How To Prevent Bad Periods In Poker
Article by: pokerhunting
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All of us have experienced bad periods in poker. Times when you feel everything is against you. Your pocket aces loose every time and you are running into pocket aces when you have pocket kings. The list can be made long.
The scary thing about these bad periods in poker is that it doesn't happen at a chosen time. For some people it could last for only a day, but for others it will last for more than two months. However, you shouldn't worry, everybody will experience the same amount of negative variance.
The people who handles these periods the best has a great advantage on players who handle it worse. Why? Well, there are a lot of players who tilt a lot when they’re in bad periods, so loosing ten buyins in a day is nothing unusual for them. Persons who handle these periods better may only loose three buyins and understand that it’s time to quit or step down in limits. That is a big difference.
Many of these persons who tilted and lost ten buyins in a day will ask them self afterwards "Was I unlucky for loosing today or what?" and of course they answer "Of course it was, I lost my two first buyins because of 2 outers!".
Ok, then I want to ask them "Ok, so how the hell did you lose the other eight buyins?". A lot of tilted players will forget about that because of the tilt. There is a big difference between loosing two buy-ins than loosing ten buy-ins. Often they just remember the times when they were outdrawn and forgets about the other eight buy-ins that they lost while being on tilt.
How is it possible to go from a winning poker player to a loosing player and then back to being a winning player again? That is a very easy answer, the tilt control. That is often the thing that differ the best players from the good players, they handle bad periods greatly.
It’s the tilt that makes the ones without tilt control loose a big part of their bankroll in a session, and they have lost most of it by playing bad, and haven’t been unlucky at all. Many players have different tolerance limits, maybe a limit of how many buyins you can lose before you start feeling uncomfortable or in other words start tilting. The only way to prevent that is to start controlling yourself better to get a higher tolerance limit, or you should quit playing and take a break.
So how long should I take a break? That depends for how long you’re tilted, if you feel that you’re off your a-game you shouldn’t play and this differs a lot from player to player in how long you’re tilted. So the main point here is to taking a break until you feel comfortable and start playing your A-Game again.
So why shouldn’t I play when I’m not playing my A-Game? Well your edge isn’t that big that you think, and to beat the higher stakes you’re playing in you should really play your A-Game.
What does tilt do? Tilt is a bad beast, and everyone experiences it from time to time but in different grades. The tilt changes the way you play, more than you think. You start playing looser and more aggressive, like a maniac. You’re putting yourself into very marginal situations and you think you’re unlucky when you loose them, but in fact you aren’t, you are just playing bad poker.
Afterwards, a lot of persons start thinking about what the they did wrong when they lost ten buy-ins in 2 hours, and they start to analyze their play and they get to the point that they played like an idiot. Ok fair enough.
But it’s here where people make a big mistake by changing the way they play, because of this bad period and tilting. They adjust their game in the opposite way of tilting; they start to play very tight and very passively. They start to waiting for the nuts and stacking their opponents but that won’t happen because you get this really bad table image (tight, passive). So that’s something you really shouldn’t do.
How do we prevent bad periods? This of course differs a lot from poker player to poker player, but the best way for everyone to prevent it is to start practice your self control and by so getting better tilt control. There are very few people that are able to handle this and it takes time to learn. To start practicing this, for example when you have a really hard time at a table you play and have lost four buy-ins. Ok, that’s a start, but how about trying to loose just three buy-ins the next time? I don’t mean you should stop playing immediately when you start loosing some buyins. I mean that you should quit playing when you feel that your game is not as good as it usually is. You should put up rules in the way you feel is best, and you should follow them. When you have started getting better tilt ontrol.
Another good thing to do when you’re in a really bad period, is to drop down in stakes and start beating worse players, and building up the confidence again, because I can guarantee you that you will need it.
If nothing of the previous tips work, you should considering taking a break. Nothing could be better sometimes than a needy break to collect new energy and confidence. A great tips if you’re taking a break is to start analyzing your play, you will then find leaks in your play that you can repair when you sit down at the table again.
Ok, that’s everything for this time. I hope you enjoyed the article and that it was to some good use.
Marcus Vretling Pistelli,
Pokerhunting.com & Pokerjakt.se
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