No excuse for playing bad poker

ok so i walk in and my dad is looking at hand histories on the computer which i found strange since he wont play olp anymore. he looks up and gives me an ugly face and starts calling off hands such as 47o and 7jo and a few others. I said what are you talking about? It seems he was in my hand history and noticing some of the hands i donked off with. I laughed and started with my excuses , however he did not laugh with me and simply said there is NO EXCUSE FOR PLAYING BAD POKER. He then told me if i am not willing to play my best , weather its a freeroll on line or a big buy at the poker room, i should not play at all.Bad playing creates bad habits and bad habits turn into bad players. He as usual is right and reflecting i can remember sitting at the poker table recently thinking to myself , why did i do that. This may be the reason. So my A game is what i will bring from here out ,or i will not play.

Better dad reading hand histories... than the web histories.

Ok... probably bad joke.

Your dad sounds like a cool guy and if he's played online before and able to read and analyse your play from your hand histories (bonus if he was a winning player), I guess you could learn a lot from him

Good luck with the reflecting and hope you game improves from here on (and no mo donking/playing with nonsense hands).

I have the same problem at times I'll try a move 3bet OOP when really I dont have enough information and my reasons for it are wrong

It is an awful habit and Im aware of it,
something you might find helpful -

I've wrote down my weaknesses and imperfections in a diary just being honest with myself,

next side of the diary I have a list of solutions and goals and ways to reach these goals, like studying certain aspects of poker and also aspects of my life that can make me a stronger person,

*one of these is consistancy im looking at methods to help me focus and always bring my best in poker and also life
*Another is temperament and money management

Human beings makes mistakes, accept that , and be honest, it is human being. so bad play always happens.

but I am trying to make less bad play than others....LOL

Calling with these hands on button or SB with several limpers already in doesn't sound like bad poker, so I'm guessing these are not the situations he is calling you out on as bad poker.

smidjet said:

I laughed and started with my excuses , however he did not laugh with me and simply said there is NO EXCUSE FOR PLAYING BAD POKER. He then told me if i am not willing to play my best , weather its a freeroll on line or a big buy at the poker room, i should not play at all.Bad playing creates bad habits and bad habits turn into bad players.

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Cool that he's interested in your game, and good advice. Wish I had read your post yesterday before I played, lol.

Well, I've always believed you need to bring all your effort into poker if you want to be successful. Because one mistake and you could be done for, if your playing in a tournament, this is especially true.

Hi there, Your dad speaks good advice, Its really frustrating when you play as I did last night in a bankroll mob freeroll, I was down to last 80 or so players and had a reasonble £60k plus stack. Pocket aces under the gun so raised to 2k with bb 1k, it got raised to 8k then a muppet with with K3 unsuited decides to go all in with his £35k. Was I bad to call him? Well I did, result 3,J,Q, on flop,3 Turn, K river.
So what im basically saying is no matter how bad you play sometimes you will get lucky.
I would still like to know whether anyone else would have folded their pocket AA

Adtheman1 said:

Hi there, Your dad speaks good advice, Its really frustrating when you play as I did last night in a bankroll mob freeroll, I was down to last 80 or so players and had a reasonble £60k plus stack. Pocket aces under the gun so raised to 2k with bb 1k, it got raised to 8k then a muppet with with K3 unsuited decides to go all in with his £35k. Was I bad to call him? Well I did, result 3,J,Q, on flop,3 Turn, K river.
So what im basically saying is no matter how bad you play sometimes you will get lucky.
I would still like to know whether anyone else would have folded their pocket AA

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I'd never fold AA all in preflop! It's like folding Royal Flush on river. Well, maybe in a bubble situation where too many players are in the pot. But that's about it.

great thinking

smidjet said:

ok so i walk in and my dad is looking at hand histories on the computer which i found strange since he wont play olp anymore. he looks up and gives me an ugly face and starts calling off hands such as 47o and 7jo and a few others. I said what are you talking about? It seems he was in my hand history and noticing some of the hands i donked off with. I laughed and started with my excuses , however he did not laugh with me and simply said there is NO EXCUSE FOR PLAYING BAD POKER. He then told me if i am not willing to play my best , weather its a freeroll on line or a big buy at the poker room, i should not play at all.Bad playing creates bad habits and bad habits turn into bad players. He as usual is right and reflecting i can remember sitting at the poker table recently thinking to myself , why did i do that. This may be the reason. So my A game is what i will bring from here out ,or i will not play.

Click to expand...

i agree with your father, problem is that is not easy to leave bad habits,

it happens that you want to play tight, 20 hands laters you haven´t yet dealt a good hand (A with a good kicker or a pair or sited connectors), you start to despair, and you see the board and notice that you were winning a bunch of hands if played, and worse than that you see some fishes winning and increasing their stack, and worse yet, you see some ugly players that you know their chips are waiting for somebody to just take them but you don´t et strong hands, and then you se a board full of 7 and 4 and next hand you see a board full of spades, and next you are dealt 7-4 both spades, and you think, that´s it, now is my turn to get chips, and you enter and surprise is a 4 in the flop, now you start defending your four and start losing chips, and that´s the way it happens to me once and again, and then comes the tilt

but at the end your father is totally right, stick to good poker or leave ( i scold to myself every night after a failed session)

Adtheman1 said:

Hi there, Your dad speaks good advice, Its really frustrating when you play as I did last night in a bankroll mob freeroll, I was down to last 80 or so players and had a reasonble £60k plus stack. Pocket aces under the gun so raised to 2k with bb 1k, it got raised to 8k then a muppet with with K3 unsuited decides to go all in with his £35k. Was I bad to call him? Well I did, result 3,J,Q, on flop,3 Turn, K river.
So what im basically saying is no matter how bad you play sometimes you will get lucky.
I would still like to know whether anyone else would have folded their pocket AA

Click to expand...

