Jump to content

An Opponent's Effect On Your Psychology


Recommended Posts

I was discussing this with a friend earlier and I wanted to know what you guys think:For the most part I only play $10NL and $7.5 CAP, as my bankroll isn't big enough for the bigger games and my occasional tilty downswing tends to keep me from really building up my bankroll enough to move up. As I'm sure all of you are quite aware, the play at $10NL and $7.5 CAP is absolutely horrible - call stations, minraisers, lagtards, you name it. So it's pretty easy to make money off of these people. Something I've been noticing about my play more and more recently is that whenever I am at a table full of fish, the quality of my own play seems to drop significantly - I loosen up and tend to tilt a lot more easily. If there's even just one shark, I feel like my subconscious is saying there's someone there paying attention to more than just their own two cards and that I have something to prove to them, so I tighten up and play my best game. This is obviously a leak in my game that I need to fix, as it would be ridiculous to just go around looking for tables with 7 fish and 1 shark. I also only seem to have this leak in cash games: in tournaments and SnGs, I always play my best regardless of the texture of the table. But the bottom line right now is that I play worse when the table is full of fish and I feel like there's nobody "keeping an eye on me". Keep in mind I'm not actually consciously thinking these things, but I know it's what's going on in the back of my head while I'm playing.So I'm wondering if anyone else has ever experienced this, and if so, what did you do to overcome it?

Link to post
Share on other sites

Loosening up against bad players isn't necessarily a bad thing. Against really bad players you can probably play about 90% of your hands from in position.The getting tilty part is a bad thing and I suffer from it as well - though typically I face that situation where it's one horrible player at the table and the rest are average. When the really bad player sucks out on you it's easy to make it personal.

Link to post
Share on other sites

Are you multi-tabling? If not, you should. If you set yourself a TAG agenda (play style for the session) and play up to 3-4 tables or so, you be playing simply based on premium and near premium hands. You'll still get sucked out on, but this may be a way you can enhance your concentration. Why? Because if you're just playing one table, the tendency, over time, is for you to slowly (and sometimes rapidly) gravitate towards the general play style of the table. Playing more tables will, as I said, probably prevent you from doing that to a certain extent. It also evens out variance.

Link to post
Share on other sites
Are you multi-tabling? If not, you should. If you set yourself a TAG agenda (play style for the session) and play up to 3-4 tables or so, you be playing simply based on premium and near premium hands. You'll still get sucked out on, but this may be a way you can enhance your concentration. Why? Because if you're just playing one table, the tendency, over time, is for you to slowly (and sometimes rapidly) gravitate towards the general play style of the table. Playing more tables will, as I said, probably prevent you from doing that to a certain extent. It also evens out variance.
I like the thinking on this. Multi-tabling has always been recommended to avoid extreme monkey tilt since you don't care SO much about every decision, but I like this addition of using it to avoid "grafishtational pull" as well.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Yes, good topic and a lot of what the OP said is true. I think playing with such poor makes you 'poker lazy' too. You start just hitting the min raise button and betting the pot because you feel you should be running the table over.I think you have to provide yourself with some variation to keep sharp. Try another game or perhaps move up a level for a few games to maintain your focus. But you're right, bad players do seem to have an ability to spread their disease.

Link to post
Share on other sites

So tough to do, but when you're playing with confidence, what you need to do is laugh off the retarded beats.Literally just laugh it off, and think to yourself about how you know you'll get that money back, because they're playing so bad.That should help you avoid tilt and keep confidence up, and when you do those two things, you will probably play better.(Just a small part of a sucessful game)

Link to post
Share on other sites
So tough to do, but when you're playing with confidence, what you need to do is laugh off the retarded beats.Literally just laugh it off, and think to yourself about how you know you'll get that money back, because they're playing so bad.That should help you avoid tilt and keep confidence up, and when you do those two things, you will probably play better.(Just a small part of a sucessful game)
total hi-jack, but I'm coming to chicago this weekend friday-sunday. staying downtown somewhere on michigan ave I think. I'll txt ya, maybe we can have a few drinks or somethin
Link to post
Share on other sites
total hi-jack, but I'm coming to chicago this weekend friday-sunday. staying downtown somewhere on michigan ave I think. I'll txt ya, maybe we can have a few drinks or somethin
Nice. I think i'm gonna be doing something saturday (maybe indiana dunes or something), but I assume we'll be back by night time, so maybe we can have some drinks or something. What you here doing? Hitting the casino's at all?
Link to post
Share on other sites
Nice. I think i'm gonna be doing something saturday (maybe indiana dunes or something), but I assume we'll be back by night time, so maybe we can have some drinks or something. What you here doing? Hitting the casino's at all?
parents decided to take us kids for the weekend since we haven't had a family trip in a few years since we all moved out. We're also going to the air show whenever day that is. Besides that, just relaxing and hanging out. During the night I usually like to leave the hotel and walk around downtown for a few hours..love that city
Link to post
Share on other sites
parents decided to take us kids for the weekend since we haven't had a family trip in a few years since we all moved out. We're also going to the air show whenever day that is. Besides that, just relaxing and hanging out. During the night I usually like to leave the hotel and walk around downtown for a few hours..love that city
I'm pretty sure it's both saturday and sunday. So pick a day, lol.But yeah, lemme know.
Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...