Success going to your head???

[MJS]

I"ve been playing poker for many years now but only really started to take it seriously in the last 18 months or so.  I"ve read many books, as we all have, but the one"s that helped me the most are without doubt the "Harrington on holdem" volumes 1 - 3 series. 

Since reading these my performances in both online and live poker seemed to be going from strength to strength, culminating in my 13th place in the Dublin APAT event (my first one).  Whilst I was disappointed to not make the final table, I was really chuffed that my game seemed to be on a new level and confidence was high.

However, in the last 2 months or so things have taken a turn for the worse.  I can"t seem to do a single thing right.  All the marginal decisions that I was getting right before are now costing me big time.  I couldn"t hit a cow"s posterior with a bango!

My question; Can success/confidence be detrimental to your game? Is a good run a precursor to a bad one by changing the way you play? Or is this just a case of fine tuning your game as you learn more?

Advice is much appreciated  
 

[FlyingPig73]

I don"t think I am qualified to give advice, but there are always swings in poker, and sometimes they are huge... You will go through patches of winning and patches of losing. When you are losing you need to lose as little as possible. Sounds straight forward I know, but its something that you need to take account of.

Also, when winning we do change our game very slightly. This may be due to confidence. You should go over your HH"s and have a look at what you were doing and what you ae now doing differently.

Have you moved up a level or two too quickly or still playing at the same tables and on the same sites....

Try to get back to basics, and that winning streak will come hurtling back....

[Swinebag]

omg
I could have written that post. (except I didn"t come 13th in Dublin - wd btw)
I, like others, have been on winning streaks and long losing streaks. My classic mistake was believing wins only come from good play and losses only come from bad luck.

I can only agree with the next post that suggests looking at HHs and level changes. By continually evaluating your play and making correct decisions you learn to enjoy the successes and ride the losses.

[dougal7878]

You"ll be glad to know that i am aptly gifted in the art of advice giving........Mart....give it up!!!!

[MJS]

I sense the fear in you Mr Donnelly.  You"re not still dwelling on all those chips you dumped off to me and my poket Kings are you???

I do analyse evey game I play, especially the hands I get knocked out on!  If anything I think I probably overdo it.  I"m glad I"m not the only one having this problem.  I"ve also noticed a bit of reverse logic in this situation.  We tend to play less when we are winning and more when losing to try and break the bad run.  Why do we do this??

Cheers
M

[Bodddders]

We all know that variance is part of poker life. I"m sure we have all been there. One month you hit every flop and manage to lay down strong hands at the right time. You cash in SNG"s one after another and Poker seems so easy. Then it comes back and bites you. You start missing every flop, eveyone outdraws you and you cant win a cent.

But I also think the standard online is getting better and better. As you have said most of us have read at least a couple of books, we buy the magazines and plough through the forums for advice and tips. Yes there are still fish swimming about but I believe they are getting harder to find.

I mainly play SNG & MTT at the $10 to $20 level and was wondering is there much of a difference in the standard of play between these stakes and say $50 to $100.

Anyone get much experience at these levels.

[hi_am_chris]

One thing to remember when moving up the levels is that the players there are not always better players, sometimes just richer players who find it too boring playing lower levels. Obviously you are going to get better players aswelll though

[mal666]

My question; Can success/confidence be detrimental to your game?
 
[/quote]
it certainly was for me.i qualified for the ept season 2 on pokerstars for 30fpps.
www.pokerstarsblog.com/2006/02/getting-real-in-deauville.html
anyway i went on to finish in 15th place in the main event,my confidece went through the roof as u could imagine.but with my newfound wealth/confidence i then went onto record my worst 5 months results id ever had.
but i realised what was happening took a step back(almost like looking over my own shoulder)and basically forced myself to play abc poker until i was sure id got the monkey off my back.anyway it worked and i was soon back to winning ways.

[monkeyman]

I find the best way of retaining confidence is to use a number of different sites. If you"re doing badly on one, give up and try a different one. I"ve got 12 differents sites downloaded on my computer and although I tend to rotate around a handful of favourites (Betfair,Pokerstars,Partypoker/Empire) if none of these are producing the goods, I"ll play somewhere else for a while.

[KingPoker]

Depends what you play in all honesty.

If its cash then if your on a losing session for more than a coupe of days then some would say its variance but more than likely its your game thats at fault.

If your losing repeatedly analyse your game, yes you may have lost with ur race with JJ against AK but was there a need for it to go to a showdown could you have limped in/flat called the raise to get away from a flop containing an A or K?

You cant simply put a bad run down to bad luck, your game is never going to improve otherwise if you simply say oh well i played as best i could and just got unlucky, did you though?

There is normally something you could have done to avoid a certain outcome in poker and my suggestion would be if you look back over your Hand History for key turning points in an MTT and post them on the Blonde Hand Analysis board and see how some of the big MTT winners on there would have played it.

As you said though its only only in the last 2/3 months that your poker has taking a turn for the worse so im sure it wont be long before your game gets back on track but just never forget to analyse your plays and exits/wins in tourneys, what did you do that made you win/lose/make money.

