O-Poker

I think I have been in a "funk" for a while. Looking back, I don't think I was playing that well and I was letting the bad beats affect me way too much. I think I have finally turned the corner after refocusing. I was up 4 1/2 buy-ins last night and only played 2 tables at the same time for a couple of hours. I lost a huge pot with AA vs KQs after we got all in on the flop and he caught his flush on the turn, but I bounced right back. I didn't change how I was playing and I won that money back in no time.

A couple of days ago, I decided I needed a new attitude - to get back into my old way of thinking. I think I was trying too hard to win every hand and outplay everyone else at the table without taking into consideration all of the information (my reads) that I had.

One example of my poor play - I was pretty sure that a guy had 2nd pair and made a few big bets to get him to lay the hand down. He called my bets all the way and won the hand with 2nd pair. If I took the time to think about it, I should have just folded. The guy was a calling station that never folded anything. I tried to outplay him because I thought that he should lay down that hand instead of taking advantage of his play in a more ideal situation.

So over the last couple of days, I started playing only 1 table and paying attention to all of the player's styles. I challenged myself to put every player on a hand range before I made any bets and to make the most optimal plays based on what I thought the other players had. I started asking myself what I should do on every street to maximize my profits, keep the pot small if I thought there was only a slight possibility of being ahead, and make the big laydowns when I knew I was beat.

Things seem to be clicking again.

I think playing good is like playing bad. Depending on your attitude, at times they both seem to exponentially feed upon themselves. Sometimes when you are playing bad and lose in a couple of spots, you start doing things you might not have done in the past. When you are playing good, you start to have more confidence in your reads which feeds into you playing even better.

I am going to stick with playing two tables of 2/4 NL (over bankrolled) for a little while and keep challenging myself to play my best game every minute that I am playing. I think I will keep playing below my bankroll for a little while so that the swings won't bother me. I am pretty sure that I have turned the corner and am back on track.