'You're no good, everyone knows what you're up, everybody is so solid you can't make money, you play so predictably, other regs laugh at you and how you play'.
That last one is really the big one for me personally........ I haven't ever really heard others discuss it though so maybe it's unique to me. I think it probably stems from when I first joined Leggo, hit a big downswing, and was catching lots of lols and abuse in chat at how I played.
For some reason I took it all to heart, and I guess never really shook it off. Ever since, despite some decent winning spells, I've never really recaptured the confidence that I once had- the kind of deep confidence where doing stuff other people considered 'bad' in hands is almost a badge of honour.
I think for a decent while now, without realising it, one of my main poker priorities has been to not look stupid. Especially to the better players. In doing this, I've allowed myself to get run over, not run big bluffs, play straightforwardly with the odd spaz, and ironically probably lost much more of the respect of that type of player. I've been called a huge nit more than a few times.......
Anyway, back to my old friend cognitive behaviour therapy. It's something I learned to beat anxiety in the past, and what this poker fear is, is clearly a form of anxiety. I wrote out some affirmations, twanged an elastic band on my wrist, read them out several times, and before long was filled with complete determination not to let fear, any fear, be a factor in hands ever again!
3 hours later I'm 10 buyins to the good, with almost every big hand being fucking mental. I basically went to war, went with my first instinct 100%, and tried to really think about each spot and play as creatively as possible. I remembered that there's tons of scope to be creative with sizing- people have their ranges set up to deal with normal sized bets, so small bets and river overbets really fucks with people. Noticing our opponents' sizing is huge too, whether they are repping polarised or depolarised in certain spots, etc.
But anyway, the important thing is that I felt really happy playing again. Poker has been a chore for so long that I'd forgotten why I first enjoyed it. Read my very old blog grogheadflow.blogspot.com and there's so many fun and creative hands in there......... because I was fearless. I think I can now get back to that consistently.
Some fun hands from today:
Hand 1 - just kinda lol really, tough to explain other than his flop check weakens his range a shit ton- and I'm then obviously facing a polarised range on the river.
Hand 2 - I didn't believe his flop size into two wide players, IE with a set he'd bet smaller, so flop CC is to basically improve or CR turn. On the turn size I felt more disbelief and knew I either beat QT AQ AT type hands or can make tons of stuff fold on the river. No fear! This is actually one of the guys I was talking about whereby I've always had a complex about looking silly VS him, while he rapes me day in day out ha.
Hand 2a - Same player- again noooooo fear :-) . Logic of the hand is basically that he doesn't expect me to bet small with trips on the turn, so sees a capped range and does the usual high stakes reg thing of going ballistic. I thought me might lead turn with 6x a lot though, and just sorta read the situation well.
Hand 3 - Av it.
Hand 4 - Wouldn't stab Kx on the turn because it has showdown value. Then tries to rep either it or two pair. I'm not having it.
Hand 5 - Wide fish. Again, not having it, fear is the only reason to fold given his range (weaker than Jx checks, etc).
Hand 6 - Felt there was room for creative sizing here, so much of his range is mid pairs given original raiser is a fish, so felt like betting small for a bluff would be cool, then have to call off VS the spaz factor.
Hand 7 - A sorta semi fish, and a moral victory :-). I should fold, I suppose, was sure he had QJ though!
Hand 8 - Similar line to the AQ hand earlier. I get 55% folds on the turn CREV says, which goes with my gut feeling at the time. Sets and two pair insta get in the flop, leaving AAs and AsKo, and very rare flopped flushes. Mostly AQ and JJ just folds.
Hand 9 - Just a fun hand. PF is cool too, such a battle of wills to see who is going to have the capped range. I actually 4bet KK EP-BB today very deep too VS ElusiveMark. He 5bet and I stuck in a 6bet, intending to fold to a jam. I think that way I lose the minimum VS AA and still keep in all the weaker hands. Plus I want more credible 4bet bluffs.
Finally, I've been getting abuse off this guy since forever, so because I was feeling playful decided he needed slowrolling. Devastation though, he got there the first run, leaving me sweating the 2nd one really hard, ha.
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