A
acemenow
Legend
Bronze Level
My questions:
A) Do you have markers for recognizing when you are “donking” out?
B) Is the gut feeling analogous to a mirage in your opinions or a subconscious warning signal? Or
C) am I just not aware of the fact that I am actually a Donk that has just gotten lucky a few times?
Admittedly my gut is not always right. But it seems that it is more often than not at least in my perception. However I have noticed a couple of caveats
1) some hole cards look sexy regardless of position (this gets me in trouble more than not)!
2) Sometimes I get a primary hand late in tourney with a sinking feeling, believing I am obligated to call when in position but sometimes call anyway out of position.
Now I am wondering if that sinking feeling is a subconscious indicator that I am not playing the math and just going with the gut so I should remind myself to look at EV++, odds and overall read on the table. And it’s making me go over my math skills again which are lacking IMO.
Here are a few examples:
1) QJ off in bb, relatively early in the tourney raised by dealer roughly 3x the blind – I know I am supposed to fold here but I see two things (right or wrong it’s my perception). A. The call is still only about 1/30th or 1/25th of my stack. B. Heads up is usually a toss anyway and it comes down to believing what the other player represents. C. I can easily fold if I hit nothing.
In this case I hit the J, and was put in an all in position. Again an easy fold. I was playing 4 games at the time so not completely focused on that particular hand but there were two suits on the board and my gut told me he was pushing with a flush draw and I had him beat so I called his all in. Turned out he had me dominated and I should have been knocked out but I got a sick turn with a Q. Clearly this was nothing but luck but listening to my gut helped me in the face of the math in my opinion (unless I am just delusional about this).
I was too busy with the other games to comment at the time but felt kind of sheepish after the win, but played pretty solid the rest of the game. So probably not truly “gut but luck” however, it seems I get lucky a lot when I really follow it. Or so I think.
2) PLO – 9 players left in a 30 player game for a prize pool of $50 7th hits the money. I am out of position and get Ac 10C As 10s, to me this is a monster hand two straight draws pre-flop two flush draws pre-flop and two pair potentially hitting trips when the board is finally displayed. I was 3 positions from the dealer and thought as I called the bet I am going to lose this hand. Sure enough I was raised all in and regardless of my gut I called. Sure enough I lost. My point is maybe subconsciously my gut is telling me you are out of position dumbass! you don’t have to play this, yet I refuse to listen. With a little patience I should have been able to navigate to the money then again had I suited the board or hit any of my other hands I could have dominated the table in chip stack at that point positioning myself for first place. In retrospect I think it I should have folded simply due to place in tourney lack of sufficient chip stack and bad position. And perhaps that is what my gut was trying to tell me when I ignored it.
3) Another tourney early position get JJ 1 position from UTG. Flop comes with K and I call the bet and it’s down to the two of us. Again as I am telling myself to fold I keep calling (like I need to prove how moronic I can be) get to the river know I am beat and decide F it the only way I am going to win this is to push all in. Made him think but he correctly called with AK knocking me out. Again if I had simply listened to my gut I would have lost a few chips but been alive to play another hand. Instead I feel like I am the embodiment of the Donks I secretly laugh at while playing. And simply realize I have so much more to learn.
4) Sometimes it doesn’t work but I still feel I made the right call. For example Middle of tourney pushed all in with AK off. I know at this point in the game I should simply fold and I do, but also feel I would win if I call. I literally fight with myself because it makes no sense. Plus the allin was the first real aggressive move I had seen from this player in about an hour. Sure enough all-in was q8 and caller was KJ and an A hit the board so I would have won. I am ok with this because I still feel it was the better call, and I did get to the final table just wasn’t worth the risk in my opinion. But was their really something to my gut or should I ignore it and listen to the math!
5) Another tourney I was in that I did very well in I lost a bunch of chips early was out of position and got 3-5 heart. No reason at all to call this and often I will fold. Everyone but 1 person folded before me. With 4 players left that could call I pushed all in forcing the BB to call hoping the guy behind me would fold but he called given the price for the pot. I hit hearts and was able to rebuild and even increase my stack the next two or 3 hands again reaching deep into the tourney. I realize I can only truly call this luck but as I bet I also knew in my gut I would win the pot.
When I lost the PLO tourney, I felt like maybe I had reached an understanding that while I should not play “uneasy” and should discard these hands as my subconscious / gut is telling me to walk away.
I have purchased DriveHUD and will import my hands and try to make sense of my overall play by looking at all my games I have data for, but I have never used a HUD before.
And it is not as easy as I assumed. These last couple of months I started using one regularly found it more distracting than helpful but I figure that is due to my learning curve. I just need to get used to it and really learn how to use it.
But I still haven’t grasped all the terminology and perhaps that lack of understanding is eliciting some of my poor play above, which I am trying to call intuition or gut.
