4:54am: I found this article on P5s, written by Jack Welch. I think sometimes in poker we have to think outside the box for the solutions to our problems. This includes examining things outside of the game itself. This article makes a suggestion ten books that would make you a better poker playing, having read them.

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I have a theory.  Maybe just a hunch.  Call it wishful thinking even.  But I believe better people make better poker players.  Certainly, a sociopath might have an advantage where aggression is concerned.  However, when we think about long-term success across a decades-long career, poker longevity can only truly be achieved by those individuals who have their acts together.

Every poker book written by every poker expert will archly discuss the importance of such personal attributes as patience, self-discipline, psychological control.  Yet, few, if any, teach you how to acquire those traits.

The books listed here will provide an excellent base to improve your life-roll management.

1. Blink - Malcolm Gladwell

Gladwell maintains that we “blink” when we think without thinking. We do that by “thin-slicing,” using limited information to come to a conclusion. In what Gladwell contends is an age of information overload, he finds experts often make better decisions with snap judgments than they do with reams of analysis.

Sometimes we over-think things. Sometimes you just have to go with your read.

2. A New Earth: Awakening to Your Life’s Purpose - Eckhart Tolle

“Be aware that what you think, to a large extent, creates the emotions that you feel.  See the link between your thinking and your emotions.  Rather than being your thoughts and emotions, be the awareness behind them.”

3. Zen In the Art of Archery - Eugen Herrigel

Through years of practice, an activity becomes effortless both mentally and physically. The body becomes capable of executing often complex, often difficult movements without conscious control by the mind.

“The archer ceases to be conscious of himself as the one who is engaged in hitting the bull’s-eye which confronts him. This state of unconscious is realized only when, completely empty and rid of the self, he becomes one with the perfecting of his technical skill, though there is in it something of a quite different order which cannot be attained by any progressive study of the art…”

4. If - Rudyard Kipling

The first few lines of the title poem say it all.

IF you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting…

5. The Bible

The Main Event of literature as far as I am concerned.

Good for bankroll management.  “Covet not thy neighbor’s ass.”

The 23rd Psalm is always excellent to keep in mind when shoving all your chips into the middle of the table.

6. WOODEN: A Lifetime of Observations and Reflections On and Off The Court
- John Wooden

ESPN’s show “Who’s Number 1?” ranked Mr. Wooden as the greatest coach of all time in any sport. “Intensity makes you stronger. Emotionalism makes you weaker.”

7. Personal Best - George Sheehan, M.D.

I knew George Sheehan.  He was either the most normal great man I have ever encountered or the greatest normal man.  I wish I had thought to tell him that.  He would have laughed.  Modestly, of course…

“The memorable thing is not to excel against others but to excel against yourself…The real trophy is within.  The real trophy is the self.”

8. The Last Lecture - Randy Pausch

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”

Many professors give talks entitled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to reflect on what matters most to them. While they speak, each member of the audience can’t help but ponder the same question: What wisdom would I share with the world if I knew it was my last opportunity? If I dropped dead tomorrow, what would I want as my legacy?

Randy Pausch, a professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture. He didn’t have to imagine it as his last, as he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—“Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (“time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). The Last Lecture is a summation of everything Pausch had come to believe. It is about living.

9. The Secret - Rhonda Byrne

Laugh if you will.  Come to think about it, those chortling the loudest probably have the greatest need to study these concepts.

According to James Arthur Ray, there is scientific evidence to back up the spiritual practices and laws defined in The Secret. “Science tells us that everything is energy, and so your thoughts are energy. Your body, your cash, your car—everything you think is solid, if you put it under a high-powered microscope, it’s just a field of energy and a rate of vibration,” he says. “And so are we. So if you think you’re this meat suit running around, you have to think again.”

One way to describe this energy is by comparing it to radio waves, “The frequency you give out through your thoughts and your emotions is what you have a tendency to manifest in your life,” Re. Dr. Michael Beckwith adds. “Whether those thoughts and emotions are conscious or unconscious, it doesn’t matter.”

If you are sending out the same negative energy over and over—whether thoughts or feelings—you will attract similar energy back to you. Ray explains, when bad things happen people might ask, “Oh, God, why me?”

“Because it is you,” he says.

