only one time do I think I dropped an F Bomb [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Thanks in advance

BingoChimp

[4_2_it]

I just think about all the Sklansky Bucks I just made.

Also, sometimes I think "Thank You" when they lay a bad beat on me, because I know that I made the right decision and eventually all their chips will be sitting in front of me.

Not knowing your personality, these tips might be totally lame, but they keep me from smashing my fist through the monitor when my AA gets cracked by 24os. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[Komodo]

I think youre underestimating the luck factor in MTT tournaments. I think its pretty normal to get sucked out most of the times.

[Buccaneer]

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Any tips from more experienced players? My wife would be so much happier if my ranting stopped

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This comment caught my eye. A few months ago I was just mad at the world of poker. This in turn caused me to snap at the wife and kids. After a particularly nasty snap fest where I bit the wifes leg and drew blood I just blurted out "I can be a little bastard when I play this game". She agreed. I then attempted to control my anger at the fish even though I was one and still am one. I then began a slow boil inside and couldn't figure out why I couldn't deal with poker and the people that played it. I posted a few, what I thought were, cleverly disguised bad beat/pitty me post and was called on it. One poster here suggested that I give up poker for a week, not playing, not reading, not posting anything about poker. I did it and used the time to decide if I wanted to continue with this game and how I could approach it so that it was enjoyable.

I decided that I sucked at poker and even though I had had some success I did not deserve continued success. My goal changed from winning, increasing my ego, etc. to just trying to suck less everytime I play. So basicaly I am saying I get my enjoyment from playing well and learning. These are the things I can control so I try to do them well.

My wife, kids and myself are much happier.

[steamboatin]

when you begin to study poker and you are tryig to improve your play, suckouts had a huge impact on your emotions. If you are not very careful and maybe it is an inevitable part of the learning process but you willdevelop a sense of entitlement. "I study, I deserve to win."

Like Clint Eastwood said in "The Unforgiven" "Deserves got nothing to do with it."

Believe it or not, as you continue to learn and understand poker, You have to guard against laughing at the fish. They don't make you angry, you find yourself getting really exited to have the opportunity to play against people that don't have a clue.

Use this as a guage of where you are at in your understanding of poker. When suckouts make you happy, you are getting there. As long as you get angry because a fish suckouts on you, you don't understand poker.

I am going to add a qualifier. If you are playing for the WSOP and you get sucked out on, you are allowed to be a litle upset. If you are getting pissed at $2-4, you have issues.

This feeling stems from the association between winning pots and winning money. Of course, the only for you to collect your money is by raking in a pot; however, this is not the way to earn money. You earn money in this game by being called by worse hands with unfavourable odds to draw. Games with frequent "suckouts" (this is actually a fictional term created by players who feel that they should win every pot they enter) are simply higher variance games. As long as you stick to your game, the pots you take down when you do win will be massive. It's long term earnings with which you should be concerned, not each hand that you play.

EDIT: 99% is not the same as 100%. If you are a 99% favourite, you still should not expect to win. If you are a 100% favourite and manage to lose, then I'd be concerned. And I'd switch cardrooms.

[cincy_kid24]

I have the same problem, only my problem is magnified 100 times b/c I dont keep my mouth shut, at all [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]
In a way a little berating every once in a while, ON A RARE BASIS (i cant stress that enough), is therapuetic believe it or not. keeping all that frustration bottled up w/o some sort of solution is just turning up your noise filter and it will eventually do you more harm than good.
I remember sitting 3-6 at my local cardroom and picking up AA in second position. I was sitting w/ the worst group of donkeys on the face of the planet, the player on my right was wearing sunglasses...AT 3-6!!! LOL. Of course on the surface i didnt mind b/c there was a great EV b/c these guys were making ridiculous mistakes that were rare even for 3-6.
So anyway, AA sec. position, raise get 2 callers behind and the donk wearing glasses reraises which at the time i thought was perfect b/c i could reraise and drive out the original callers but that didnt work out, i reraised and everybody called behind.
Flop was bad for me, came off K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img]6 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]10 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], with the 2 hearts and re-re-raised huge pot there was no way i was driving out any kind of weird draw, I didnt like the K [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img] b/c i was thinking right away that the reraiser flopped top set.
on the flop - reraiser bets, i raise and everybody calls. On the turn is the 4 [img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img], so im done raising, and of course the limp-caller right behind me bets after i check the turn, (by the way I also had the A of hearts so i wasnt going anywhere) everybody calls, river is a blank, limp-caller bets again, i show down, everybody else folds and he shows 6 [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]4 [img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] for small two-pair.
Now, I know how to act in a cardroom, I have been playing serious hold em for about 3 years (which i know isnt too long) but even w/ all the knowledge of why i shouldnt berate this guy, there was absolutely no way I could stop myself and I let this guy have it for 2 minutes after the hand.
It was incredibly bad form, I'm the one who ended up looking like an [censored] but it still helped me, it didnt help my play, it didnt help me become a more complete player, it didnt help anything - it was simply anger management.
I'm just not the kind of guy who can take an awful beat like that and say "nice hand" b/c it wasnt a nice hand it was a garbage hand.
But the thing is berating will only make you worse as a player. After a while if you get so worked up about every bad beat you take then you will start to expect it to happen every time and i have found when you are already thinking something is more than likely to happen, it usually does.
If you approach the game itself viewing success as money earned on one hand or any small number of hands then you're going to be a failure more times than your a winner. My definition of "sucess" at poker comes directly from good decisions opposed to bad decision and how I let those decisions affect my bankroll over the course of a year or several years. I think of it as managing luck - my luck and the other player's luck. And that doesnt mean protecting a good hand w/ a timely check raise in order to force out draws, I mean managing luck over your entire poker career, absorbing downswings, upswings, sideswings and everything in between.
Anyway, sorry to ramble. I am getting better w/ the berating, when i do go off (which is not very often anymore actually) I realize that it's for me, and only me, its therapy. I could care less about letting the other guy just how "good" i am and how "bad" he is, in the end nothing changes and it's just wasted energy.
Hope this helps, good luck

[DRKEVDC]

You have to remember that it is the best 5 card hand, not the best 2,3,4 card hand. If you want to improve your HE game try playing Pot Limit Omaha. This is a game where you can have the nuts on the flop and finish third in the hand by the river.

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Any tips from more experienced players? My wife would be so much happier if my ranting stopped

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This comment caught my eye.

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Thanks for the replys, some things to think on there.

Buccaneer - My wife gets a little hmm "upset" at the way I swear so badly when I'm ranting at the screen. It's mainly the fact she sees a side of me that she wouldn't under most other circumstances. I'll try what you suggest tho [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Steamboatin - a good point and an interesting way to gauge my progress. I mainly play NL STT which alot of the time means one bad beat is crippling / end of STT. I find this is and the MTT suckouts are where I go off worst.
Trying not to laugh at the fish...now theres a challenge [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

BingoChimp

[cincy_kid24]

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So basicaly I am saying I get my enjoyment from playing well and learning. These are the things I can control so I try to do them well.


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That is an excellent point, something i forgot to mention in my earlier response.
The most simple and basic fact about this game is that it's out of control. You cannot control the cards and you certainly cant control other people, ergo, attempting to reign things in that are out of your control is a wasted exercise
So why get mad about it? For a little more study on this and how the idea of control applies so perfectly to poker I would suggest reading about Caro's Law of Loose Wiring, i'm sure there are some archived posts and the internet is full of information, or so i hear [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]