Success going to your head???

[Jon MW]

It was a crapshoot - everybody was shortstacked.

But that aside, if you have a lot of chips and your opponent has a lot of chips and you"re a massive favourite for the pot there should be nothing to stop you trying to get all their chips. If they played badly enough to put all their chips in when behind - you should try and nab them.

I"ve stated elsewhere that I think luck and probability are just different ways of describing a similar concept so it"s neither here nor there what description you use.

But you seem to suggest that if you get damaged by losing a hand like this you have made the mistake earlier by not getting more chips - my suggestion is that not only should the relative chip sizes be irrelevant but that you aren"t losing out because of a mistake you"ve made - you"re losing out because of a mistake your opponent has made.

There isn"t anything you can do stop them making mistakes and getting lucky however well you play (and vice versa - but obviously we don"t make mistakes like that )

[kinboshi]

There are occasions when you can just be unlucky (or lucky).  You have QQ, flop comes Qxx, you stick a decent bet in and get called.  The K on the turn is a great card if your opponent has AK, but once the chips go in and they turn over KK...

Not much you can do about that one.  If you"re the one with the kings - you"re laughing.  If you"re the one with the queens, you have to tap the table, smile and say "NH" (probably through gritted teeth).

I get what KP is saying though.  You can "choose" when to go to war, to make sure you"re in the best shape for when the "luck" isn"t on your side, or to make the most when it is.

[MJS]

I agree that you should pick your spots very carefully but sometimes the choice you have is a no-brainer and you have to stick your chips in.  I had a situation a couple of weeks ago in a live home game (7 players).  I was second to act and picked up pocket Kings.  The player to my left made a verbal declaration to the player UTG saying "if you go all in then I will call".  The player UTG thought about it for a while and proceeds to move all in.

I don"t see how I can fold, he has me covered so I call.  The player to my left also calls, everybody else folds.  The UTG player turns over AK o/s and the player to my left had a junk hand and just wanted to gamble during a re-buy period.  As you can guess the Ace came on the flop.

Now, although this was during a re-buy period (so of course you call with Kings), I don"t see how this makes any difference.  I would do the same in an APAT or any other event.  If the other guy has Aces then good luck to him.  My point is that sometimes your "choices" are far from that.  You can"t go deep in a tournament without sticking your neck on the line in an unfavourable situation at least once, unless the deck is constantly hitting you in the face.

[nosey-p]

This thread is turning into a bad beat post

[Jon MW]

Getting back (vaguely at least) to the original post - do people get the impression that they get more bad luck after a big result?

Or is any slump after a big cash or win just down to the other reasons already mentioned - over confidence, for example.

[Bodddders]

Getting back (vaguely at least) to the original post - do people get the impression that they get more bad luck after a big result?

Or is any slump after a big cash or win just down to the other reasons already mentioned - over confidence, for example.

You"ll have to help me here. Whats a big result?  

I"ll let you know after the weekend (lol)

[MJS]

Apologies for the bad beat story, I was just trying to make a point.

Since my original post, and much analysis I think I"ve found something else which is having an effect.  I think that as you find your skills, and results, improving you tend to open up your range of starting hands to try and make the most of your new skills.  I guess there may be a certain amount of arrogance in the thinking you can outplay people after the flop more often.  This leads inevitably to getting yourself into more trouble and cashing less.

Back to basics I think.

Thanks for people"s help on this.  See you all in Luton.

[hi_am_chris]

Totally agree with the last post, success breeds confidence but maybe too much success too soon breeds over confidence and arrogance. I think as your learning the game its a phase you need to go through as it will help you look at your game and analyse it and see that your now starting to play too loose and tone your game down a bit. The flip side of the coin is that when you start to go through a losing streak you maybe starting calling when before you would have raised with bigger hands and folding when you could be calling (possibly with a small pair pre flop) which leads you to play too tight and then obviously you dont pick up chips easy enough at the start of tournaments, get bullied off pots and leave tournaments without really ever doing anything

[KingPoker]

Apologies for the bad beat story, I was just trying to make a point.

