20 replies to this topic

[bombsaway]

Hey all, real quick:Prefacing this all, I've been playing almost exclusively MTTs for close to a year now, with a varying degree of success, and quite a few final tables made.But I have a problem. Almost every tournament I've recently gotten deep in, I'll play a more LAG game and start cherry-picking blinds whenever possible. When I face resistance and see a flop, I wind up jamming the pot with draws, often against players that have enough chips to take me out. I've been consistently rewarding hour-upon-hour of solid play with one steaming move that winds up making my midsection feel like Riddick Bowe after an altercation with Andrew Golota. I've been on a bit of a slump with tourneys lately, and it's this disaster move has been happening with increasing frequency. Understand that this move happens instantaneously. I'll make a continuation bet regardless of my holding (if there aren't many callers of my pf raises), and insta-jam if I face resistance. I've also discovered that sitting on my hands is easily forgotten.Anyways, has it happened to you? If so, have you been able to work it out, or is it just a personality trait that's lingered? I'm near a breakthrough, but won't be able to get there if I keep throwing tournaments away like this.I'm most likely going to take a week off of tournaments to recalibrate myself, and no, while I realize that ISAP, I won't CKM. Broccoli, I know.Thanks all.EDIT: I'll give an example, even though the hand history is on my other computer.Tonight's Party40K grtd., itm with 120 left, I have approx. 80k with blinds 2000/4000 plus antesMP2/3 limps, I raise the cutoff to 11500 with A9h. SB calls, MP2/3 calls. Flop comes down KhJhXx, and SB (who has me covered) jams. MP2/3 calls, and I insta-call, knowing surely that I'm drawing to 9 outs (less if the rag card made one of the jammers a set or if either have even a single heart). In my organs, I KNOW I'm beat, but I make a crying call that busts me from a potentially deep tourney run. My Q had to be about 1.5 at that point. At least it isn't the final 20 of the Friday Special, this time.

[offset]

Three suggestions:1. Make a habit of chewing your nails. That way it will take longer to move your hand to the mouse and you will be able to control your self.2. Write "NO!" on a sticky note. Sticky it on your computer.3. Stop smoking crack.

[bombsaway]

offset, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 12:20 AM, said:

Three suggestions:3. Stop smoking crack.

Meth's okay though, right?

[tripdeuces]

Only if you like dancing to the macarena.

[offset]

bombsaway, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 1:22 AM, said:

Meth's okay though, right?

As long as you have a fireproof garage .

[Ward]

stop playing trash like A9 maybe? for ****s sake

[timwakefield]

Even when I have resigned myself to making a nutball bluff to steal a big pot, I make sure I sit and consider it for at least 5 seconds. You have plenty of time, use it.Now if I can just teach myself to stop jamming AK...

[Spademan]

This may be some sort of inside joke I'm missing because I'm not on the forums much.If not, the answer to whatever stupid arse question you are asking is: you suck at poker.Poker is 80% self control, it really isn't that difficult.

[bombsaway]

Spademan, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 2:04 AM, said:

Poker is 80% self control, it really isn't that difficult.

(There was initially a derogatory comment here, but not anymore. No point.)It took me a second to realize that responding insightfully wouldn't get me anywhere closer to where I'd hoped this thread would go, so I went with that. Sweet flame, though. You gave me no long enough strands to work with.However, I guess I could thank you for summarizing my post for me. I mean, self-control is clearly a necessity to long-term success in poker, but that wasn't what I was trying to accomplish with the OP. All I wanted to see was if others have felt themselves in the same position, because I consider myself to be level-headed in the other facets of my life; I had never done something like this before I took the game up. Forgive me for hoping for a Dr. Phil moment with this thread, but with the credibility that comes with a Spademan post, I doubt I'll have a chance at winning the forum's favor now.Since we're already derailed, why 80%, and not 79 or 81%?

Ward, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 1:44 AM, said:

stop playing trash like A9 maybe? for ****s sake

A. the MP2/3 player was loose passive and was laying down to any sort of action at all. The SB who called me had played one hand in the two orbits he was there. B. My M was barely over 10 and I had good position, AND had only showed down good hands - up until the blow-up, obviouslyFlaming, with your second post on the forum: that shows a lot of class. Thanks for the insight.Anyways, how many posts do I need to buy some empathy?

[ricker]

I certaintly empathize with you. It sounds like you already know what your leak is in the MTT's. All you need to do now is plug that leak! Instead of jamming post flop against bigger stacks, tighten up and calm down post flop. You need to concentrate on your leak before it takes you out. If you face resistance you should slow down no matter what. Just change up your game a little bit and you will prolly be a bigtime threat to anyone that sits across from you.

[iggymcfly]

Don't beat yourself up about the call with the NFD. That's actually a good spot to gamble. You probably have about 33% equity in the pot, and if you win, you're in a position where you can not only get a decent cash, but win the tournament. I know it's frustrating for one hand to seemingly wreck hours of work, but MTTs are usually won by one of the two big stacks going into the final tbale, and if you want to be one of those big stacks, you have to gamble sometimes in the middle/late stages.

[Foote9]

I dhave to say Dont Jam with 9 outs if you know your beat this late in tourny...

[bigbadbeat]

Difficult to say if your play with raising pre-flop was okay or not, you were at the table and had a feel for who was doing what, and a big stack is suppose to be as aggressive as possible, but you have to fold when you meet heavy resistance. I mean, you still would have had 60 or 70k left and had a chance to get your money in with a lot better odds later. Easy to say, but I have the same leak in my game, and it is tough, tough, tough to lay down any hand that you have invested chips in, but ya dont have to like it, ya just got to do it.