10. Collected Essays - Ralph Waldo Emerson

“What I must do is all that concerns me, not what the people think. This rule, equally arduous in actual and in intellectual life, may serve for the whole distinction between greatness and meanness. It is the harder, because you will always find those who think they know what is your duty better than you know it. It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.”

BONUS PICK!!!!

11. The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People - Dr. Stephen Covey

Habit 7.  Sharpen the Saw.

This is the habit of self-renewal, says Covey.  Self-renewal necessarily surrounds all the other habits, enabling and encouraging them to happen and grow. Covey interprets the self into four parts: the spiritual, mental, physical and the social/emotional, which all need feeding and developing.

These books - any one of them - can provide the breakthrough to move you to the next level.  In poker and in life.

Sharpen your edge.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

4:44am: Everyone can agree that there’s a specific course of events in poker that would cause them to “tilt”. For each person, that course of events and the threshold for tilting are different but the lowest common denominator is that we all tilt in some, way shape or form. Let’s be honest, we’d all be winning players if we could learn to control our emotions and not tilt, right? It’s a good thing I don’t have to answer that question because tilt will always exist for a couple of reasons (a) losing money never feels good, and (b) there is so much injustice in poker.

“How on earth can I stop from tilting?” That’s the magic question to which we’d all like a magic bullet. What is the secret to not getting angry after a bad beat? How can one reasonably be expected to control his/her emotions after a runner runner disaster for a large chunk of their bankroll?

If I could answer that question with 100% confidence, I wouldn’t need to play poker because I’d set up shop in a nice little office and play counselor all day long. My client list would be nearly infinite, as you could imagine. But seriously, I will do the best I can to put it into perspective for you and help you avoid the downward spiral, mind consuming seige that is tilt.

First off, in order to answer the questions above, we need to establish a concrete definition of tilt. For all intents and purposes, we will define tilt as “a state of mental confusion or frustration in which a player adopts a less than optimal strategy.” In fact, it almost helps if you define tilt as a temporary illness. Much the same way doctors diagnose a disease, we must diagnose the symptoms of tilt. The key here, however, is to diagnose these symptoms in the early stages so that these feelings don’t permeate into your game. This involves you being brutally honest with yourself and identify when you’re in a state of tilt. If you find yourself checking just three of these ten symptoms, then you’re probably tilting:

- An immense feeling of frustration and anger towards both the player and the game itself
- Strong desire to exact revenge or spite your opponent
- Complete loss of patience in the game you’re playing
- Trying too hard to win each hand dealt
- Second guessing every single decision made
- The concepts of table image and logic have gone totally out the door
- Chasing draws without proper odds
- Sudden bursts of unexplained and illogical aggression
- Overvaluing marginal hands
- The inability to press the fold button

All of these things can be detrimental to your game, or even worse: destroy your bankroll, or even — depending on the situation — ruin lives.

So let’s put a stop to it already, or at least try. Here are five simple suggestions from me to you that will help you stay off tilt:

1. Always, always think long term. Poker isn’t about winning the battle. It’s about winning the war. If you’re a winning player, there’s absolutely no question your results will return to form over time. Why is this so hard for people to see at the time? If that is the million dollar question, then the million dollar solution is: TRUST THE MATH. A good example of this is the swingy phenomenon of coin flips. Literal coin flips, that is. If we flip a coin 100 times, it’s completely within reason that it lands on heads 75 times out of 100 when of course the odds are exactly 50%. Let’s take that same coin and flip it 900 more times, totaling 1,000 flips. This time, heads is only slightly ahead of tails (513 to 487 - 51.3% to 48.7%).  Going even further, let’s flip the coin 10,000 times. This time, the number of heads outcomes are eerily close to the number of tails outcomes — (5,023 to 4,977 - 50.23% to 49.77%). Point being, as the number of flips increases infinitely, the closer the percentages will gravitate towards either other, eventually totally leveling out at 50 percent within fractions of decimal points.

It’s important to just recognize that when you’re running bad you are just caught in one of these deviations (see the first 100 flips), and that it will eventually come to an end. Like we’ve discussed before, the best solution is volume. But equally as important as volume is maintaining your composure during these times and realize that mathematics doesn’t always take the same path, but it always, always leads to the same point — no matter how you slice the pie. Put every single ounce of trust left in your body on the mathematics of poker. I promise it will even out for you over time. When? It could take a while, but hang in there. That’s why long term thinking is the key to success.

