problems of disclipine

gosplan

Anyone ever have to overcome serious problem in this regard?

Some good old impatience combined with frustration and getting rattled?

Been in a few games lately where I've ended up dissappointed with myself for playing what I know to be poor poker and making decisions that I know are incorrect.

Anyone got a good way to overcome this problem?

RoadSweeper

Write it down, every mistake you feel you make.
Read it, and understand where you played poor.


Then look to improve it, by having to write less stuff down, and not the same stuff.

Raintonite

The psychology of poker is probably one of the hardest parts of the game to master. Even if you're a maths dunce like myself, you eventually grasp the concepts of pot odds, equity and so on. However, as you realise that you've gone in ahead with say a 65%+ postitive equity on average and lost most of these "gambles", it becomes even harder to swallow the vagaries of poker life. It can lead to tilt or even worse a mindset that accepts complancency as the norm. It may even begin to seem like defeat is inevitable in the long run.

My biggest leap in poker has been to forget about "bad beats". They do not exist. I have either made a correct play or I haven't. If a poor player has sucked out on me, well, I've seen it all before. Take note of the villian's play and hope he/she never learns better. Players who rely on luck as the only weapon in their arsenal are like currency printing presses. Seek them out and let them give you their hard earned cash.

For my own part, I can say that I've been running bad for the guts of two years. Yet, I still play and still make too many mistakes - badly timed bluffs; underestimating the skills of my opponents; letting days (sometimes weeks) of dead card runs affect my performance on a given hand. Whilst I believe I'm not getting "my share" of the luck, I know deep down that I'm letting an external factor degrade the quality of my play. It's become a self fulfilling prophecy, if you like. My reaction to this situation, as well as taking time off from the game, is to go back and learn a little bit more about the game and look at how I personally approach any given session or hand situation. I've even stopped in the middle of a session to take notes on my play and to take some time to analyse the situation. Afterall, there's another hand going to be dealt in the next few seconds somewhere on the internet. It takes alot longer, in my case, to learn how I'm reacting to negative situations. Hope springs eternal.

LuckyLloyd

This post has been deleted.

ntlbell

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Only play when:

- rested;
- sober;
- focused and determined to play your "A" game;
- the game / stakes involved commands your interest;

If you aren't feeling right (and it isn't a tournament obv) at the table just get up and walk away.

I think the prob the OP has is he may be all of the above until things go bang.

It's learning to ignore what happened and continue with the above that's the difficult part and IMO only comes with playing a lot of hands.

LuckyLloyd

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bops

gosplan wrote: »

...playing what I know to be poor poker and making decisions that I know are incorrect.

Anyone got a good way to overcome this problem?

when you notice yourself doing this - go home

ntlbell

bops wrote: »

when you notice yourself doing this - go home

you take your own advice on this bops do you?

lol

YULETIRED

my latest trick...
I played ipoker last night for the 1st time in MONTHS. I do a simple little + and - game with my big hands when I play online. I award myself a + when I get in ahead and play it well, I give myself a - when I get in behind. If I were a big time cash player I'd apply a more advanced analysis to my game but a lot of people (ie ME) are lazy so this is easy ands does the job for me + it prevents me from feeling too bad when I get sucked out on, which frequently happens .

Here were my 3 BIG hands.

JJ beaten by KJ
KK beaten by AQ
QQ beaten by 33.

These were my only 3 big all ins in the games I played. If you look at the results of these hands you think 'bad beats I run so bad' etc.
However if you mark the hands as big pots where you got into the pot as the favourite you should award yourself + points. I scored +3 . If there was a minus hand
I check back to see how I could have played it diff or how I'll play it next time etc...you know what I'm getting at here. If I end the night on Minus...I play bad...
Do this and see if you have more minus than plus. If so try to figure out why...(or get HJ to coach you)

So for the few hours I played I played well and beat the players I was up agianst. The fact that I lost the pots are irrelevant to me in my analysis of this. So I went meh
wp ul.

Some of the gurus might snigger at this but it works for me in terms of tilt control. Trying to dicipline myself ahead of the IO :-)

bops

ntlbell wrote: »

you take your own advice on this bops do you?

lol

lol fk no!

cooker3

My biggest problem is not beat. I don't care about them
It's playing a hand really badly, that can anger me like nothing else.
But as basically what Lloyd said and if your feel yourself losing it or whatever just leave which how I usually handle it anyway.

gosplan

Thanks for responses all.

To be honest, it's not really coping with bad beats, it's coping with myself.

I basically think I have all the qualities to be a very good poker player bar temperment.

Is there a solution for this? - I'm not sure.

Generally I find my play far more consistant in tournaments as I know time-to-win is indeterminent. In cash games, I just get bored and play junk like 10 3 sooted as if they were aces.

It could be that I honestly don't really value money or give (too much of) a crap whether I win or lose.

CaptainNemo

My most helpful hint: play over-rolled.

This means you can lose 5 buy-ins and still not be anywhere near truly hurting as regards your bankroll. It means that tilt won't creep in through one bad beat or even a few. And it means that even if you do tilt, you have plenty of time to recognize it and sign off for the night without doing a tremendous amount of damage.

The downside is that you move up slower and that you can have an element of boredom creep in through the fact that the monetary amounts may seem small. Personally I've found I can play for about 2-3 hours continuously while maintaining full attention on 2-3 tables of Omaha. More tables, or more time, and I start to play hands I shouldn't, push hard on hands I should fold, and all the individually small errors that can add up to a losing session.

But I used to frequently play with half or more of my BR on the table, and the stress of that (when it was a significant amount) is terrible. One bad beat feels like a punch in the guts and can tilt you instantly; and being on tilt can cost you everything. If you suffer from a loss of emotional control in circumstances like this (which I do) then it's very, VERY hard to stop it from happening. You're much better off doing your best to prevent the circumstances under which it might happen.

Headspace

Gosplan i have the exact same problem as u Its like I just dont care about the money, especialy in cash games. Cash games have taught me alot about hand reading and so on but i often end up donking all my chips away at the end of a session on a wild bluff or something its not that an uncommon a problem. Doyle Brunson once said disipline is the most important attribute of any poker player i would of said instinct but now i can see he is right. I now consider myself a tourney plr the two are just a different disipline some of the best tourney plrs are hopeless at cash and vice-versa.As you improve as a plr u will become more disiplined

Mick McCool

LuckyLloyd wrote: »

Only play when:

- rested;
- sober;
- focused and determined to play your "A" game;
- the game / stakes involved commands your interest;

If you aren't feeling right (and it isn't a tournament obv) at the table just get up and walk away.

Good Advice