Not believing, and Tilt and aggression
by PokerAnon ~ August 13th, 2008. Filed under: Aggression, General poker strategy, Philosophy and approach, Weaknesses.
The other day I was watching a video a friend made of himself playing 4 tables of $100NLHE. A couple comments that he made, about “not believing people” and about “tilting and getting too aggressive” stuck with me. These are things that I know that I have issues with. I’ve tried to acknowledge them, to come up with attitudes and approaches to deal with them, yet I know that they continue to crop up and become problems for me. And apparently I’m not alone.
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No one likes to get bluffed. No one likes to fold the best hand. The thing about not believing is that one has to accept that sometimes, in fact many times over the course of a poker playing life, you’re going to fold the best hand. It might even be the winning hand if you’re at the river. The simplest example might be on the bubble in a Sit and Go, as a short stack but not the shortest stack, and a big stack raises you preflop. Harrington has some examples in volume III of his tournament series of books where you fold everything but AA. I made a post about a situation where I should have folded AK preflop even though I was facing no aggression because ITMing was important to me. And I’ve been in a lot of situations where I’ve folded AQ, AJ on the bubble when two others are in a pot so I’ll just get out of the way and hope the shorter stack loses.
Even at lowish level cash games there are players capable of running a good bluff; using a tight image, position, and creating a believable story to go with their betting series. Then it’s reasonable to fold your top pair/middle kicker because there’s no evidence to indicate that he’s not holding a monster. (Some people seem to really get a kick out of running a good bluff. Personally, what I enjoy more is raising from late position with a marginal hand as a steal, getting called and catching a flop like Q84 when I hold Q8s when the blind has AQ.)
Other situations where I usually fold are when I catch middle pair from the BB. This is, by plan, a bet/fold situation where I take one stab at the pot. Similarly, if I catch top pair with no kicker I should bet/fold. But where I get into trouble is if I just check something like AJ/AT in the BB and catch an A or J or T as the high pair on the flop. Here I feel that I’ve underrepresented my hand preflop and if someone plays back at my bet, I often can’t let go and end up losing to two pair or a set. AK/AQ I don’t usually have this problem as I raise/3bet these unless I’m playing a level where limpers won’t fold, and then I get myself into trouble.
Anyways, if my plan is to bet/fold with middle pair or top pair/weak kicker, then someone in late position can raise me off the hand. In fact, almost anyone except for someone that I read as near-maniac postflop can raise me off the hand because my hand is too weak to play a big pot. By raising me they’re threatening to turn it into a big pot and I don’t want to go there with a marginal hand. It may in fact be the best hand, but I don’t want to play a big pot with it.
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And this goes hand in hand with tilt and aggression. When I tilt and get frustrated I’m much more likely to not believe and to get overly aggressive. Shoving over raises instead of folding. 3betting preflop instead of folding or calling. Paying off river bets even though I know that my train has long ago pulled out of the station and I should just swallow my pride and save those last few dollars. Multitabling helps me to be more detached because I have multiple things going on, and the pain of looking at the winner’s hand doesn’t last so long, or the embarrassment of folding to a tiny bet after making a grand showing on the early streets doesn’t burn so long. And sometimes I’ll have something positive happening on another table while I’m humiliating myself at another. But there’s other times when things are just not going well at any table, or something inherent in my attitude or mood is percolating into my game on all the tables.
