How to stay consistent

belladonna05 · Nov 13, 2007

I feel I'm an average poker player with 2 personalites. I try to play tag, but on some days it seems I am a calling station. My question to you folks is how do you manage to stay consistent to your style of play. I was down 30 dollars this morning before I gave up and shut the room down lol.

KingCurtis · Nov 13, 2007

well as not only i will telll you but others surely will is that good succesfull players do not have a consistent style or game plan......switching gears and throwing off your opponent is key....if you stay consistent with the same bluffs...betting patterns....ect...you will be noticed and caught...

zachvac · Nov 13, 2007

KingCurtis said:
well as not only i will telll you but others surely will is that good succesfull players do not have a consistent style or game plan......switching gears and throwing off your opponent is key....if you stay consistent with the same bluffs...betting patterns....ect...you will be noticed and caught...

Agreed, but I don't think becoming a calling station is what that means. Sometimes it's good to call down and throw away money short term to let people know that you are capable of making that play, but becoming a calling station is not what you want to do.

I think the answer is basically practice. At least where I've been playing, low limits online (5/10c), mixing up my play virtually doesn't matter. No one actually observes that kind of thing. I do mix it up once in a while, but not to confuse other people, you can't confuse people who aren't observant enough to notice. Maybe it's hurting me for when I get my BR big enough to move up, but for now simply playing the same style is making me a good amount of money, and the live games I play usually weekly help me a bit on mixing it up and working on my image. The only way to get good at anything is to practice. Books and places like this forum can help speed up the process, but there's no substitute for experience. Just try to keep focused on whether you are beat or not, and don't make a call just because you MIGHT be ahead. That's my advice for being able to prevent being a calling station.

Schatzdog · Nov 14, 2007

belladonna05 said:
I feel I'm an average poker player with 2 personalites. I try to play tag, but on some days it seems I am a calling station. My question to you folks is how do you manage to stay consistent to your style of play. I was down 30 dollars this morning before I gave up and shut the room down lol.

I'm going to make the assumption that you're a cash game player. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The best piece of advice I've got for this was from Sklansky who basically said, look at your play as one continuous poker session. When this concept sinks in you'll find your play will be a bit more consistent with what you're trying to achieve. You'll lose that impulse to "make something happen". You'll have a wider perspective of your play.

Also, you're going to have down sessions even when you play great poker. That's the game. Forget about your equity curve and concentrate on making good poker decisions at the table.

Hope this helps.

Cheetah · Nov 14, 2007

belladonna05, try to automatically consider calling as the last option. It often is the least attractive.

If first to act, the first choice to consider should be bet, then fold, and then open-limp(or check).

If there is a bet already, calling is the strongest actions of all and should be done only with very strong hands or when the odds are correct.

If you are callilng too much, you are probably not getting the right odds.

I am ecnlosing a small odds chart you can post on your monitor. I created it when I first started playing poker and it is still on my monitor.

You can always consult it and make sure you are not making bad calls.

The Odds 1 column are the pot odds with one card to come. Say on the flop, the odds to hit your draw on the turn.

The Odds 2 column are the pot odds with two cards to come. Should be considered only if you or your opponent is all-in.

In NL you can of course call with smaller pot odds due to implied odds. Nevertheless, this table is the foundation. Don't call if you are too far. Hopefully this will help you to stay off your calling station mode as you will know that you cannot defeat the mathematics of expected value.

Good luck.

belladonna05 · Nov 14, 2007

Schatzdog said:
I'm going to make the assumption that you're a cash game player. Please correct me if I'm wrong. The best piece of advice I've got for this was from Sklansky who basically said, look at your play as one continuous poker session. When this concept sinks in you'll find your play will be a bit more consistent with what you're trying to achieve. You'll lose that impulse to "make something happen". You'll have a wider perspective of your play.

Also, you're going to have down sessions even when you play great poker. That's the game. Forget about your equity curve and concentrate on making good poker decisions at the table.

Hope this helps.

Yes I love his theory of poker book and I always try to remember that advice, but sometimes its like I've lost my mind. I need to cut and paste that sentence about good poker and keep it on top of the cardroom and maybe lay off poker on pms week?

Cheetah said:
belladonna05, try to automatically consider calling as the last option. It often is the least attractive.

