How to attain discipline in online poker?

Thinker_145

Thinker_145

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I have played around 50k hands and even though I am profitable but I can't for the life of me stop spewing chips from time to time which just so utterly sucks. It takes so much patience and time to make money and then to just give it all away in a few hands is crushing.

All it takes is 5 mins of being in maniac mode and you can blow away a number of BI that takes hours to get back or even days.

Now I see I am not alone on this. I see time and time again people saying that they blew away their BR because of tilt.

It's just the speed of online poker which is the problem here. In live poker I never do something stupendously bad.

It depresses me to think how much money I had made if I were more discipled.

I am thinking of challenging myself to have a streak of hands with complete discipline. So how many hands do you think I should set the benchmark? Like I don't do anything stupid for x number of hands and then I can call myself a highly discipled player?

And do share your situation regarding discipline. I do see some regs who very rarely do something stupid and I really envy them. It's almost frightening how I play when I am in maniac mode, 10 mins later I am left in complete shock as to what the hell was I doing?
 
chuG

chuG

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As someone who has done this very thing today, I am really hoping for advice too. Today I did the worst, after being the recipient of 6 suck outs in a row, I did the worst and moved up a few stakes. Lo and behold, a 7th came. Now I'm back a few months.
 
Thinker_145

Thinker_145

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As someone who has done this very thing today, I am really hoping for advice too. Today I did the worst, after being the recipient of 6 suck outs in a row, I did the worst and moved up a few stakes. Lo and behold, a 7th came. Now I'm back a few months.

At least yours very bad beats. Mine were mindless all ins.

But ya the moving up stakes to quickly recover a bad session is a disastrous thing and takes discipline of its own to resist.
 
akaRobbo

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For me, I play a much looser game now, so my losses are usually down to me mis-reading an opponent or failed bluffs. Personally, these are so much easier for me to deal with than suck outs. I tend to see less suckouts now, as my WTSD% is so much lower and people know they will have to pay big to hit outs and see a showdown, so don't seem to fish as much against me.

I dont know what it is about a worse player beating me, purely by luck, but I just find it really hard to accept. Ive jumped stakes a few times too. Notable ones being 5NL to 25NL and 10NL to 50NL! Luckily I won most of it back those times, but I know next time wont be third time lucky. Ill be really disappointed with myself if I jump stakes again, because its just plain stupid.

You absolutely need to stop entering this "maniac mode" otherwise you'll never be very successful at poker. Have you done much reading on tilting? The first signs of tilting being; feeling hot/increased HR and then berating opponents. Whenever I experience any of these I close pokerstars. I know im not good enough to play on, in that state yet.

Im not sure what you mean by doing nothing stupid for x number of hands. You should never be doing anything stupid, and should be disciplined all the time, you never know whats going to happen next hand.
 
rifflemao

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As someone who has done this very thing today, I am really hoping for advice too. Today I did the worst, after being the recipient of 6 suck outs in a row, I did the worst and moved up a few stakes. Lo and behold, a 7th came. Now I'm back a few months.

I recommend studying tilt to the point where you can identify specific types, so that you'll be more aware when it's happening. Also, keep using tools like Equilab to help keep your game rooted in logic.

It's worth studying the hands you've lost while not following good brm, to see if they are truly bad beats or the result of some kind of tilt like fear of losing your stack (something you would experience less at lower levels). Seeing my own tilt via hand histories helped me to stop taking unreasonable shots, especially in cash games.

I have a friend who constantly tries to encourage me to play above my roll by saying things like "Just play your game, and you'll be fine." That would be great if there was a kill-switch for tilt, but I don't seem to have one of those and have been much better off (and happier with poker) by practicing good brm.
 