2. Learn to let go. You need a break. It’s extremely important to recognize when you’re in the beginning stages of tilt so to avoid anything totally devastating happening. I can’t tell you how many times (in my past) that I ignored this advice, and found myself thinking “things can’t get worse”. Things can always get worse, and I cannot stress that enough. A good friend of mine once told me (and it’s so true): “when you play to get even, you get even worse”. It’s time to let go and swallow your pride when you feel even three of those ten symptoms creeping in. You’ve lost, get over it. It’s perfectly normal to lose.

3. Find a healthy way to express your anger. Some of this might sound a little crass, but that’s only because we all have different ways of expressing anger. Get a punching bag. Masturbate. Go punt a football 40 yards outside. Cry, if you have to. The idea here is to not keep the anger bottled up and to express it in a way that’s not going to hurt anybody physically or mentally. If you keep these hostile feelings inside, you’re going to feel a permanent resentment towards poker (which is where I believe the term “perma-tilt” came from.)

4. Be happy you got the money in good (if bad beats are causing you to tilt). Fish pay your bills. I know that it’s a very pride swallowing thing on nights where you constantly get the money in good, only to lose to runner runner and miracle cards over and over and over again — only to have your -35% roi opponent (who think he’s a genius) taunt you in the chat. Rejoice during times like these. Don’t get angry. Be happy that (a) poker is still a very beatable game because (b) people keep putting their money in bad. And for re-assurance about when that will turn around, see point #1.

5. Remember that it happens to everyone. You lost $300 tonight, and it seems like the complete end of the world, right? To that, I say: no it’s not, and misery loves company. Open up a $200/$400 NL cash game table and watch people lose Plasma TVs, Cars, and even HOMES in these games. Seeing someone lose a $140,000 pot on a two outer on the river suddenly puts things into perspective for you. Maybe things aren’t that bad? Like I said before, it can always get worse. Always.

6. Detach yourself from the results. This is perhaps the hardest of the six suggestions, but it’s completely necessary in order to avoid going on tilt. Everyone likes to win, and most poker players are very competitive people, but there comes a point where winning can mean TOO much to you. We hear the term “results oriented” a lot, and this is where that phrase comes into play. Don’t worry about the outcome of one particular hand. Worry about the outcome of the same hand ran 100, 1000, and 10,000 times, which ties back into long term thinking. Complete emotional attachment might be asking too much, but I definitely think it’s completely reasonable for you to not care AS much when you happen to get unlucky. It’s just a game.

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Another suggestion is to look up some bad beat videos on youtube (there’s tons). One of the most important things to remember when you’re on tilt is that you’re not alone — thousands of people are having the exact SAME problem as you at the exact same moment. Yes, they are getting two outed. Yes, they took a runner runner beat tonight. And yes, they keep getting counterfeited when they flop two pair and their opponent calls them down. Watching videos of this happening to other people re-assures that it’s not just some conspiracy against you and your account. Variance in poker is real, and it happens to everyone. No exceptions.

Someone once told me that it’s the little things that count so here are a few small suggestions in order to avoid falling into the downward spiral: (a) if you have a gym membership, go work out. Kill two birds with one stone: improve your body and get the pent up frustration out of your system. (b) a very cold/hot shower — very underrated as a means of refreshing your mind set. (c) surround yourself with people who ground you and are a calming force in your life. It’s important not to be alone during these times, because when this happens sometimes you spend too much time in your head instead of in the presence of other human beings.

I could literally go on all night, as this is a topic that I’m very familiar with. While these suggestions aren’t for everyone, hopefully I’ve put a creative spin on at least one thing that you will take from this article that will take you one step closer to solving this huge problem that many people have.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

10:03pm: With me finally getting completely settled into my brand new home, with my brand new office, I have finally been able to dedicate the time necessary into putting in some serious volume heads up. Join me, why don’t you? — in becoming a complete heads up machine (that is, if your desire is to do this for a living). We’ve been preaching volume, volume, and more volume for quite some time, but it feels like the weight of the world on your shoulders everyday when you feel like you have to play 20+ games. Being as such, it would be beneficial if we invented some sort of routine/program to follow in order to break it down and seem like less of a burden.

