Greetings from a new member,
I played two games against two very different opponents on Pokerstars this afternoon. My first game was against a random player as I did no research whatsoever and didn't know him/her. It was a 6.25 turbo HU sit and go. Unfortunately, I later discovered he was a +14% winner at av stake of $10. Fortunately, my second game (10.50 regular HU) had a much different outcome; my opponent reminded me of the passive player in the Skates1 video.
Anyway, I started my first game playing an extremely aggressive and sneaky opponent. He was playing the way I wanted to play, only with more aggression than I usually demonstrate. Between losing blinds, folding before showdown, and calling with losing hands, I lost nearly half my stack. The blinds went from 10/20 to 15/30 and I made a couple seriously stupid decisions.
This has happened before and is a huge hole in my game. When I feel like my chips are withering on the vine and my opponent is stealing too much (or just betting very often for whatever reason), I often overreact and start reraising heavily preflop with marginal showings. Likewise, I tend to push all-in with marginal hands or sometimes air on non-descript boards. I'm much more prone to this behavior on turbo games with rapidly escalating blinds and more aggressive opoonents.
Of course, intellectually I know I'm making an irrational choice, and panicking is simply compounding an unfortunately situation. Over time these decisions are very costly and I need to plug this hole. The two things I need are strategies for playing in this situation and emotional control. I know I can implement the second part, but I have to educate myself to properly deal with the first issue.
Any feedback is greatly appreciated,
Jeffrey (2nd time poster and sometimes long-winded)
I think you need to step back and breathe a little. Poker isn't like an arm wrestling match where the stronger guy is going to win every time. You beat poker by playing well consistently over a big sample. Everything in between is just a weighted coinflip that can go either way.
I definitely wouldn't go out of my way to play against solid players, but if one joins you there is no need to panic. Even if he is better than you you will probably still beat him ~45% of the time. It is the nature of the game.
As far as your chips dwindling down, it really just depends on the flow of the cards and the opponent. Even if you are playing perfectly this will happen sometimes. There is no need to spaz out and try to get them back quickly. Just take your time, play the best you can, and improve your game as much as possible and the results will eventually follow.
Greetings xSCWx,
Thank you for reading my post and providing me with some feedback. Your points make good intuitive sense and appear relatively straight forward. For one thing, I need to get a better perspective on what many people refer to as 'variance.' Yes, I'm placing way too much emphasis on specific games or groups of games instead of having a long term perspective.
This lack of a long term perspective has crippled me in several ways. Not only does it negatively affect me in the scenarios I referenced above (e.g. panicking with small stack and increasing blinds), but it also has a negative influence on table selection and bankroll considerations. For example, I find myself playing negative progression by increasing stakes after losing games. This forces me to play against more skilled opponents (like you) for more money. So, as you said, I need to take my time and worry about playing well - - irrespective of the normal swings experienced by all players.
Thank you,
Jeffrey