Since my original post, and much analysis I think I"ve found something else which is having an effect.  I think that as you find your skills, and results, improving you tend to open up your range of starting hands to try and make the most of your new skills.  I guess there may be a certain amount of arrogance in the thinking you can outplay people after the flop more often.  This leads inevitably to getting yourself into more trouble and cashing less.

Back to basics I think.

Thanks for people"s help on this.  See you all in Luton.

mate, i certainly didnt think of this as a bad beat thread at all.

And yes i certainly come to the problem of opening up range of hands after winning a big pot, i didnt truly realise this til my mate was railing me on a final table while speaking to me on msn and obviously playing the game but telling him my hole cards pre flop and it wasnt until he literally said look at the hand your playing now thati realised id loosened up so much after winning a nice sized pot i was paying a lot of hands like 5 7 and 6 8 soooooted.
Now when im in a tourney and i win a decent pot my mind always goes back to that thought of realising i was playing junk and that keeps me tighter (ish).

GL in Luton and see you there

KP

[Jon MW]

Getting back (vaguely at least) to the original post - do people get the impression that they get more bad luck after a big result?

Or is any slump after a big cash or win just down to the other reasons already mentioned - over confidence, for example.

You"ll have to help me here. Whats a big result?  

...

Funnily enough I was thinking about what a "big" result meant for me and it is more to do with its significance then it"s size or prestige. So significant result would probably be a clearer way of describing it.

Not only will what different people find significant be different, but what you find significant yourself will change over time. For example, the first significant result I had was my first online MTT win (a $3 rebuy) - but I wouldn"t find that significant now. Whereas because I"ve only played about 10 live MTTs and I haven"t won one yet - any final table in one would still be significant to me.

And it is those big (for you) results that can shake up your game a bit, but I also think that luck is out to get me after each of them as well

[AdamSkylark]

In regards to have good streaks and suddenly not being able to do a thing right I know about that. I"ve just gotten over a 2 month losing streak where seemingly everything I did was destined to be beat. I even wrote to pokerplayer magazine at the start of this unlucky streak as I was consistantly bubbling in tournaments. Thankfully the cards seem to make sense again and My pocket kings are no longer losing to 92 suited on a regular basis. WAHEY

[IHASTHENUTS]

Standard.

Ive seen people win upto 800k in one year, only to lose it all to huge streaks by not exersizing proper bankroll managment (KEY!). The chance of you going broke if you exersize proper bankroll managment is next to zero (obviously there arent infinately small stakes but you get the idea).

Theres also the idea of GOOD TILT, we all get bad tilt, but good tilt is calling with bad odds when your running hot which obviously means you wont profit in the long run.

I have suffered huge swings, followed by tilt and destroyed my whole roll. I have let stuff goto my head I was +5k the start of this year (considering im a student thats a hella lot of money) then i spent it all, didnt  use any of it towards my roll now im building back up, cudda been playing much higher stakes right now.

But seriously, if you can say that your up overall, over a long period of time. You can analyse your game, tell yourself why you played bad and stop blaming the fish, then you are a winning player in the longrun, its not what you can achieve over the short run that counts.

Ash.

[jon_garrett]

I think most people have been through a similar situation where things go well for a while, it seems like you make the money all the time etc... What happens then as other people have alluded to is that you loosen your starting requirements, play a lot more hands in bad spots and expect to hit them or be able to outplay your opponent after the flop. When it doesn"t happen it"s called "bad luck" instead of what it is which is bad play.

Having been through this myself I found that taking time off from playing all together (maybe a month or so) allowed me to "forget" my winning streak and get back to what I was doing in the good times and quickly I started to be successful again.

One other thing I do is look back at the end of each tournament and try to pick a few key hands to review (in detail!). In particular I look at how I played them, how the other person, people played them and try to come up with an alternative scenario that would have improved the outcome from my point of view. Sometimes this may be that I think I could have won a hand I actually lost, other times it might be that I should win more or lose less. By doing this regularly I find that the same kinds of situations come up over and over again and that while there aren"t necessarily right and wrong ways to play them there are certainly better and worse. This has been invaluable to me and I find myself having better results in those situations.

Oh, and by the way, make lots of notes when doing this so you can refer to them later!

Good luck

Jon