So let’s do this: committ to playing 24 heads up sit n gos a day, 5 days a week. Break each day into eight segments consisting of three games a piece. Play each segment however you’d like. Take as many breaks in between each segment as you need, and play them whenever you’d like. The only catch is that you must play the required eight segments each day. This includes times when you go 6-0 in your first two segments and you don’t want to “ruin” your unblemished record by continuing, so you decide to stop for the day. No, you are not allowed to do that. No matter how you cut it, you are going to play eight segments of three games per day.

Here is a link to a sample spreadsheet I am using to keep track of these segments.

So why this method? What does it change? How does it help you?

Well, it does a few things:

• Keeps your thoughts/mindset encapsulated, meaning you only worry about the present, and not the past or the future
• It prevents the player from taking a results-oriented approach
• It keeps things in perspective because it gives variance a fighting chance of evening out
• It’s a completely organized, streamlined approach and is much more business-like than just randomly playing games whenever one feels like it.
• It will allow you to follow a regulated schedule, which makes the process seem much more like a job and less like gambling.
• Each segment is a fresh start. When you go 0-3 in one segment, the next is a new chapter in which you are entitled to forget that the chapter before it even existed.

The three game segment approach also yields a forced result. There are no ties. There are four different outcomes:

• 3-0
• 2-1
• 1-2
• 0-3

If you’re anything like me, you’d consider 75% of those results “managable”. The only one of the four you REALLY don’t want to see is 0-3. Anything else should be considered acceptable results. Even if you finish 0-3 in any of your segments, that’s ok — that’s why you play eight of them.

Another thing you should note is that I have chosen Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday as the days dedicated to playing my sessions. These days were specifically chosen and hand-picked, based on the days of the week which were most profitable, as determined by Sharkscope. If you’d like to find out which days of the week are most profitable for you, simply click your name and then “More Options” and then “Graph Results By..” and then “Day of the Week”. Choose your days wisely, as I have. You can even choose to play the hours of the day which are also most profitable for you. Relying on this data also assumes that you have a relatively large sample size, or else the data is meaningless. 1000 heads up matches should be a large enough sample size to yield the information you need in regards to this.

Remember, heads up sngs are nothing more than mindset tweaks and making self-psychological manipulations in order to keep yourself grounded, and to keep the results steady, upward, and consistent. Implementing this organized approach is a big step into getting serious about heads up sngs for some serious extra cash, if not for a living.

Start a Clean Slate at a New Room, a New Sharkscope, and Keep HFL Free in the Process

2:17pm: This is a VERY helpful article I found regarding discipline in poker (or the lack thereof). This should be required reading for anyone even thinking about playing heads up for a living. Enjoy.

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Playing winning poker is a bit like a tree, everything begins at the roots and branches out from there. Unfortunately few players realize this, so when a person identifies a problem, too often they hack away at the branches, instead of going to the roots.

In written storytelling, sometimes writers develop writer’s block — they just can’t figure what to do next. Experienced writers though realize that the problem is not right “there” where they are blocked, but at some point earlier in their story. Driving on the Los Angeles freeways, you sometimes run into a traffic jam. However, your problem as a driver is almost always not the jam itself, but one stemming from “roots” of poor route planning, poor monitoring of radio traffic channels, and so on. Poker is very much the same.

Force yourself someday to listen to some bad beat stories. Almost all bad beat stories involve a player making a mistake — frequently it’s checking the flop with the aim to checkraise. While the storyteller’s point is the “bad beat”, what they really should be focusing on the root of the beat, a risky or incorrect play early in the hand.

Listen when someone discusses a flaw in his or her game. If you analyze the flaw objectively, the person’s problem is almost always not the apparent, surface flaw. The true problem exists one or two or ten steps earlier in the player’s overall game.

Winning players should constantly evaluate their play — what they do well, what they do merely adequately, what they do below average, and possible ways to improve on all three. One great thing about poker is there are so many variables, so many skills and tactics we can tinker with to attempt to get a better result. But all these stem from one great root.

Some people have called game selection, or table selection, the most important of all poker skills. Find the game most suited to your abilities, play in it, and beat it. Okay, that’s important, but even that’s trivial compared to the key root of winning poker.

The very most important skill a player needs to manage is not math, it’s not reading opponents, it’s not good starting hand selection, it’s not a solid game plan, it’s… self-control!

