"Playing Poker": Theory and Practice

[brettbrettr]

I'm way to tired to read this right now. Tomorrow for sure, and then maybe even something constructive shortly thereafter.

I would however like to point out that Jager is spelled with a "J."

That is all.

Brett

[callmedonnie]

I'll spell MFUYA.

[Dagger78]

W., you've responded to basically every single post I've ever made and helped me a bunch with thinking out the process of hands.

My opinion is just continue with your out of game analysis (which is excellent) of hands and try to relate these to real in-game situations. I've been recently noticing I've been making plays that are correct without deep analysis at the time the hand is occuring. I don't know if this "feel" is escaping you at the moment or if you just aren't feeling comfortable at the tables.

I would suggest slowing down your pace of play until you start feeling more comfortable with your decisions. I think you're an excellent player and you might also but just doubting yourself at the table(I find I do this semi-often even though I know I'm a winning player).

The things that have done the most to increase my confidence.

I got a huge boost the first time I made a quite advanced play without requiring much thought. It was a situation I'd seen discussed on the forums and the play just "felt right"

I like to occasionally look at pokergrapher while I'm playing. It reminds me I'm a solid winnner and that swings seriously suck.

I try to replay the hands I lost to confirm I palyed them correctly given the information available at the time.

Good Luck, I'm sure you'll be fine

[meep_42]

When I've thought about this very same idea in the past the answer that came to me was something akin to a story I heard about CMI's favorite golfer, Tiger Woods. From an early age it was ingrained into him that on every shot he needed to take several specific things into account. Now, I'm not a golfer so the specifics meant nothing to me at the time, so I don't recall them -- but, after time Tiger didn't need to actually think about these things as he prepared for a shot. They became just part of what he does -- keeping his mind clearer, less cluttered and more able to relax, or focus on some other important detail specific to the situation.

This board, to me, is preparation. Concepts and cold analysis get pushed into our brains the more we encounter them, and on more than one occasion has a single phrase resonated with me and changed my entire view on a situation. Like flipping on a lightswitch. Taken out of the context of what i've experienced, read, and learned, they probably mean nothing. But, to me they do, and it allows me to play a little better, to actively think a little less about one thing and concentrate on others. To build intuition.

So, to sum, I think that these boards, this theory and cold analysis is exactly what may make us better, beyond the typical book-reading sense.

Anyhow, it's late and I have work in a few hours.

-d

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
Well if you don't mind a sports analogy. A year or so back when Tiger Woods was not doing so hot. People would ask him about his swing and he would say that on the range he was hitting shot after shot perfectly and that the swing changes were taking hold. He called himself ranger rick. Eventually he started translating how he was hitting the ball on the range to real play.

Take from this what you will. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

I swear I didn't intend to make 2 Tiger references in one thread.

-d

[brettbrettr]

Hi Will,

This is a good post, and like others have said, I dont think posting better than you play is in any way exclusive to just you.

Like others, I agree that integrating into a real-time desision what become so obvious away from the table is merely a matter of practive and experience. Doing EV calcs, posting hands, replying to hands, these are all just excercises, "time on the range," if you will. And I have to think that the gap between doing what you do and doing what you know you ought to do closes the more time you spend at the table FOCUSED, and refusing to play on auto-pilot.

Oh, and whoever said Slim and Moss talking about VPIP and things like this, you should understand that poker players 40 years ago recognized the same leaks we do now, they just talked about them in a different language.

Brett

[chief444]

Good post WD.

I doubt if anyone plays as well as they post. Some get very close to it. The gap between playing ability and posting ability is much greater for some. But experience closes that gap. If everyone played as well as they posted there would be no point in reviewing our own sessions. Posting and reading the forum, along with reading and studying the game...and I'll add thinking INDEPENDENTLY about situations...help us identify our own mistakes. Experience helps minimize those mistakes and in turn closes the gap between playing and posting ability. But you need the knowledge and understanding of the game to first realize what those mistakes are.