By
grapsfan |
Published
May 18 2007, 02:41 AM
When I left for my vacation with Mickey Mouse, I was playing and running as badly as I can ever remember. Head muddled, my perspective on the game was crushed. I am proud to report that in the couple of sessions I’ve played since returning from vacation, I’m running just as badly as when I left. Pretty sure I’m not playing much better either. Every continuation bet or bluff gets called, but I get no action on value bets with made hands.
Some hand review will hopefully determine if I’m giving anything away or doing anything different when I bet with or without a made hand. Maybe a lot of players have improved more than I have recently and I need to find something else to do. Anyway, my game is still a mess. My head, however, is thankfully clear: a conclusion realized in one of the first SNGs after my hiatus.
Down to 5 players in a $50+5 SNG on Full Tilt, the short stack was someone I had played with before. While I have no specific notes, I remember him being thoroughly mediocre. Sharkscope backs up my impression, as he is barely profitable after 900+ SNGs. I was in the big blind with pocket nines, and the short stack pushed from the cutoff for about 5 big blinds. I called and he revealed 87 offsuit. The flop came Q-9-5, giving me middle set. The turn was a miracle 6, completing his straight…but the river was another Q, filling me up and knocking him out of the game. Pretty standard stuff, if you ask me.
In the chat box, from the rail, he typed “What a heartbreaking river, don’t you agree?” Not only did I not agree; I was amazed that someone who has played 900 SNGs would view a 10-out river as a heartbreaker. We ended up having a 5-minute chat where he tried to convince me that not only was he right to use “heartbreaking” as the proper adjective, but I should have been similarly affected by the turn card, and then overjoyed as I sucked out in return. Yes, the suck-and-resuck hands can be rollercoaster rides for your psyche. I get it. The baited-breath revelation of the board as it is dealt is part of what makes Hold’em more appealing to many people than draw or stud poker. The swings provided by the cards are indeed real. But these kinds of hands happen every day, to everyone who plays poker on a regular basis. If you react so emotionally to a common scenario in a single-table SNG, the highs and lows stifle your ability to grind out a profit.
In poker, you can only be affected by the things you can control: when your chips go into the pot, and in what amount. In the example hand, when my chips went in the middle, I was a 6:1 favorite. When my head is clear, I understand that this is all I can do. I made the right read (this guy had played enough to know that he needed to push with a very wide range), and the proper decision based on that read. If I lose the hand, I lose the hand and move on to the next. This is an independent process for every single hand I play…when I’m in the right frame of mind.
When I’m not thinking well about the game, I’m constantly bombarded with reflections of a hand just lost, especially when due to a bad beat or poor play by my opponent. I keep coming back to the jerkoff who got rewarded for being so bad at the game, the fact that I should be the chip leader and in position to make some serious money, and how much I’m going to enjoy getting my chips back from the idiot. Constant focus on the negative past blocks our view of what to do in the immediate future. I may be hesitant to follow a read and make a call when I think I’m ahead, since that same jerkoff is just going to get lucky again. I forget to figure out my M and Q, and know I still have a comfortable stack. I lose sight of the fact that there are other players are the table besides me and the idiot…they all have chips that I need to win…they all want mine.
From my experience, people who are very competitive have a certain pathos that denies them the ability to keep a constant rein on their emotions. I fit that description to a “T”. As a child, I threw my share of cards and Monopoly pieces when things didn’t go my way. I still fight the urge to take losses out on Playstation controllers, laptops, chess boards, basketballs, etc. As cumbersome as the urge may feel, the overwhelming need to win is a good thing from a high-level perspective. The competitive fire fuels us to devote the time and energy to practice, study and mastering the game; to being the very best we can be.
In the hour-by-hour, hand-by-hand grind of daily play, however, being highly competitive can be a burden, not a blessing. The great players not only have poker faces; they have poker souls. If the frustration or anger over a previous hand affects your decision-making during the next one, then you’ll never get as far as your competitive streak wants to take you. Coming to a balance between a burning need to win long-term, and a calm acceptance of losing a specific hand, provides the path to greatness.
This is what I learned on my summer vacation. I took some time off with the intention of improving my play. Instead, I think I improved my spirit. Let’s hope my play follows. And the cash with it.