It doesn’t do you any damn good at all if you know you shouldn’t play above your bankroll, if you then do; it’s no good to know you shouldn’t tilt, if you then do; it’s no good to know you shouldn’t play 72o in Holdem, if you do anyway; it’s no good to know your play deteriorates to the point that you are a losing player after nine consecutive hours, if you continue to play after that time; and on and on and on…

Poker isn’t just a game of the moment. When you deal with regular opponents, you should be setting the groundwork for many strategic plays minutes, hours and even months before you pull the trigger on them. Likewise, every action you are doing now should be the result of a solid foundation of previous actions. Each step along a ladder that leads you to an action should be taken with self-control and a proper attitude. Play a game or games you are good at, have a well-considered basic strategy, have as a goal that you want to be a winning payer, find a limit you are adequately bankrolled for, play hands with a positive expectation, keep your butt in the seat only so long as you play nearly optimally, select individual games that suit you, don’t let one day’s poor results allow your emotions to put you on tilt, and so on. With these in place, each individual action you then take will be rooted in a solid, sensible foundation.

All other poker skills, tactics and strategies run through discipline. Every bit of winning strategy and brilliant philosophy must be applied or it’s almost worthless. No other knowledge matters if you don’t practice self-discipline and use what you know. There is no way to discipline. Discipline is the way.

If you want to be a successful, reasonably happy player, work on your self-control first — and I mean work on it first every single day. Nothing compares.

1:54am: In my never ending quest to improve the site, I have implemented another change.

This time I’ve added something called “share this post”. This is a button added at the bottom of each post so that if you find the post interesting and relevant to you or any of your friends, you can now click the “share this post” button and can import any/all of your friends from multiple IM clients and social neworking sites. This is a very handy tool, instead of having to copy and paste the URL or the whole article itself, open your web mail client, compose a brand new email, paste it and press send. It also helps spread the word about HFL to others who have not seen our site yet.

All in all, I think this is a very nice feature, as it’s now easier for you to tell your friends about our site and our useful articles.

Keep HFL Free

1:43am: Although not often enough, sometimes you come across a hand and a board so beautiful that you know you’re going to get paid off no matter what. The way this hand played out also illustrates the deceptiveness of not raising with aces in heads up sit n gos.

Here is a picture of the board (before any betting on the river card took place) in a hand that I played 20 minutes ago, as well as the corresponding hand history — followed by the hand history of the last significant hand. The reason the previous hand is important is because I wanted my opponent to think (on this hand) that I was upset about having to fold in the previous hand, so I basically mimicked his actions from the previous hand. I felt like he wouldn’t take me seriously because (a) I didn’t raise pre flop, therefore the likelihood of me having an ace was less and (b) since I basically mirrored his actions on the previous hand, I felt like he wouldn’t take me seriously.

Previous Hand:

Seat 1: smokinmoon (1410 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (1590 in chips)
trujm: posts small blind 15
smokinmoon: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [5s Ts]
trujm: calls 15
smokinmoon: checks
*** FLOP *** [Tc 9c 4c]
smokinmoon: checks
trujm: checks
*** TURN *** [Tc 9c 4c] [4s]
smokinmoon: checks
trujm: bets 60
smokinmoon: raises 60 to 120
trujm: folds
Uncalled bet (60) returned to smokinmoon
smokinmoon collected 180 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 180 | Rake 0
Board [Tc 9c 4c 4s]
Seat 1: smokinmoon (big blind) collected (180)
Seat 2: trujm (button) (small blind) folded on the Turn

Current Hand:

Seat 1: smokinmoon (1500 in chips)
Seat 2: trujm (1500 in chips)
smokinmoon: posts small blind 15
trujm: posts big blind 30
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to trujm [As 5d]
smokinmoon: calls 15
trujm: checks
*** FLOP *** [Ah 9d Ac]
trujm: checks
smokinmoon: checks
*** TURN *** [Ah 9d Ac] [Jd]
trujm: checks
smokinmoon: bets 30
trujm: raises 60 to 90
smokinmoon: calls 60
*** RIVER *** [Ah 9d Ac Jd] [Ad]
trujm: bets 1380 and is all-in
smokinmoon: calls 1380 and is all-in
*** SHOW DOWN ***
trujm: shows [As 5d] (four of a kind, Aces)
smokinmoon: shows [9h Jc] (a full house, Aces full of Jacks)
trujm collected 3000 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 3000 | Rake 0
Board [Ah 9d Ac Jd Ad]
Seat 1: smokinmoon (button) (small blind) showed [9h Jc] and lost with a full house, Aces full of Jacks
Seat 2: trujm (big blind) showed [As 5d] and won (3000) with four of a kind, Aces

