Hello everyone, how are you guys doing?
I was wondering about this subject and have been talking to myself for hours, thinking about what makes me either a winner or a loser in poker. Or well, at least in my case, what makes me a marginal winning player instead of a big winning player?
I gave it a lot of thought and would like to share with all of you my crazy perspective on that, and obviously would be more than happy to get feedback from you guys.
Several months ago, I read boywonder's great post here in 2p2, where he comes up with an excellent graph showing him destroying the NLH6max mid-stakes. You can check it out on the following link:
http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/54...p-graph-286574
Basically, when people asked him about what his secret was for being that consistent, he said: "Your mental, emotional state while playing is 80 % of the work, and you can work and take specific steps to get better at that. Being in the right emotional state will allow you to open up your eyes to what you and the other players are doing without being stuck in the previous hand you lost, how much you are up, what you're going to eat later, etc. Combine that with some basic technical steps that can be taken and you got the other 20% to at least achieve enough to live comfortably off poker. I believe, that with today's games and climate, anybody with even mediocre intelligence and some discipline could at the very least make a comfortable living playing this game."
Dozens of people replied to that thread and he insisted that the key was the mental control, since he did not consider himself a poker prodigy or anything like that.
When I read that, I learned a lot, but I was making a huge mistake: I was not looking at my own mistakes and could not see how these reflect in my game.
As months went by, here I am, extremely disappointed with my performance, since I'm an eternal pessimist person. I have always been a very self-critical guy, always trying to find my own mistakes, to accept and fix them. Then, what's wrong?
What am I doing wrong? Why can't I be a big winner? Damn, how frustrating...
I guess I found some answers for myself, or at least the beginning of them, and I'd like to share my thoughts with you.
Am I really applying my knowledge during the game?
Countless times, in a lot of internet poker forums (including this one), I've read hundreds of posts and discussed hundreds of hands. Normally, when I read a hand that someone's posted, I quickly read the hand's history and kind of think "oh, I'd have done it differently", or "why did he do that?". Sometimes, during the first seconds after reading the hand, I come out with a little bit deeper thought, such as "no dude, you won't extract value here, and will make worse hands get folded away", or "it's not a good idea to raise in this situation in case you intend to fold to a re-raise", or even the worst thought that you could ever have after reading a hand comes to my mind sometimes: "oh, that's standard".
That being said, when I actually start to reply to some posted hand, many times I find myself analyzing it on a much harder/better way than those quick initial seconds after reading it for the first time. I start to elaborate my answer, and correct myself sometimes, or even notice that the reason behind that particular move that seemed obvious in the beginning is much more complex then it seemed.
After I write my reply, I'm often proud of myself and my thinking level. I see other players posting their opinions on it and I realize that I'm usually seeing things from the correct point of view, and can't help but be happy with myself. I guess I'm not that bad after all.
But I have a few questions for you:
How many times have you actually answered a topic with the same thoughts you had during those first initial seconds after reading the hand's history?
How many times have you changed your mind when you were elaborating your answer?
How many times, when you found yourself replying to a post, have you stopped in the middle of it because you were not sure about what you were writing and decided it was better to wait someone else's answer before you, to help you to organize your ideas?
By the way, I've seen that the opposite is true as well. Many times, I've seen people answering on something and changing their minds during the same post, saying something like "hmm, well.. giving it more thought, it's probably better to do this instead of that".
Well, let me introduce to you my point of view on this, my friends: those thoughts during the first initial seconds after reading a hand's history are what REALLY matter!
Those thoughts will guide your decision when you're on the table. Those first initial thoughts will define what's going to be your move!
You will not have 5 minutes on the table to come up with your decision and consider everything you've considered when you replied to some random forum post. In the end, you're going to do what you decided you're going to do during those first initial seconds.
If you are a player from the forum who always makes great posts but, at the same time, have a marginal winrate, let me break it down to you: You do NOT apply your knowledge on the tables!
That can be caused by many different reasons:
* You have been impulsive (or robotic)
You are not thinking, you are operating. You are a robot in front of the screen trying to make your "standard" moves. It won't make you a winner, you are GRINDING, you're not LEARNING. In many things in life, people who can't learn from their own mistakes will not be able to develop their skills. In poker, you can take that statement a thousand times more intensively.
I play just like that lots of times, just grinding, and in countless situations I found myself feeling bored and having no pleasure at all during the process. All I've been trying to do is to make my "standard" play, and would only give it some really extra attention when there'd be an important spot, a big pot, or a hard opponent.
By the way, may I be completely honest with you? Many times my inconsistent mental state during those moments did not let me think correctly during those little seconds that I finally decided to give it the proper importance. Adrenaline gets in the way and my mind is not ready for that kind of pressure.
There's a great cash games player (Ivan "RoyalSalute" Santana) in my country (I'm Brazilian, btw) who released an awesome high stakes cash games book a few months ago. When I heard about it, I read a very good interview he gave to a local poker magazine and at some point he said that one of his secrets was that he always tries to force himself to think for at least 4 or 5 seconds before making any decision, even the simpler ones. Does that sounds interesting to you?
