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k2o4 United States. Feb 15 2008 22:21. Posts 4803

Let me preface all of this with one big point - I definitely am much worse at poker than I thought I was!

At the same time, I do still think I am a winning player. Just harder to win without the heater at your back.

After about 3 weeks of consistent losses with occasional winning spikes it is clear that I need to do something to turn this around and it won't just happen by itself. Of course a heater would be great, but I think I'm playing poorly overall and even when I get a bit of a heater I don't take full advantage of it. This has lead me to my new approach which I started today.

Super short sessions. That's the ticket. I realized that in the past I played my best while 4 tabling, so I've gone back to that. I also am doing very short sessions, 250 hands to 500. If I hit 500 I get ready to quit. Usually I quit before 500. I try and do lots of these short sessions throughout the day, with nice breaks in between to eat, exercise, maybe watch an episode of a good TV show or read up on some forums. Also study hands or watch CR vids.

I realized that I am by far my own worst enemy. I have been tilting much more easily but haven't been getting away as quickly as I used to. Now I'm trying to end the sessions before I get lethargic and before too many bad beats can hit me and break down my anti-tilt defenses. And if the session goes especially painfully before 500 I'm out real quick.

So far it seems to be going ok. I think I'm still not playing my best poker, but the amount of mistakes has drastically reduced. I'm also picking up on betting patterns and timing tells a lot better and making some good plays using them. I still feel like a noob in 3bet pots but it's getting better, and there's been some good help from people on the medium stakes forums about them.

The other thing is that I haven't looked at my BR all day. I'm avoiding looking at how much I've won/lost and trying to strictly focus on good decisions/bad decisions. It's nice walking away from these sessions feeling good or bad solely dependent on how I played rather than how I did monetarily. I'm just going to put full faith in the fact that if I keep playing well I will win money. Checking my BR to see minor wins or big losses after long sessions was just killing my moral.

Thanks to everyone who's been giving advice and help. Couldn't do this without you and the support of LP.net!

0 votes

InnovativeYogis.com

Big_Rob_48 United States. Feb 15 2008 22:31. Posts 3432

Yeah man just keep up the good work. Just keep grinding hands, keep playing. I had like a 2.5 pt bb winrate at 100 nl last may and decided that i needed to work on understanding poker better. Now i am killing 200 nl for 7 pt bb over 100k hands, and let me tell you something, you probably understand poker a lot better now then i did last may. So if you just keep hard at learning the game within months you can be crushing 200nl and having a decent winrate at 400 nl if you wanted.

My AIM sn if you want to chat: YoRobbyMiller

vegable United States. Feb 15 2008 22:46. Posts 2453

I've been breaking even/losing this past week and I've only put in about 4k hands...but yeah def hard when the cards aren't coming your way. Your paragraphs describe my week exactly

Stir fry Normandy

whamm! Albania. Feb 16 2008 01:19. Posts 11625

goodluck!

lebowski Greece. Feb 16 2008 04:48. Posts 9205

well setting a strict number of hands has helped me a bit when all hell broke loose last month.
This month has gone ok,could be just variance but I know that for me 5 tables is max and that really watching what happens makes better choices. I know you review your hands after sessions,just keep that up and slow down until your confidence is back
I realize this shit HAS to happen because it puts things into perspective.So i'm kind of glad it happened on nl100 for me.
getting back there to fight shortly!(different buy in rule now cause I'm a wuss lol)

new shit has come to light... a-and... shit! man...

RS_II United States. Feb 17 2008 14:02. Posts 748

good plan

SKoT: I got 99 problems and a bitch aint 1