Ok so with my recent ups and downs, I've been looking at my game and I know it's far from perfect but I've also noticed other times when I've hit these type patches. The 1st was as my BR neared $500, then somewhat at $1000, and now $2000 seems to be the sticking point (how I breezed by $1500 is beyond me). Come to think of it, it was exactly the same when I played at Bodog. It's like I hit these invisible barriers that I have to get through before I can get back to playing good winning poker. Is it self-sabotage? Well from some of the hands I post here, it's a definite possibility, but I don't think so. I really think it's the money!
I don't want to think about poker that way, but I do (especially lately). If a pots large and I missed whatever draw I was chasing or I think my opponent outdrew me on the river, I don't do what I should and give up. I either bluff if I missed or I call down light if my opponent bets. It's like I don't want to give up the pot because it's soooo much money. Crazy I know. I also know that if I did play better in these spots, I'd win more money! This month my BR has been fluctuating (just using that word reminds me of this brilliant Tommy Angelo quote) between $1600 (when I was down for the month) and $2200 (those 2 wonderful days when I was way up) and it currently sits just $40 shy of $2000. Here's to a barrier breakthrough coming real soon.
I did play some poker over the past couple of days. Some good, some bad, ending up $80 over 1250 hands (6.35BB/100). I can certainly live with that. Here is the worst:
Villain here is 20/0/.5 over 40 hands. I can't even explain to you why I didn't get the rest of my stack in on the turn. Had I pushed there I would have turned a stupid river call into a bad beat. Basically I needed to take BW's advice on this one. This guy is NEVER betting that river without a hand the beats my kings. Just bad and a prime example of my issue with folding in big pots even with weak hands compared to the board. Maybe one day I'll get it and break on through.
Oh and if you'd like to read more from Tommy Angelo check out his blog, and pick up his book, Elements of Poker for a great read.
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The problem is that you're paying too much attention to your roll. It's a lot easier said than done, and I'm not saying I'm anywhere close to this point, but ignoring the money almost completely is basically what we want to achieve as successful poker players. Obviously you have to have some idea of where it stands so that you know when to move up or drop down in limits, but paying too much attention to the money is definitely going to give you these mental barriers as well as other things (tilt cough cough).
I used to stress so much about cracking 1000 or 2000 or whatever. Nowadays my roll fluctuates (nice Tommy quote btw :) ) between 4 and 6k without me even noticing. The tilt still gets me because I value the money, but at least I'm holding off on watching my bankroll every session (not to say that you are).
gl dood
-ChuckTs
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