This “over betting with the goods” tactic works very well, in my experience. I knew he either (a) had a jack, (b) slowplayed KK or QQ, or (c) hit a flush on the river. If it’s scenario (a), then he might think that I also had a jack and that I didn’t want to chop the pot, so I would put him to a decision in an attempt to win the whole thing. If it’s scenario (b), then he would know the only thing that beats him realistically is quads, and he would have no choice to pay it off. In this scenario, it would also be hard to put me on an ace since I didn’t raise pre flop. If it’s scenario (c), then I believe I’m actually better off over betting the pot than putting in a small value bet, as people are more likely to perceive over bets as extreme strength or extreme weakness, which would give me a crying chance at him not buying what I’m selling. All things considered, I felt the play here was to go all in, as the “implied odds”, so to speak, of me getting paid off on this hand was relatively high.

Thankfully, I was right as the most likely scenario (a) turned out to be the case and I was able to get paid off.

12:25pm: One of the most common questions I get asked on a daily basis is:

How do you know when to call in tough situations?

The thing is, in some cases I don’t - that is, until I take a second and think about the situation. By and large, one of the biggest mistakes I see people make in poker is to act on impulse, without much logical thought. I’m not saying you have to play Sherlock Holmes and recall every single detail of the hand. However, it is sometimes very beneficial to get into the habit of pausing 10 seconds before every tougher-than-normal situation you make.

What this does is forces you to think about whether your gut instinct has any kind of logical substance to it at all. For example, the other night while at Harrah’s New Orleans for a 2-5 NL session, I almost folded the winning hand. I had AsJc in the cutoff and there was an ace exposed pre flop, which happened to make the hand a lot more complicated than it normally would be. I raised to $30 (standard raise at Harrah’s New Orleans), hoping to take it down right there but was called the guy on the button.

The flop was: Ad Kh 3d

At this point, I usually make a decision whether I think the hand is good, and if I believe it is, then I’m going to play the whole hand under the assumption that I’m ahead. I decide the hand is good (due to the exposed preflop ace) and the fact that I was relatively sure the guy wouldn’t call a preflop raise with A3 or K3. Taking all that into consideration, I fire out $50 on the flop and the guy on the button doesn’t think very long before calling. At this point, I was torn 50/50 between whether he had a king or a flush draw. Either way, I was pretty sure he was weak because quick calls usually indicate weakness, as people who do this usually want you to stop betting.

The turn: 8s

At this point, I’m thinking that the guy is thinking that I probably don’t have an ace because of the one that was exposed preflop, so I felt like if I bet he would call me with an inferior hand. In addition to this, if he happens to have a draw, I don’t want to let him draw for free. Having said that, I would also like to leave myself room to get away from the hand if the guy completes his draw, so I fire out $75 on the turn and was indeed called by the gentleman. At this point, I’m a little bit more convinced that it’s a flush draw than a king because I had been playing with this man for over 4 hours, and he didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who would stick around this long by just calling with middle pair.

The river: Kc

This was the worst card in the deck for me because I knew that if I checked it to him, no matter what he was going to bet. If he had a flush draw, then he would probably attempt to represent the king and if he had a king, he was going to value bet his hand. If I bet, I’m probably facing a large raise and I felt like it would be more beneficial to me to check it to him because on the off chance that he did miss the draw, I could extract more value out of the hand should he decide to bet and falsely represent the king.

I did just that and checked it to the man, and as I expected he starts playing with his chips. He was taking a really long time messing with different configurations of how he was going to stack his chips and place them in the middle. At one point he had $275 stacked, ready to place in the middle but the man thinks about it for 2-3 minutes and then decides to bet $150.

