In honor of Doug Kim, 7th place at this year’s WSOP Main Event, here’s to his beloved Yankees sweeping the Boston Red Sox in a five game series. That is five (5) games. In Boston.
Doug is still out in Las Vegas, from what I can gather. I don’t think he’s rushed out to snag a Ferrrari at the Wynne or anything, and I haven’t seen him playing at any higher limits online. He’s supposed to start his consulting job in Manhattan in a few weeks, so it will be interesting to see how it affects him. His 2+2ers are all giving him grief and reveling in his success.
My brother Econ can spend gobs of time on 2+2, and it is a seductive temptation to be sure. The initial reaction I have is just how little I really know about poker. When I read these posts or sites like Wes, DoubleAs, Matt, strassa2, and others, I wonder if this is ever going to be something I can conquer. Sure, I’m now a net winner both live and online, but I still have some sizable problems. Here are just a few:
- I play in isolation. This is probably the greatest problem I have in poker, that I tend to take each hand as a seperate event in time. I am way too influenced by what has happened in the last thirty minutes regarding cards I’ve gotten, often lose any memory I’ve had about previous situations. This is major bad thing in general, and I’m probably overstating a bit, but what I mean is I frequently make the same mistakes over and over. Not good.
- Playing indifferently. The cause is multitasking rather than playing poker, and I don’t know what to do about this. I really rarely just play, often working on work or watching TV while playing. Is that where multi-tabling comes in, to keep you busy?
- Playing differently. Most of the time, this is caused by playing at stakes either too low and occasionally too high. Mainly too low, causing me to creep away at a much looser style without transitioning into LAG, becoming a fishy LAP or SLAP more often than not.
- Lack of objectives. Is this a problem? It is with most things in life, so I’m sure it is with my game as well. Some folks have very specific challenges and goals regarding results (winning $X in a month), other have specific process aspirations (e.g., to decrease VP$IP to <20%). I don't have any, just fire up and play when I can find the time.
- Actions Rooted in Avoidance. OK, this is a bit complicated, so you’ll have to follow closely. I am an INTP (Myers-Briggs), which profiles to avoidance behavior when under pressure. Sweetie is also an INTP, which means we live a happy life where we avoid talking about anything too troubling. We haven’t had an argument of any substance in who knows how long, maybe a couple years, I don’t know. Put that aside for a bit. On the felt, I think I will do things more to avoid negative things. I don’t want to be a weak/tight nit, so I’ll re-raise sometimes or fire out on the turn after a continuation bet of air. Is this what I’m supposed to do, or am I just being dumb?
- Infrequent play. I don’t play very much, not very many hours. IMO, the greatest challenge that gives is that I ramp up poorly. Rather than building on three-six hours a day of experience, I have to make a cold start. I think I play infrenquently and it won’t change, so is it possible to be good at playing occasionally? Are there ways I can prepare so that I’m not a totally numbskull?
- I can be an idiot. This is simply a fact for sure. Here’s an example from just now: I fire up a $1/2NLHE full ring table at Party, post after the button, catch A-5o, raise a limper to $9, get one caller who has $38 left after the call, flop comes 9-8-5 all hearts (I have none), checked to me, I bet $12, dude shoves, I shrug and call (I have no heart), Kh hits turn then 9s is the river, dude had 9c-10c. That’s moronic play on about eighteen levels. “Hey CC, can you email me whenever you’d like to play?”
- I get fixated. I become a dork and just want to double through someone when they’ve taken a pot from me in NLHE. Probably in LHE as well, but I just fixate on one person way too much. Normally, it’s the totally wrong person as well. Which doesn’t help.
So, chime in if you all this is standard, things you struggle with, or whatever. Stumbled on a new site for me that could be addictive, High Stakes Railbird Report, where you can follow the highs and lows of Ivey, Matusow, mahatma, and many many others playing at the highest stakes online. Pretty sick stuff.
Back to the grind. Later.
- I play in isolation: I used to do this, but I’ve definitely gotten a lot better at finding patterns in my opponents and exploiting them. Then again, I play $100NL, so this may not mean much.
- Playing indifferently: This is not really a problem for me, as I do my best not to multitask anymore when I’m playing.
- Playing differently: I know what limits I’m capable of playing right now, so I don’t really have this problem either. As long as I’m not scared money, I think I’m doing ok.
- Lack of objectives: I have a couple of objectives that I’m striving for, and I’m well on my way for meeting my bankroll goal in December. Yay!
- Actions rooted in avoidance: Hmm… I had never thought about it from this perspective, but I think I may do this also. I will have to keep an eye out for it and see if I can fix it.
- Infrequent play: Not a huge problem for me. I play for a couple of hours a day, usually, although this can vary between tournaments and cash games, which play very differently.
- I can be an idiot: Amen to this one. I had one day last week where I’m not sure it was even me that was playing. It was bad.
- I get fixated: I don’t so much get fixated on someone as aggressively look for an opportunity to exploit a weakness that I’ve found. I don’t usually go after people that take big pots from me, unless they were really stupid and just got lucky, and I know that I can take advantage of this.
Overall, I think that most people suffer from quite a few of these problems. Writing them down and examining them is definitely a good start in fixing them, and it also helps people like me who aren’t that skilled at self-criticizing their play. Good luck to you!
Hey the first step in improving is realizing you need improvement. As long as you continue to learn and want to move forward with poker you will a winner in the long run. Its when you stop learning and think u\’ve reached your peak is when the danger happens.
I am forced to multitable for the exact same reason of boredom. When I am playing one or two tables at a time, I often find myself opening up my web browser to scour through 2+2 or other blogs to fill the void of boredom. This often results in subpar play by me since I am not noticing the noisances of the table.