Do your homework is my advice, and as you have gone through the process of reading a lot of the literature to improve your game previously i can see you being willing to put the time in for anlaysis (havent proof read this and have a feeling i have used the word analysis a lot).

Good Luck and WD in ireland.

[kinboshi]

Depends what you play in all honesty.

If its cash then if your on a losing session for more than a coupe of days then some would say its variance but more than likely its your game thats at fault.

I"ve been on a losing streak far longer than a few days on a few occasions in cash games.  I was getting my money in with the best hands and then getting shafted by variance.  AA v KK busted three times in one session - losing four times my initial stack on the last occasion (and therefore negating 6 hours of relatively good and productive play).

Of course, I made mistakes and my play wasn"t perfect, but variance can certainly affect your cash game for more than a couple of days.

[swordfish]

Of course, I made mistakes and my play wasn"t perfect, but variance can certainly affect your cash game for more than a couple of days.

Agree completely, variance can cause downswings to last for way longer than a couple of days!

I like the recommendation to post hand histories online, I"d recommend the 2+2 forums for that.

[KingPoker]

Depends what you play in all honesty.

If its cash then if your on a losing session for more than a coupe of days then some would say its variance but more than likely its your game thats at fault.

I"ve been on a losing streak far longer than a few days on a few occasions in cash games.  I was getting my money in with the best hands and then getting shafted by variance.  AA v KK busted three times in one session - losing four times my initial stack on the last occasion (and therefore negating 6 hours of relatively good and productive play).

Of course, I made mistakes and my play wasn"t perfect, but variance can certainly affect your cash game for more than a couple of days.

Ok if i change my argument to MTT"s then it rings true. 90% of the time you either could have accumulated chips in an earlier hand to prevent a situation like an outdraw not meaning exiting the tourney, or played a flop with the AA and possibly got away from it.
There is always a different way a MTT hand or previous hand could/should have been played which could affect the final outcome.
Variance may last longer than a couple of days, maybe a week/month whatever but there is always a method of playing a hand which can minimise its affect!
I just think its all to easy to blame "luck".

[Jon MW]

Depends what you play in all honesty.

If its cash then if your on a losing session for more than a coupe of days then some would say its variance but more than likely its your game thats at fault.

I"ve been on a losing streak far longer than a few days on a few occasions in cash games.  I was getting my money in with the best hands and then getting shafted by variance.  AA v KK busted three times in one session - losing four times my initial stack on the last occasion (and therefore negating 6 hours of relatively good and productive play).

Of course, I made mistakes and my play wasn"t perfect, but variance can certainly affect your cash game for more than a couple of days.

...
there is always a method of playing a hand which can minimise its affect!
I just think its all to easy to blame "luck".

You can keep the pot size small to minimise the effect of bad luck because it means that you lose less if you"re outdrawn - but that"s not necessarily good poker.

For example if after the flop you have bottom pair and your short stacked opponent goes all in - but - you put him on 2 overcards to the (non flushing, non straightening) board (eg AK or AQ), wouldn"t you call?

You"re about 75% favourite to win the pot, you have to call if you trust your judgement - but if he pairs one of his overcards that"s just bad luck, and the only way you would have been able to play it to avoid the damage would have been to fold when you were a massive favourite to win the pot.

Is this what you would advocate?

[KingPoker]

Depends what you play in all honesty.

If its cash then if your on a losing session for more than a coupe of days then some would say its variance but more than likely its your game thats at fault.

I"ve been on a losing streak far longer than a few days on a few occasions in cash games.  I was getting my money in with the best hands and then getting shafted by variance.  AA v KK busted three times in one session - losing four times my initial stack on the last occasion (and therefore negating 6 hours of relatively good and productive play).

Of course, I made mistakes and my play wasn"t perfect, but variance can certainly affect your cash game for more than a couple of days.

...
there is always a method of playing a hand which can minimise its affect!
I just think its all to easy to blame "luck".

You can keep the pot size small to minimise the effect of bad luck because it means that you lose less if you"re outdrawn - but that"s not necessarily good poker.

For example if after the flop you have bottom pair and your short stacked opponent goes all in - but - you put him on 2 overcards to the (non flushing, non straightening) board (eg AK or AQ), wouldn"t you call?

You"re about 75% favourite to win the pot, you have to call if you trust your judgement - but if he pairs one of his overcards that"s just bad luck, and the only way you would have been able to play it to avoid the damage would have been to fold when you were a massive favourite to win the pot.

Is this what you would advocate?

Im not advocating laying down the best hand at all here, yes he has a 25% chance of hitting but its not bad luck its simply a 1 in 4 statistical possibility.

And thats what ppl sometimes forget, its not "bad luck"! Its people who believe in luck that are usually the ones red in the face suffering from tilt!

My counter argument to yours jon would be that unless this was very early on in the tournament you should be looking to be agressive and be stealing blinds/antes so when a shortstack does do something like this, you should be freerolling with your call anyway.
If you win great, more chips- if you lose, back to where you were maybe 20 minutes ago.

Like i said your mistake doesnt have to be made on the hand you currently playing, it could have been two/three rounds ago when you had the chance to steal chips to freeroll against a shortstack, am i making sense?