My spur-of-the-moment gut instinct was to fold this hand. However, I decided to just take a second and breathe and think the hand through some more. At this point, I thought back to what kind of night the man was having. Two hours earlier, he had been called down by ace high on an attempted steal and told the man who called him, “You’re a fucking retard. Why’d you call me?” 20 minutes later that same man won an even bigger pot when he called him (all in) with bottom two when he held top two, only to suck out on him when the bottom card hit the river. At this point, I decide that a bluff at this point might indeed be possible as the guy was having a pretty bad night and probably perceives me a solid player who would make a good fold here, figuring that he had the king.

After much thought, I decided that the man had missed his flush draw and was trying to manufacture some momentum by representing that he had the king, so I called. The man dropped his head when I put the chips in the middle, and then mucked his hand.

So you see, sometimes it pays to take a second (or ten) and breathe. Had I acted on impulse, I would have folded the hand.

Keep HFL Free

11:33pm: Poker can be brutal sometimes. No, scratch that: poker can be down right evil at times. The cards don’t care if you just got two outered 3 times in a row, or if you’ve just lost 9 consecutive coin fliips. This is because the cards have no memory. They also have no mercy. Many have lost tuition, cars, homes, or even families because of the cruel nature of the game.

We all know It can be a pride swallowing, ulcer-inducing siege. Ever go through a stretch where it seems like not a single pocket pair will hold up when your opponent shoves his chips in and flips over two overcards? Ever go through a stretch where you consistently get your money in as a decided favorite, only to take a dagger in the heart when the river card strikes?

Are you losing faith in the percentages? In the game?

If this sounds like things you have thought recently, there could be multiple reasons:

• Taking too many coin flips
• Not putting in enough volume to let things “even out”
• Failing to practice “pot control”
• Our tendency as human beings to remember with greater frequency and accuracy the times of extreme misfortune rather than the times that the percentages held true.

Whatever the case, there’s no mistaking the fact that it doesn’t feel good when these times fall upon us. So how is one expected to cope in these situations? It’s definitely not easy. It takes an extremely mentally tough and mature person to endure these times.

Something that usually helps is to think of casinos. If a casino set up a blackjack table, and only dealt hands for one hour a night, it is entirely possible that the casino could have a losing night. Fortunately for them, that’s not the case as casinos have anywhere from 5-50 blackjack tables running at any given times, each dealing 5-6 hands at a time. They do this because they have to. The edge in blackjack isn’t significant enough over the course of 1 hand, 10 hands, 100 hands, or even 1000 hands to be able to say for sure that the casino will profit. However, you can say with relative certainty that after 100,000 hands that the casino will be in the black.

This is the beauty of heads up, and specifically — the beauty of playing multiple tables. When you only play one game at a time, you have to play twice as long for your variance to even out as you would if you were playing 2 tables (provided that there is no significant drop in quality of play from the added load of another table). So while poker can and will be overly brutal to you at times, no matter how you cut it - if you’re a skilled player with a significant edge over the average player: you need to at least give some serious thought into increasing the number of tables you play. Otherwise, you may not stand a fighting chance against the brutality.

2:12am: This is a very useful little article I found written by Matthew Hilger (who coincidentally wrote the first book I ever read on poker). The article talks about why it’s best to just let it go, and not always feel like you have to get even before calling it a night.

Also, tonight I’m a living example of this article, as I finished 3-8 on the day in my first losing day since the fire. I knew it was coming soon, so I’m not at all worried about it. Will be right back at it tomorrow with a positive outlook. However, for now I’m just going to let it go for the night and work on improving the website some more.

Article:

Most poker players have short-term goals. They sit down at the table and they want to win money…now! Many players suffer having to close a session with a big loss. It kills them! How often have you stayed up late at night trying to get back to even? Do you always have in the back of your mind where you stand in a given session?

Unfortunately this type of mindset will hinder quality play. Trying to get back to even is a losing proposition. This is especially true when you are sleepy. You’ll start to play a few more hands than normal hoping to hit that big hand. On the flop you might hold a weak draw but decide to go for it in hopes of hitting that one pot to get you back to even. You don’t hit on the flop so you decide, “what the heck, one more bet won’t hurt me”, and you call the turn. You end up chasing in situations that have a negative expectation. You know better, BUT you just want to go to bed with a clean slate! In many cases you just keep digging yourself a bigger hole.

