why do i do this? How do I stop?

[scrapperdog]

The problem is not your laydowns, it is your bets.

You cant check top set and let KQ make an open ender when you have top set.
You cant mini-raise top 2 and let someone make a flush.

Yes you were behind all the way on both of these hands, but the vast majority of the time you are good on the flop here. Bet your hands correctly and you wont be put in a positon to have to make a big laydown anywhere near as often.

[Lucky]

Stop with all the checkin and trickiness. Bet you're hands. People will let you know when they have the nuts and pay you when they dont.

As it is, hands werent horrible, you didnt lose a ton in hand 1 and in hand, while i prob dont call PF, when i hit top two in raised pot good chance ill lose a ton.

[DWarrior]

Also, it's not like you saved money with JJ on the flop there, your FPS was to check/raise, so had your opponent played his hand correctly, you'd be broke anyway.

I can't even imagine how you make money with top set if your plan is to limp in PF then check it down and bet the river. Open with JJ PF and be happy with the blinds. Just think of some possible hands that will limp with you but won't call your raise, then imagine scenarios where they'll pay you off when they flop something with you, there aren't many such situations.

Also, I don't know about the A8 call. Sure, you have decent pot odds, but I also don't know of situations where your play will get you paid off. You seem to be into slowplaying and check/raising, which means if you flop top two, you'll push TPHKs out. You're basically hoping for 88x flop and getting paid by an overpair.

[GrunchCan]

[ QUOTE ]
The big question is who has gotten past this and what did it take/how did you learn to stop doing it????


[/ QUOTE ]

It's called Fancy Play Syndrome, and I've gotten past this. At least, it used to be one of the biggest problems in my game as it appears to be in yours now. But I learned to recognize it, and I proved to myself mathematically why it's not the best play.

It took me a long time to break myself of FPS. But I think that for people like us, who have a inclanation to have FPS, we have to always be on guard and not let ourselves slip in to our old ways. How long is a long time? Probably 1 or 2 10k hand cycles, at least.

If you're like me, you are using fancy plays becasue you think they will get you the best result. What result is that? Maybe its the maximum profit. But for many people, it's also the percieved respect of your opponents. In either case, FPS isn't optimal. It's not optimal as far as $ earn goes, and you can prove this to yourself on paper with a calculator. It's not optimal as far as respect goes becasue of a basic poker truth: if you're playing poker to win friends or impress people, you'll never make money doing it. Poker played for $ isn't about impressing your opponents. It's about taking thier money.

Besides, if you're playing poker for $, you don't want your opponent to be impressed with you becasue they won't pay off your good hands.