A) Do you have markers for recognizing when you are “donking” out?
B) Is the gut feeling analogous to a mirage in your opinions or a subconscious warning signal? Or
C) am I just not aware of the fact that I am actually a Donk that has just gotten lucky a few times?
Admittedly my gut is not always right. But it seems that it is more often than not at least in my perception. However I have noticed a couple of caveats
1) some hole cards look sexy regardless of position (this gets me in trouble more than not)!
2) Sometimes I get a primary hand late in tourney with a sinking feeling, believing I am obligated to call when in position but sometimes call anyway out of position.
Now I am wondering if that sinking feeling is a subconscious indicator that I am not playing the math and just going with the gut so I should remind myself to look at EV++, odds and overall read on the table. And it’s making me go over my math skills again which are lacking IMO.
Here are a few examples:
1) QJ off in bb, relatively early in the tourney raised by dealer roughly 3x the blind – I know I am supposed to fold here but I see two things (right or wrong it’s my perception). A. The call is still only about 1/30th or 1/25th of my stack. B. Heads up is usually a toss anyway and it comes down to believing what the other player represents. C. I can easily fold if I hit nothing.
In this case I hit the J, and was put in an all in position. Again an easy fold. I was playing 4 games at the time so not completely focused on that particular hand but there were two suits on the board and my gut told me he was pushing with a flush draw and I had him beat so I called his all in. Turned out he had me dominated and I should have been knocked out but I got a sick turn with a Q. Clearly this was nothing but luck but listening to my gut helped me in the face of the math in my opinion (unless I am just delusional about this).
I was too busy with the other games to comment at the time but felt kind of sheepish after the win, but played pretty solid the rest of the game. So probably not truly “gut but luck” however, it seems I get lucky a lot when I really follow it. Or so I think.
2) PLO – 9 players left in a 30 player game for a prize pool of $50 7th hits the money. I am out of position and get Ac 10C As 10s, to me this is a monster hand two straight draws pre-flop two flush draws pre-flop and two pair potentially hitting trips when the board is finally displayed. I was 3 positions from the dealer and thought as I called the bet I am going to lose this hand. Sure enough I was raised all in and regardless of my gut I called. Sure enough I lost. My point is maybe subconsciously my gut is telling me you are out of position dumbass! you don’t have to play this, yet I refuse to listen. With a little patience I should have been able to navigate to the money then again had I suited the board or hit any of my other hands I could have dominated the table in chip stack at that point positioning myself for first place. In retrospect I think it I should have folded simply due to place in tourney lack of sufficient chip stack and bad position. And perhaps that is what my gut was trying to tell me when I ignored it.
3) Another tourney early position get JJ 1 position from UTG. Flop comes with K and I call the bet and it’s down to the two of us. Again as I am telling myself to fold I keep calling (like I need to prove how moronic I can be) get to the river know I am beat and decide F it the only way I am going to win this is to push all in. Made him think but he correctly called with AK knocking me out. Again if I had simply listened to my gut I would have lost a few chips but been alive to play another hand. Instead I feel like I am the embodiment of the Donks I secretly laugh at while playing. And simply realize I have so much more to learn.
4) Sometimes it doesn’t work but I still feel I made the right call. For example Middle of tourney pushed all in with AK off. I know at this point in the game I should simply fold and I do, but also feel I would win if I call. I literally fight with myself because it makes no sense. Plus the allin was the first real aggressive move I had seen from this player in about an hour. Sure enough all-in was q8 and caller was KJ and an A hit the board so I would have won. I am ok with this because I still feel it was the better call, and I did get to the final table just wasn’t worth the risk in my opinion. But was their really something to my gut or should I ignore it and listen to the math!
5) Another tourney I was in that I did very well in I lost a bunch of chips early was out of position and got 3-5 heart. No reason at all to call this and often I will fold. Everyone but 1 person folded before me. With 4 players left that could call I pushed all in forcing the BB to call hoping the guy behind me would fold but he called given the price for the pot. I hit hearts and was able to rebuild and even increase my stack the next two or 3 hands again reaching deep into the tourney. I realize I can only truly call this luck but as I bet I also knew in my gut I would win the pot.
When I lost the PLO tourney, I felt like maybe I had reached an understanding that while I should not play “uneasy” and should discard these hands as my subconscious / gut is telling me to walk away.
I have purchased DriveHUD and will import my hands and try to make sense of my overall play by looking at all my games I have data for, but I have never used a HUD before.
And it is not as easy as I assumed. These last couple of months I started using one regularly found it more distracting than helpful but I figure that is due to my learning curve. I just need to get used to it and really learn how to use it.
But I still haven’t grasped all the terminology and perhaps that lack of understanding is eliciting some of my poor play above, which I am trying to call intuition or gut.