For all of those who can relate to the above I have one simple piece of advise…you can always get back to even tomorrow or the day after. Poker is one long continuous game which never ends. Thinking in terms of sessions or even weeks will throw many players into a bad mood a lot of the time. To approach this game with the right mindset you must think of your results with a long-term perspective. I always like to look at my results in terms of months.

The Internet is so great because there is always a game going. When things are going bad and you feel yourself start to press hoping for that one big pot, you are probably just better off quitting and waiting until another day to get things back on track. It’s a pretty easy decision when you think about it. You can either dig yourself a bigger hole or come back another day with a fresh start. So remember, you can always get back to even tomorrow or the day after.

1:36pm: This is a pretty well written article that I found written by Jason Kirk. Just thought I’d share it with you guys.

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Sooner or later, no matter how skilled he may be, every poker player is going to hit an extended run of poor results. There are few things in poker that will test a player’s mettle more than running bad. Some melt under the pressure, even going so far as to leave the game completely. Others find that they thrive when they have to break their game down and rebuild it from the ground up. Whatever their response, everyone who runs bad inevitably questions their game and looks for a way to stop the bleeding. The most important thing to do in such a situation is to step back and make sure you’re asking yourself the right questions. If you do this, your chances of getting back on track should improve.

1. How much of your bad run is your fault?

While it isn’t a very comforting thought to someone in the midst of a losing streak, it’s very important to note that many players who think they are running bad because of poor cards are really running bad because of leaks in their game. Even worse, these may be leaks that don’t actually appear until a bad run begins. Players who find themselves unable to win can be prone to making basic mistakes because they find themselves jolted out of the mindset they maintain easily when winning. These mistakes can pile upon one another and make a bad situation even worse.

If you’re having a bad run, it’s of the utmost importance that you sit down and analyze your game in detail. This is where having access to a program like PokerTracker can come in handy. Start with your preflop hand selection and make sure you aren’t playing too many hands. Try to figure out whether or not you’re maximizing your position. Are you chasing draws without the proper pot odds? And are you making the most of opportunities to build big pots when you’re on a solid draw? Do you play too many weak or mediocre hands from the blinds? These are all holes in your game that you may not see when you’re having poor results, but which can be fixed easily. Repairing them may not stop the bad run completely, but it will go a long way toward getting you back to respectable results.

2. Do you need to step down in limits?

Bankroll management is a skill that not enough players learn - and it’s also one that can be crucial to saving your stake if you go on a bad run. Players who have built up a bankroll over time through playing in low-limit games, and then find themselves running bad in a middle-limit game they’ve grown accustomed to playing, can fall prey to a dangerous sort of pride. Even if their shrinking bankroll justifies a move down in limits to protect their stake, they feel too embarrassed to do so. They worry about what other players will say if they see them haunting the low-limit tables again, continue to play above their bankroll in the middle-limit games, and then find themselves completely broke or crippled to the point that they’re forced to move down.

Don’t make the mistake of being too proud. It’s better to step down voluntarily to a game you can crush than to be forced to because you lost all your bankroll playing above your head on a bad run. Stepping down can often be the extra cushion you need to weather the downswing you’re experiencing.

3. Are you playing the right game?

Many times a bad run can be at least partially attributed to your game selection. This can apply both to the specific game you’re playing (e.g. limit hold’em, no-limit sit-and-go tourneys, etc.) and also to choosing the right tables. The urge to “get back” when losing repeatedly can cloud your vision, leaving you stuck at an unprofitable table when there are plenty of loose, crushable games to choose from. You may also get into a rut playing your usual game that can only be done away with by playing a different game. Tournament players can be especially susceptible to this because a bad tourney streak can come about even when you’re playing well.

4. Do you need to take a break?

If you examine all the question above and find you’re still playing a solid game, usually the best answer to a bad run is simply to keep playing. Your results should even out in the long run. But if you’ve found flaws in your game, your bankroll management skills, or your game selection, sometimes the solution is simply to step away from poker for a while. This can be a painful choice for many players, but it’s also sometimes necessary. Many of the lessons we learn when playing poker don’t sink in all at once, and continuing to move forward with too much unprocessed experience in our minds can be counter-productive.

If you find yourself unable to fully concentrate, get away from the game for a while. Use the time you would normally spend playing poker to enjoy other activities. Clear your head. When you decide it’s time to come back to the game, you may just find yourself playing the best poker of your life.