threads13.com

I have decided to continue my psychology thang I am on. They say you write about things you are interested in and as of right poker psychology is my main squeeze. I would like to get some hands up soon so that maybe we can get some strategy discussion on here.

I find that once a poker player reaches a certain stage that his biggest limiting factor is himself. Pretty much all players can get a good general grip on strategy such that they will be able to beat games that aren’t too tough. At a certain point a player must look inward to find new leaks. I have discussed this somewhat in my Ask Why blog.

I believe two of the most common flaws I see around the forums are the “I am not weak-tight” flaw and the “I watch too much TV” flaw. These two flaws are closely related to each other and often have the same symptoms.

“I am not weak-tight!”
The “I am not weak-tight” flaw is pretty easily observed. It is one that I continue to fight all the time as well. It usually causes players to bet or raise when there is absolutely no sound strategical reason to at all.

When players first start learning to play poker they learn that a tight and aggressive game is the way to go. They hear a couple good catch phrases such as “If it is worth a call it is worth a bet” or “Raise or fold” and they are on their way!. They are naturally very concerned about not playing a passive game but they take it to such a point that they overemphasize aggression. Don’t get me wrong, this is all fine and dandy at first. It is fine to have a new player follow this strategy but, as always, there are adjustments that have to be made. Sometimes this line of thinking can start to take a negative turn and bad thoughts occur. For example, they start to think that “donks” are lesser human beings(I could write a blog about why this is generally a silly thing) and that a weak-tight player is a laughable and shameful disgrace to poker. They have a part of them deep inside that tells them that they don’t want to be one of those sad little players and they vow to always remain aggressive.

Some players get lost in this to such a degree that they can’t even fathom that they may be playing incorrectly in some spots. For these players poker can become more of a penis-comparing contest than anything. Poker is more about their ego and making themselves feel good than it is about learning and enjoying the game.

Others have some idea that they may be playing too aggressively in some situations but they have trouble coming to grips with it. They often even hear a voice in their head saying something like “I should probably check/fold but that just feels too weak.” I have seen rather accomplished posters make this comment. A play is the correct play regardless of what it “feels” like to you.

Let’s look at a clear example:

Say we have AKo on the button and it is folded to us. We are playing $1/2 NLHE with 100BB stacks. The big blind is a very loose-passive player who is playing well over 50% of his hands. He is prone to playing any A for a raise along with PP’s. He tends to call the flop with a wide variety of hands as weak as gutshots and bottom pair. He will call a couple streets with middle or bottom pair and will also tend to lose WAY too much money with top-pair with a weak kicker.

The play is to raise. We expect to make so much money from him by value betting postflop that we want to start building a pot. Also, we don’t expect him to get tricky too often that we will bet put to tough commitment decisions and our hand figures to have good equity verses his calling range.

We raise to $8 and he calls. The flop comes 875 with a flush draw that doesn’t give us a backdoor flush draw. He checks to us.

We have some overcards. We expect our opponent to call pretty much any bet. Most of the time he will have connected with this flop in some way. If he has a gutshot that isn’t paired and he isn’t dominated he has 10 outs. If he just has a pair of some sort he is unlikely to fold. If he has top-pair it will be very hard to ever get him to fold. Also, there is some possibility that he has a monster.

We have very little fold equity now or on a later street so why would you bet? Your bet would be a semi-bluff, but you have very little chance of getting a fold. If you lose the ability to find a fold your semi-bluff loses a big chunk of its power.

The play here is to check and hope to hit one of your overcards. Betting gains you nothing against this player yet you will hear many with this flaw yell that you need to bet because “he is a donk” or “checking feels weak”. Make the correct play here based on all of the information that you have. Just because aggression is good doesn’t mean that it is always the play to make. Checking this flop doesn’t make you weak-tight and doesn’t mean that your penis is smaller than other poker players who would bet this.

“I watch too much TV!”

I enjoy this one especially. This is another one that a lot of players are in denial about.

Tell you what, how many of you started playing poker after watching tournaments on TV? Let’s get a hand count!

I believe a vast majority of players have picked up poker from watching TV. This is especially true when it comes to No-Limit. A lot of players have picked up plays that work well in tournaments but don’t necessarily work well in a cash game.

Tournaments tend to have much smaller stacks than cash games. Stack sizes have a very huge role in determining the proper strategy. In short stack games TPTK is often good enough to get AI with, or at the very least play aggressively with. If the stacks are medium to deep this is often not the case.

You will see this flaw come with all sorts of different symptoms depending on the player. Sometimes you will see this with AA behind slowplayed incorrectly or you will see it with an overplaying of TPTK.

An example:

AKo on the button and this time the blind is a slightly loose and aggressive player. He will make some bluffs and bet draws. He is not too bad postflop but he is not particularly great either. This is a fairly common player to run into.

You make a raise to $8 and get a call. The flop comes A72 and the big blind bets $10 out into you.

RAISEEEEEEE!!!!!

Nope, not necessarily. There are certainly times when this is a raise but this probably isn’t the case here. Now, if we have a read that he will make this play and then proceed to call your turn all-in with a worse A then a raise is an ok play. That is the exception. A lot of times a raise will allow the player to get away from a worse ace while punishing you with his two-pair and set hands. There is too much money behind for you to feel comfortable getting all-in here so raising isn’t a good play as it sets you up for just that! This is a typical example of watching too much TV. If you watch a lot of tournament poker on TV you will often see opponents making the raise here but they often have much smaller stacks. Their flop raise will often push them all-in.*

You will often see this flaw with players raising and stealing a bit loosely. They are overestimating their postflop skill and also are underestimating their opponents’ postflop skill. Often times they are also not considering the fact that their opponents are not tight enough to make a particular steal profitable.

Many times I see players justifying plays that are incorrect because they have either seen the play on TV and are now taking it out of context and/or they have became so obsessed with aggression that they can’t imagine another way to play the hand. In order for one to become a good poker player you have to make your decisions based solely on the particular situation(and sometimes how it could affect future situations) and not on what a catch phrase or TV is telling you to do. You must always be humble and willing to learn more. **

Do not think that you are weak if you don’t constantly bet or raise. Try to understand and make the best play. Do not just try to emulate the way you saw Daniel Negreanu play AKo. Try to understand why the plays you see on TV are correct or incorrect.

* For whatever it’s worth, this could also be an example of the “I’m too weak-tight” flaw. Coincidentally, as I was writing this blog I was chatting with a poker buddy who showed me a hand much like this example where she raised. Her reasoning for it was that calling is bad. It sounds like the reason she made this raise was because of our first flaw and not for sound strategic reasons.

** It is important to note that, as is always the case with flaws, it is not always black and white what is causing you to make the mistake. There can be cases whether it is a combination of more than one flaw.

(3 votes, average: 5 out of 5)

 Loading …

This entry was posted on Thursday, September 6th, 2007 at 2:04 am and is filed under Common poker mistakes, Improving at poker, Poker Psychology, Televised Poker. 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.