Well, let's say that if some player at RoyalSalute's level says he forces himself to think for at least 5 seconds, what in the world gives me the right to act differently? It should be the opposite. If he thinks for 5 seconds, I should actually think for at least 20!
* You are being lazy
What's your goal when you take a sit at a table to play poker? To win! Duh, me too buddy. All I want is to win! I want the entire world to lose and I want to win it all! I could even get some bad beats once in a while, as far as I win. Well, everybody thinks like that, right?
And what the hell am I doing to achieve that? Being miles away until the moment I need to make my decisions? Instead of searching out the opportunities myself, I'm waiting for it to fall into my lap. All I've done (most of the times) is to wait for the moment to come for me to make my great "standard" move and be a winner! wohoooo!
If it was that easy, I can guarantee that everyone here would be a huge-winner. And I don't know about you guys, but I'm lazy. I'm very lazy.
The same impulse that makes me hit the snooze button on my timer a thousand times before getting my lazy ass out of bed in the morning, makes me keep waiting for the perfect situation to simply ge materialized in front of me. Then I could make my stupid standard play and become the next Phil Ivey. Oh yeah, ship it!!
Isn't it obvious that it won't work? Isn't it obvious that if I don't use my brain, my stupid standard play will become less standard in my head after a while?
Tell you what: None of the big-winning players here keeps waiting for the situations to fall into their laps in order to make their standard play. None of these players use their free time between each hands to scratch their balls. They really USE their time properly.
They check everyone's stats, they check if there are better tables on the lobby, they make notes on their opponents, they analyze every single showdown to identify their opponent's standards, etc.
And that counts for ANY STAKES YOU PLAY. It doesn't matter if it's either NL2 or NL10k. That's just important, no matter what you play. Whoever says this is wrong, is unfortunately making the same mistake I did: You are only trying to make your stupid standard play and waiting for the money to arrive.
* Why winner players are different than me?
Every time I catch up with players I respect and know that are better than me (or play higher stakes than me), I pay close attention to them.
Not only when they are talking about some technical stuff, but how they explain their thoughts. I wonder: Why are these guys different than me?
Sometimes when I answer some post, I realize that someone who is a much better player than me answers the same thing I did. I've seen many people getting full of themselves when that happens, they're wondering "nice, if that guy thinks the same way I do, that's cause I'm becoming as good as he is". DUH!
Do you wanna know what I think? I think "dammit, if a much better player thinks the same way I do, how the **** could he be playing a 3 times higher stake than me, and I'm stuck on the same stake for the last N months?"
The answer is simple: You do NOT think like him!
The reply you've made on that post was well-elaborated, you really thought it through, you re-elaborated it a couple of times, you corrected some mistakes, edited it all over again and finally hit the "submit" button. The other player, thought it all over in a just a few seconds!
His answer was just like yours, but he thought it all through during those famous initial seconds after reading the hand's history. You didn't! I needed to put some harder work to get to that conclusion.
This guy is always going to make the right play, since he will be able to think quickly through that in a matter of seconds, hand after hand! I will NOT!
Let me tell you a quick story. A while ago, I was hanging out with some players, having some beers, and the following situation shows up:
A player who was playing a 2 times lower limit than I was, asked me how I would play on an specific situation. It took me like 30 seconds to answer him. After me, another player who used to play a 3 times higher limit than me, gave us his thoughts.
He basically took 10 seconds to answer it in a MUCH BETTER way than me.
That's exactly what happens to me. If I think it through and take some time to collect my thoughts, I normally come out with a good answer, using the right criterias to analyze it. The other guy, the one who's much better than me, finds the answer in just a blink of an eye.
That same guy who plays much better than me, also sayd to me: "dude, considering the stakes you're playing, you can't really make excepcional plays, all you gotta do is to make your standard move and that's it".
I agree with you, if only I could think as quick as you do, my friend.
THE STANDARD PLAY, CAN ONLY BE STANDARD IN THE RIGHT MINDSET.
Like boywonder said on his post, have you ever noticed that some days you can put people on hands right and left, other days you're just fumbling in the dark? What changed then?
The opponents are the same, the game is the same, the stake is the same, your skills have not diminished, you are the same.. OH WAIT! NOT! You're NOT the same!
Your mental state at that moment didn't allow you to make the right move. You couldn't concentrate in order to use the right criterias to make your decision. In other words: You are thinking just like you do during the first initial seconds after reading some random hand history on the forum, instead of thinking just like you do when you elaborate your post replies.
I guess that's what boywonder meant when he said that 80% comes from your mental state.
If my head is ready to absorve every little piece of information during the game, I'll be able to think it through, to find the most optimum play. Just like I do when I elaborate my replies. And finally, my friend, my standard stupid move will become standard.
I'm sorry if I've written too much and hope you like it.
P.S.: I apologize for my poor english, it's not my first language.
All the best!
EduAmendola
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