Playing in the past.

I have a feeling that many play poker hands in the past. What I mean is that when I fold a hand I continuously flip/flop from hand to visual of my folded hand to then realize that had I not folded, I would have won. If I could deduct my could have won losses on my taxes, I just might get a refund on my taxes. Well maybe. I recently realized that instead of monitoring the hand in progress that I folded, that I do this all the time. It appears as of today when I decided not to do that as it simply fills my empty head with a lot of negative thoughts and I get even worse. Just a thought I'm going to work on as I done good in a 99 player field today by finishing 22nd. At several times I was in the top 10 when I checked and my blood pressure would rise and then BANG I'd blow it by thinking about what amount of money I would be winning. Good thing I didn't spend it because I didn't get much. $1.20 out of $1.50 buy in. Need to concentrate on the positives and not the negatives I think.

yes i beleive that if are playing poker positive and negative vibes have alot of impact on your good hitting cards.it is all mojo if you have negative mojo you just won't win..so even when you fold the winning crap hand and lose the pocket aces to a 10/2 if you don't get angry you will win the next time..ofcourse it hasn't worked for me yet but i can't get the negative thoughts/mojo out lol..

I think these things are common for many players (some 'earlier on'.. some keep doing it forever). Yah.. there's zero value in thinking about 'what coulda' happened had only you played that hand... because in reality if you had played the hand it was a mistake (or at least seemed as if it would've been giving the situation at the time). The decision at time of action is the relevant one.. the 'if only' is useless.

I rarely look at the prizepool. I might glance at it a couple of times to just get an idea.. but don't spend any time on it.

definately sucks when you fold and then see that you wouldve flopped 2 pr. or trips. But you cant be results oriented. If thats the case you have to play every hand so you dont miss any.

you cant let those hands get to you. you have to just say to yourself that if you played that hand 100 times your not gonna win most of the time.

It's human nature to mentally rabbit hunt, but don't ever let it change how you play. If folding in that spot was a good play, then it was a good play, regardless of the eventual outcome.

Also, depending on where you play, I would not get too hung up on it because the cards dealt were different than they would have been had you stuck around. Stars is the only site I know of that uses a set deck, like a live dealer. FT and most every other site as I recall use a constant shuffle RNG that never stops shuffling the cards. So when you take an extra half second to pick your bet size, a few thousand card combinations have already been shuffled past the ones you would have seen had you folded. This is compounded even further by the inevitable change in timing of your opponents' actions upon reacting to your action, resulting in an arrangement of cards that have changed many thousands or even millions of times since you were at your decision point.

Still, I sometimes find myself cursing FT for taunting me on the flop after I've folded, even though I know the cards would not have been the same had I stayed in.

The funny thing is that both Ultimatebet and FT (as I recall) offer a "run it twice" option on some tables, which is obviously just a marketing gimmick for people who like to torture themselves. It can't possibly work with a constant shuffle algorithm for the reasons already stated.

I think that detaching yourself from the money and the results is one of the keys to being a solid player.

If you're relatively new to poker, now is the chance to start training the mental aspect of your game. (Not that experienced players can't train it but I think it's a lot easier if you haven't been beat up by the game yet)

I remember reading something like this somewhere : "Become friends with that nerdy voice in your head and stop listening to the louder emotional voice".

It's helped me quite a bit lately