Sunday, November 22, 2009

Reaction to downswinging

I don't react as poorly as I used to, but I don't handle downswings correctly.  Things have been going pretty poorly this month...my red sessions outweigh my green sessions by a lot...both in number and severity.  Yesterday featured a negative 61-point something ptbb/100 run over a few hundred hands, capped by a cute play that I thought worked out well, but then got punished for being cute...18/14 guy opens from MP, major LAG 3-bets him, I flat with AA on the button hoping for action, raiser calls.  MP is half stacked, LAG is full stacked.  MP opens on a KQx two tone flop, LAG calls, I raise enough to put MP in, he calls, LAG folds.  MP flips over 77!  Of course, he dinks a 7 on the turn :(.

And I wasn't even surprised he hit.  Like I said, things have not been going well.

But what I do is try to play through it, rather than at the bare minimum sticking to my study routine.  So, I've been reviewing only about 25% of my hands, and have done zero reading, vids, or anything else.  And that's just not a recipe for success.  I'm playing OK for the most part, but I'm not good enough to neglect study for too long, especially trying to move up in stakes somewhat aggressively.

I should be using downswings as an excuse to rededicate myself to study.

  1. There's more chance you're playing bad in a downswing than in an upswing...so even though I'm pretty sure I'm playing OK, I could be wrong there.  Better to go overboard with study than neglect it.
  2. My mindset/confidence and image is worse when losing, so no point in maximizing the volume.  You should push the volume when you're at your sharpest and your image and control of the table is at its peak.

I will almost surely have my worst month ever in terms of money, although maybe not in terms of BBs.  But that's OK.  The month is just an arbitrary chunk of hands.

Hopefully, I'll follow through and get some study done.  I want to reread Exploiting Regulars and also get some other stuff on my reading list checked off.  There are  a couple vids I have in my "to watch" queue as well.  And hopefully will also revive some video or HH swaps, which in addition to being helpful in terms of focusing thought, may also reveal some stuff I'm doing poorly, but don't realize.

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