If first to act, the first choice to consider should be bet, then fold, and then open-limp(or check).

If there is a bet already, calling is the strongest actions of all and should be done only with very strong hands or when the odds are correct.

If you are callilng too much, you are probably not getting the right odds.

I am ecnlosing a small odds chart you can post on your monitor. I created it when I first started playing poker and it is still on my monitor. You can always consult it and make sure you are not making bad calls.

The Odds 1 column are the pot odds with one card to come. Say on the flop, the odds to hit your draw on the turn.

The Odds 2 column are the pot odds with two cards to come. Should be considered only if you or your opponent is all-in.

In NL you can of course call with smaller pot odds due to implied odds. Nevertheless, this table is the foundation. Don't call if you are too far. Hopefully this will help you to stay off your calling station mode as you will know that you cannot defeat the mathematics of expected value.

Good luck.

Love the quick calculator, saves me doing the math in my head, thanks so much.

Schatzdog · Nov 14, 2007

belladonna05 said:
Yes I love his theory of poker book and I always try to remember that advice, but sometimes its like I've lost my mind. I need to cut and paste that sentence about good poker and keep it on top of the cardroom and maybe lay off poker on pms week?

Please don't mention this ever again.

Cheetah · Nov 14, 2007

Schatzdog said:
belladonna05 said:

Yes I love his theory of poker book and I always try to remember that advice, but sometimes its like I've lost my mind. I need to cut and paste that sentence about good poker and keep it on top of the cardroom and maybe lay off poker on pms week?

Click to expand...

Please don't mention this ever again.

Why not? This is a valid consideration.

KingNothing4 · Nov 14, 2007

i think like said above u have to keep ur play varying, this keeps ppl from being able to read u, thats pretty key. it helps u bluff and suck in players as well. i dont think i usually play n e same hand the same way...most usually i play it a little different.

Cheetah · Nov 14, 2007

KingNothing4 said:
i think like said above u have to keep ur play varying, this keeps ppl from being able to read u, thats pretty key. it helps u bluff and suck in players as well. i dont think i usually play n e same hand the same way...most usually i play it a little different.

King, if I understand belladonna correctly, her problem is that she deviates from a TAG style and devolves into a calling station. If my understanding is correct, then I think she should NOT try to diversify her play, but do the opposite --- have a very tight aggressive game that is consistant.

In addition, it occurred to me that boredom might be the reason for that. Being tight is a very boring excercise. It is well known that watching paint dry is much more exciting.

If boredom is the reason for calling station tendencies, then I would do one of the following:

Shorten my sessions
Watch TV while playing
Play more than one table

belladonna05 · Nov 15, 2007

Cheetah said:
King, if I understand belladonna correctly, her problem is that she deviates from a TAG style and devolves into a calling station. If my understanding is correct, then I think she should NOT try to diversify her play, but do the opposite --- have a very tight aggressive game that is consistant.

In addition, it occurred to me that boredom might be the reason for that. Being tight is a very boring excercise. It is well known that watching paint dry is much more exciting.

If boredom is the reason for calling station tendencies, then I would do one of the following:

Shorten my sessions

Watch TV while playing

Play more than one table

Exactly, and lay off pms week.

Which is easier said then done for me.

Cheetah · Nov 15, 2007

belladonna05 said:
Exactly, and lay off pms week. Which is easier said then done for me.

Belladonna, it seems to me you should be spanked. PMS or not! Am I correct?

YoungGunKid · Nov 15, 2007

there were some great pieces of advice in this thread,Im thoroughly impressed with the amount of quality responses.Nice job and play multiple tables or listen to music to keep from being bored at the table

WVHillbilly · Nov 15, 2007

Playing multiple tables may work if the problem is truly boredom, but if the that's not the issue you'll just end up losing your bankroll twice as fast.

Blazing_Saddler · Nov 16, 2007

Something I have found helpful, is to write myself notes on a bit of paper.
Seeing something in black and white, makes it sink in to the brain

The start of my notes says something along these lines

Take your time !!!
Position Postion Position
You know you are beat, Fold !

Sounds a stupid thing to do, but it has worked for me, i have a page full of notes, telling me what I shouldn't do

Boltneck · Nov 16, 2007

Well, for what it's worth here is my philosophy on the subject. It's a bit of a generalisation (which is never a good thing) but hopefully you will understand where I am coming from.

