Learn Texas Holdem

Note: this is for cash games only, not tournaments. I'm looking down at a piece of white printer paper with the following notes jotted down in black magic marker:

- Submit to position

- Dry cards, urge to play

I wrote these two things down yesterday morning before I went to play. I made the notes because I wanted to first of all write a new tip here and secondly to remind myself to not be an idiot like the day before when I played. Let me back up a bit. Recently I've been running really well and playing really well. This hardly seems like a problem, but it can be when the cards dry up. A big tendency a lot of players, myself included, have is to follow up a fantastic win with an equally bad loss, mainly because they lose their head and assume everything is easy.

I played twice so far this week. My goal the first day was just to have a small win and not push things. I wanted to play my A game, but I also realized that since I had been doing so well the past few days before, there was a good possibility I would start playing worse. (Regular wins don't make you lose your head, just massive ones.) Sure enough, on Monday I played like an ass. For some reason I have a tendency to make more fancy plays when I am losing than when I'm winning -- for example, raising on the turn trying to push someone off a hand. Well these plays rarely ever work, even at larger limits and it just ends up digging a big hole that you have to crawl out of to win.

What is frustrating to me about Monday is that I wasn't actually running that badly, I was just rushing things -- playing too fast. Instead of letting my cards do the talking, I was trying to create opportunities that weren't there. The good thing about Monday was that I got a hold of myself early on in the day, so I ended up still winning about a rack. I was still annoyed because I could have had another solid day of winning two racks had I played well, and secondly because I just played a really crappy game -- I'm better than that. So yesterday before playing, I wrote those notes down.

The first note represents a problem in my game I have when I'm running badly, which has to do with blinds. In some tougher games during the week, there are plenty of hands where you know the guy in late position opening the pot is only doing it to steal the blinds, and his hand is probably junk. When I'm running so badly (not getting good cards), my image at the table is super tight, which only leads to the tough players trying to steal from me more. I realize this and start getting involved in pots that I wouldn't have, given my day was going better.

What I and you need to keep in mind is that even if we both are entering the pot with equally bad cards, the person with the position has the advantage and will win in the long run. To not submit some to position is just flat wrong. The correct counter move would be to try to steal some blinds of my own. With that said though, most of the people who try to blind steal do it way too much, and probably a better solution would be to just wait for a decent hand and isolate them. Let them hang themselves.

The second note has to do with how you view your starting hands if you are getting no cards that day. For some reason we have an urge to play and when you aren't running well, our starting hand standards become relative. A hand like AT which would be marginal on a good day now looks like a Godsend. And of course after playing it you lose a big pot to a better hand. See just because you haven't had a big pair in 3 days, doesn't make KJ or 66 a great hand. Starting hands are not relative to how many good hands you are getting.

Yesterday I played again, and played about as badly as I have in as long as I can remember. I didn't give any consideration whatsoever to my notes. I did about the exact opposite. I made many mistakes yesterday which is really out of character for me. (In addition to the above, I also learned the valuable lesson of not sitting at a bad table all day.) The entire day I had only one big pair, KK but no one called preflop.

The rest of the time I was splashing around trying to get stuff going, which only made beating me easy. I would tell myself just to tighten up, but then I would get dealt KJ in a bad pos., raise, get three bet by a tight player, flop a king and lose a big pot again. Over and over I did this. At around midnight or so I was in for $5k. Being in for that much in that limit isn't that unusual but the way I was losing was just plain bad play. And I knew this which becomes a very dangerous situation because it can lead you into a really horrible loss if you keep playing (which of course you want to do).

What I did was to get up from the table and walk around for a bit; going to the restroom and washing my face and I gave myself a little pep talk, "I don't fear anyone at table, just myself at this point. Play solid, win a few pots, minimize this and go home." And that is what I did. I was content with just leaving down a few grand for the day but I brought it back to losing only $600 -- which is nothing. On the drive back home my buddy and I were talking about the day like we always do. We came to the conclusion that in that both of our games when things aren't going well we tend to make more moves/plays at pots, which lead to big mistakes. We have a tendency to overvalue hands that aren't that great. And also we have a tendency to assume people are trying to run through us more (make plays against us).

All of this is of course nonsense and not conducive of winning. The fact of the matter is that playing weak tight poker does beat these guys. There is no reason to get fancy and push hands when the players are going to let you wait for big hands and bet them down. Deception is only needed when you aren't getting action; when you aren't running well, the players are more likely to give you action than less, so there is no reason in playing too loose and aggressive. Just wait for your hands and bet them. Next time I'll literally sit there for 8 hours and get blinded off before I give up another easy pot to some rock.