Wednesday, September 21, 2005

I am passive.

Poker, on the surface, is going well. My hourly rate seems to be climbing at a steady pace. I am 49 hours in and my rate is almost $12/hr. That's probably just due to good luck lately, though. That and the fact that I am playing against morons. Over the past 19 hours I have made $482, which is pretty much an impossible rate to maintain at this level unless you are an incredible player, and that I am not. I have no idea what I need to do to turn myself into an aggressive player. I'm so used to getting bad beat that I've been conditioned to assume that it will just happen, so I "play it safe" and just hope my hand holds up, and I lose lots of bets I could be making in the process.

For example, I had a hand yesterday...

I had Q-9 off in the small blind, and after several limpers, paid the $1 to see the flop.

10-J-K with two spades.

Bingo, right? Not for me. My immediate reaction was: "Someone will draw out on me, or probably has AQ."

I bet out from first position, got raised by the next guy, and he was called by everyone else. Instead of reraising like I should have, I just called. The turn was a blank. I checked, the raiser bet, and everyone called. When it got back to me, I should have raised (I think), but thought "Someone has got to be chasing a flush, and if I raise I am giving incredible odds for them to call." So I just called. The river was another blank. This time I thought "Everyone probably was chasing draws and missed, so it might get checked around." So I led out and got three callers. It seems my play was guided by fear in that hand, and there is no place for that in poker. I cost myself 3 or 4 big bets (if not more) by playing passively. In the long run, that's huge. I should have reraised the flop and led out on the turn.

At least I'm recognizing what I'm doing wrong. But recognizing problems and doing something about them are two different things. My hourly rate would probably be somewhere around $20 if I exercised a little bit more discipline and SOME aggression.

Let's hope in time I can patch these leaks...

Wow, I just realized the title of this post says just as much about my personality as it does about my poker playing.

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