1) If I am 1st to act - If I believe that I have the strongest hand, why would I do anything but bet? I want to get money in the pot, and a don't want to give someone with a drawing hand the luxury of a free card. Okay, so what if I don't think I have the strongest hand? Well, I ask myself "if I check, and someone bets into me, will I call or will I fold? If the answer is that I will call, I may as well bet in the first place, rather than checking then calling the bet! Okay, I may get raised but at least that gives me a little more infrmation about my opponent.

2) If I am not first to act, and someone bets into me - if I believe that I have the strongest hand, why would I not raise? If I believe I don't have the strongest hand, but I have a good drawing hand, I ask myself if I have the pot odds to call. If the answer is yes then I will call. If I don't believe that I have the best hand, and don't have the correct odds to play a drawing hand, why would I do anything but fold?

As I said before, the above is very simplistic. It ignores the subtlties of deception, slow playing (not something that I would recommend on a regular basis anyway) check raising etc. However, if you follow the principles of 1) and 2) above (assuming that you play tight, and don't see the flop with any crap) you will find that you do not check very often, and call even less often.

Hope this helps.

Boltneck

belladonna05 · Nov 17, 2007

Cheetah said:
Belladonna, it seems to me you should be spanked. PMS or not! Am I correct?

Wrong belladonna

belladonna05 · Nov 17, 2007

Blazing_Saddler said:
Something I have found helpful, is to write myself notes on a bit of paper.
Seeing something in black and white, makes it sink in to the brain

The start of my notes says something along these lines

Take your time !!!
Position Postion Position
You know you are beat, Fold !

Sounds a stupid thing to do, but it has worked for me, i have a page full of notes, telling me what I shouldn't do

Great basic advice but somehow I think they would look at me strange at the tables if I was cribbing notes lol.

Cheetah · Nov 18, 2007

belladonna05 said:
Wrong belladonna

jeffred1111 · Nov 18, 2007

Maybe you play more of a tight-passive game all around and only get agressive when you have the nuts/near-nuts, thus you don't actually switch between two games/style, but become more or less of a calling station depending on tilt/being bored/exterior factors ? There's no shame in admitting this to yourself, I do play more like this than I'd like altough I'm working on it.

MrDaMan · Nov 18, 2007

Consistence is what I've been striving for. How do the pros consistently end up at or near the final table in those mega tournaments?

In every poker book I've read the writer insists that you are always learning something new, like chess you find yourself progressing through levels, up and down the scale, right when you think your at the top, something else presents itself and you go... WOW! why didn't I think of that before?!

It's different for everyone, poker is such an individualistic game and luck is such a huge factor that you really need to learn the skill of maximizing luck itself.

The statistics, the math, the probabilities show we each have roughly an equal amount of luck. The pros maximize their time at the tables when they are running good, and minimize their time at the tables when they are running bad.

Staying withing your bankroll management scheme, keeping your emotions under control, your sense of awareness heightened so that when you play TAG, you can read your opponents or better yet forcing them to make mistakes to your profit. Getting in that zone, you're happy, you're confident, you're winning, you're lucky!

If your not 100%, your not making the reads, confusion is more common than not .... QUIT QUIT QUIT!

At least this is where my heads at currently, if I'm not winning I take my ball and bat and go home. I look to get all my finances in order, my wife's honey do's taken care of, my truck washed, see that my son is on the right track. Stop and smell the roses, count my blessings, commit some random acts of kindness and get myself in that "I'm lucky" frame of mind.

I'm confident I have the skills, my awareness is very heightened, I expect to win..... circling my opponents looking for opportunities to exploit, TAG, smash and grab, hit and run, stick and move. I find my frame of mind HAS to be right or I'll make costly mistakes. So I endeavor to keep myself as positive and squared away as I can.

This has been helping my game tremendously, when I win, I'm consistently winning, if I'm losing I quit ... consistently.

It seems rather simple but that's key for me, knowing when to play and when not to play "consistently".

Very hard to do actually... if you love just "playing" you'll more often that not lose more than you win. You also have to love to "win" ... MORE than loving to play. Emotions, self control, discipline = consistency.

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