The only place where it would be appropriate to fold AA pre-flop is on the bubble of a satellite or DoN, in this specific case: you have more than enough chips to make it past the bubble, someone else has shoved, and if you call and lose you will either be severely crippled or knocked out. In this particular case, you're risking everything for virtually no gain.

I made this mistake last night on the bubble in a DoN with AA in the SB and while I didn't lose, I still am not happy about the way I put my whole stack at risk against the chip leader when there was a much shorter stack on the table. This should have been a snap fold but I was kind of tilted from getting rivered out of two games earlier.

In cash games and regular tournaments, you shouldn't be folding AA pre-flop ever. It's scary when you have a multi-way all-in, but in tournaments if you were to win that would often give you a massive stack and a good shot at first place.

jj20002 said:

i agree with your father, problem is that is not easy to leave bad habits,

it happens that you want to play tight, 20 hands laters you haven´t yet dealt a good hand (A with a good kicker or a pair or sited connectors), you start to despair, and you see the board and notice that you were winning a bunch of hands if played, and worse than that you see some fishes winning and increasing their stack, and worse yet, you see some ugly players that you know their chips are waiting for somebody to just take them but you don´t et strong hands, and then you se a board full of 7 and 4 and next hand you see a board full of spades, and next you are dealt 7-4 both spades, and you think, that´s it, now is my turn to get chips, and you enter and surprise is a 4 in the flop, now you start defending your four and start losing chips, and that´s the way it happens to me once and again, and then comes the tilt

but at the end your father is totally right, stick to good poker or leave ( i scold to myself every night after a failed session)

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:congrats:

I agree that there should be no excuse. However in certain instances emotions get the best of people. In that case they have a slight excuse to play poorly.

For sure. I didnt seam to get it at first but now i play much different and have adopted this method. I run deeper and cash more. Sometimes your personal life some how changes my mood there for changing my style. A careless one that is. No excuse. Agreed .

smidjet said:

ok so i walk in and my dad is looking at hand histories on the computer

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wow VERY COOL :congrats: :congrats:


Excuses ? There are always excuses. Riged site, little time, noise, TV, loud music, family, tiredness, bad villans, and one millon more.

Many times in poker, it's going too far to say "always" or "never". It's obviously not a good idea to play bad poker. However, there can be circumstances where playing less than your best is justifiable.

For example, when I'm trying to add something to my game and are still working through doing so, I'm not always going to play the best I could at that moment - not badly, but right then and there, I'd be better off to revert to my old game. So playing sub-optimally for a while to build my game for the future is one scenario I can justify.

Another one is admittedly personal and not something I've done for quite a while now. There have been times when I deliberately played badly because it made me feel better. I can't recall specific incidents, but at least a couple were after brutal bad beats. I'd go and play a micro- ring game or STT maniacally. Blowing a buck or two was a quick, affordable way to vent my frustration. I'm not recommending anyone else do this, just saying how I justified it to myself.

Please excuse my naivety, Ive heard bubble mentioned before in poker but not really undrstood what it meant

Adtheman1 said:

Hi there, Your dad speaks good advice, Its really frustrating when you play as I did last night in a bankroll mob freeroll, I was down to last 80 or so players and had a reasonble £60k plus stack. Pocket aces under the gun so raised to 2k with bb 1k, it got raised to 8k then a muppet with with K3 unsuited decides to go all in with his £35k. Was I bad to call him? Well I did, result 3,J,Q, on flop,3 Turn, K river.
So what im basically saying is no matter how bad you play sometimes you will get lucky.
I would still like to know whether anyone else would have folded their pocket AA

Click to expand...

Man, you should never be folding pocket AA pre-flop no matter if you are big or short-stacked at the bubble! You have to take every oportunity you have to accumulate chips, and the bouble is the perfect time to do this with any hands, people are scared to be out and you can use it.

Furthermore if you are playing to get ITM shortstack folding big hands in the bubble, you might just well give up playing SnG and tournaments, you must play for the 1st prize and use every chance you are given to get chips...

If you are beaten with AA, then what? Just close the window and open another tourney. But never fold AA pre-flop this just makes no sense (unless its a super aggro pot pre-flop with 3+ all-ins and you dont have the guys covered, but even this way its not an easy fold).

Adtheman1 said:

Please excuse my naivety, Ive heard bubble mentioned before in poker but not really undrstood what it meant

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I do believe bubble means the position before there's a payout. Like if they pay 1st of 4th place and you get busted out at 5th, then you're the bubble boy/person.