Hold Em Authority - Texas Hold Em Strategy and advice for all levels of players

This is from Checkitdown, a blog about my personal poker experiences. I think it is a very important article, not just for a beginning poker player who thinks it’s all about the cards, but for the intermediate and advanced players who may be struggling with their emotions as well.

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“I recently deposited some money into PokerStars. I’ve consistently lost on PokerStars, but I used to play there when I was much less experiened and much more stupid. This time I felt like I could really take advantage of some of the fish that were swimming around out there. The first night I ended down about 15 bucks. The second night I ended down 50 bucks. I lost the first sit and go on the third day and lost what confidence I had left. At that point, I should have pulled the rest of my money out, because a lack of confidence is never found in an equation of winning.

Confidence is vital in so many different things in life; sports, academics, socially, and I believe it pertains to poker as well. I entered the next sit and go expecting to lose because of all the bad beats I’d taken and the poor plays I’d made, and that’s exactly what I did. I changed my game plan because I was afraid to get beat. I tightened up, folded a lot of very strong hands, and eventually was forced to go all in at an inopportune time. This became a pattern, and I eventually lost all my money. As stupid as it sounds, I looked to my lack of success as a result of the site I was playing on, beacuse “I can never win on PokerStars.” I am not blaming the site for forcing bad beats upon me, but when I’m up almost $8000 on one site and down $600 on another, I feel like I’m jinxed on that site.

I hated doing it, but I put more money back into UB. I feel more comfortable at that site, and in turn that gives me more confidence. The first sit and go I played, I sat down at the table feeling I was the best player there. I didn’t win, but I felt a helluva lot better about my play than I did with any of the tourneys I played on Stars.

I think one of the toughest things in poker is to remain confident even when luck isn’t on your side. Just because you are losing does not mean you are playing poorly, and when the chips continue to go in the wrong direction, it’s easy to feel you are doing something wrong.

In summary, ya gotta have confidence if you want to win at poker. If you’ve lost it, stop playing for awhile, if you’ve never had it, stop playing forever.

I believe that this article addresses a couple extra issues that I will write on in the future: staying in your comfort zone, and dealing with bad luck. Remember, this game isn’t all about the cards. If it were all about the cards, you could stick the poker tables right next to blackjack.

This entry was posted on Saturday, August 26th, 2006 at 11:19 pm and is filed under Poker Mentality. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.