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I am so with you Thinker_145 :) Many of us know what u are talking about. I had such a great week and gained 13BI (EV would have been 16) playing 5NL 6max. Today I played a short 50 minute session and BOOM: 4 BI down. Loosing 4BI for the right reasons is fine with me but about 2.5-3 were caused by bad play, the last 1-1.5 were the result of me tilting.
During the last 10 days sessions I played very disciplined, felt very clear minded, calm, relaxed, made good folds when I had to (at least I think I did), mostly managed to stay out of trouble etc etc etc... The reason I am writing is: I had the very same thoughts like you did today and I think the self-discipline/awareness part is extremely underrated. We spend days and days discussing tweaks to our game that will improve the win-rate bit by bit. But we (I should say: The vast majority of us) spend way to little time with improving our poker mindset. I think I already improved a lot on that but there is still way to go and the effects of even only short tilt/brainless phases can destroy the results of many sessions before. This is such a huge learning process... and after such a session I have a hard time to stop wondering about the crap I just made.
The good thing: Sessions like the one you experienced today teach you a lesson and will help you to get away from that behaviour step by step... Good luck!
 
Thinker_145

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I think bluffing sends me in maniac mode. This terrible session was triggered when I made a huge re raise on the turn with AK high but my opponent shoved and I had committed so much that I thought maybe my high cards are live so I called. Turned out I was bluffing into a FH lol. Now that sent me in maniac mode and the rest as they say is history.

I think I should avoid making gigantic bluffs because its not that I am bad at it but when it goes wrong it has a very negative effect on my mind so its better to avoid it for now.
 
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fishinthesea

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I suggest injecting logic or saying a specific phrase that screws your head back on and back to playing smart/the way you want.
 
Aces2w1n

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maintain discipline: simply cut the internet cable :)

All jokes aside write a list down with what you think effects you.

And when you change things in your gameplan like move up stakes or play long hours be sure to be extra mindful because I find changing things can open up for tilt... We get use to routine and when we break it we become vulnerable.

Because having anything appear or problems happen... And your all of a sudden betting crazy, many people take a break after a bad beat etc.
 
chuG

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I was reading these posts. Its a new day, I thought I'll go in clear headed because maybe fatigue and illness were affecting me. First hour, called air twice, both back doored me. Thats 18 buy ins in two days.

They probably aren't causally linked, but since I've been studying poker, I've become worse.
 
Arjonius

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They probably aren't causally linked, but since I've been studying poker, I've become worse.
There also isn't a complete causal link between knowing more and playing better. More knowledge can be unproductive or even counter-productive if it's not applied appropriately enough and/or if you add or change something requiring further changes that you don't make (properly).
 
RegHC23

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for everyone that is paying poker it is extremely important that we make sure to stay discipline and stick to the game we know. Its just like basketball. If you cant dunk there is no sense trying to get out of you comfort zone and try to dunk if you are physically not able to do. That is why there are other ways to score in basketball besides dunking. Just like in poker there are more than one way in order to win a pot or to prevent yourself from losing money. I think one of the great books to read is the mental game of poker by jaren tendler. Its very informative about how to prevent yourself froim going into a place where you continually lose moeny. I saw one guy say that he had been sucked out 6 times in a row. My question to him is did he look back at the hand history and truly see if he got sucked out or did he make mistakes to put himself in that predicament. If you make the perfect play during the hand and something unfortunate happens then why should you be mad. Over time things will go your way and you will be fine. Good luck in the future.
 
babydrago9

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I've done the same, but since I play on merge the awful, awful thing I did was tilt all of my money on blackjack. I never have deposited, instead I win from FR's and build it up. The first of which I got it up to 250 dollars and really needed the money for xmas, the next time I got it up to 500. I then decided to play a HU battle of a $100 buy in, I got it up to $300 and thought I was crushing my opponent, but in a few horrible beats I found myself on 0. I then rebought and lost just from tilt, overshoving and losing a flip. I then thought I could just get lucky on blackjack and lost within a few minutes, money which took me work and time to get up. It was awful I found myself with my heartbeating horrifically fast and just hitting things.
I'm now using good BR management and have got to much more than I had before and never an amount I can't afford, not buying into any tourneys, just sateliting into them for example.
 
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