[JadeTiger]

bigbadbeat, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 6:48 AM, said:

Difficult to say if your play with raising pre-flop was okay or not, you were at the table and had a feel for who was doing what, and a big stack is suppose to be as aggressive as possible, but you have to fold when you meet heavy resistance. I mean, you still would have had 60 or 70k left and had a chance to get your money in with a lot better odds later. Easy to say, but I have the same leak in my game, and it is tough, tough, tough to lay down any hand that you have invested chips in, but ya dont have to like it, ya just got to do it.

Try to create seperation between you and chips that are in the pot. They are not yours once they enter the pot. Its all psychological. For some reason you think that because you have chips in the pot you have to defend those chips. If I were to ask you on the flop "Ok, if you risk the rest of your chips right now, 65% of the time you will bust." what would you do?dont make calls for draws unless you arent risking your tournament life. pretty good rule to live by.

[Ice_W0lf]

bombsaway, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 4:07 AM, said:

Hey all, real quick:Prefacing this all, I've been playing almost exclusively MTTs for close to a year now, with a varying degree of success, and quite a few final tables made.But I have a problem. Almost every tournament I've recently gotten deep in, I'll play a more LAG game and start cherry-picking blinds whenever possible. When I face resistance and see a flop, I wind up jamming the pot with draws, often against players that have enough chips to take me out. I've been consistently rewarding hour-upon-hour of solid play with one steaming move that winds up making my midsection feel like Riddick Bowe after an altercation with Andrew Golota. I've been on a bit of a slump with tourneys lately, and it's this disaster move has been happening with increasing frequency. Understand that this move happens instantaneously. I'll make a continuation bet regardless of my holding (if there aren't many callers of my pf raises), and insta-jam if I face resistance. I've also discovered that sitting on my hands is easily forgotten.Anyways, has it happened to you? If so, have you been able to work it out, or is it just a personality trait that's lingered? I'm near a breakthrough, but won't be able to get there if I keep throwing tournaments away like this.I'm most likely going to take a week off of tournaments to recalibrate myself, and no, while I realize that ISAP, I won't CKM. Broccoli, I know.Thanks all.EDIT: I'll give an example, even though the hand history is on my other computer.Tonight's Party40K grtd., itm with 120 left, I have approx. 80k with blinds 2000/4000 plus antesMP2/3 limps, I raise the cutoff to 11500 with A9h. SB calls, MP2/3 calls. Flop comes down KhJhXx, and SB (who has me covered) jams. MP2/3 calls, and I insta-call, knowing surely that I'm drawing to 9 outs (less if the rag card made one of the jammers a set or if either have even a single heart). In my organs, I KNOW I'm beat, but I make a crying call that busts me from a potentially deep tourney run. My Q had to be about 1.5 at that point. At least it isn't the final 20 of the Friday Special, this time.

After reading your post, I realized this has been my biggest leak in my MTT lately... I get a decent sized, above average stack, do a decent job of bullying the average stacks, then decide to try to bully a bigger stack with nothing but a draw, with terrible results. No advice right now, just wanted to share you arent the only one with this problem.

[kook04]

Spademan, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 2:04 AM, said:

This may be some sort of inside joke I'm missing because I'm not on the forums much.If not, the answer to whatever stupid arse question you are asking is: you suck at poker.Poker is 80% self control, it really isn't that difficult.

Didn't you leave? Why are you back and making idiotic posts again? If I was as good as you are at poker, I would be actually playing rather than spending all my time being a **** to people I don't know.

[No_Neck]

I have been known to make my fair share of MM style blow ups.

[Mercury69]

You are not alone...

[Ward]

Its the truth sorry if you dont like the way I worded it. You say you played so tight and thats great but you blew the whole thing on A9. I would agree with all your reasons if you had AQ or AJ maybe but the fact is its A9 there is nothing good about it. You are not a huge favorite over anyhand at all outside of ace lower rag. So why even **** with it? At this point of tourny why risk it? Oh and if you link post count with class you need to leave the house a bit more. Learn to lay down the A9 my friend.

bombsaway, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 2:57 AM, said:

(There was initially a derogatory comment here, but not anymore. No point.)It took me a second to realize that responding insightfully wouldn't get me anywhere closer to where I'd hoped this thread would go, so I went with that. Sweet flame, though. You gave me no long enough strands to work with.However, I guess I could thank you for summarizing my post for me. I mean, self-control is clearly a necessity to long-term success in poker, but that wasn't what I was trying to accomplish with the OP. All I wanted to see was if others have felt themselves in the same position, because I consider myself to be level-headed in the other facets of my life; I had never done something like this before I took the game up. Forgive me for hoping for a Dr. Phil moment with this thread, but with the credibility that comes with a Spademan post, I doubt I'll have a chance at winning the forum's favor now.Since we're already derailed, why 80%, and not 79 or 81%?A. the MP2/3 player was loose passive and was laying down to any sort of action at all. The SB who called me had played one hand in the two orbits he was there. B. My M was barely over 10 and I had good position, AND had only showed down good hands - up until the blow-up, obviouslyFlaming, with your second post on the forum: that shows a lot of class. Thanks for the insight.Anyways, how many posts do I need to buy some empathy?

[No_Neck]

Mercury69, on Monday, July 3rd, 2006, 1:22 PM, said:

You are not alone...

says the 2006 Fidler Open Champion, congrats again.