Been giving this some thought recently. Seems to me a winning poker attitude/philosophy is to have just the right amount of the Give a Sh-t or Care factor.
I mean - you need to care enough to not make the really stupid moves, but but not care so much/have enough bravado to make the just plain stupid ones. I make a lot of the latter, which is why I have chat turned off. Why you ask? Cuz when I crush AA with a BS hand I just know the trash talk mill is going to be working overtime in the chat box.
So on a scale from 1 - 10 what's your Give a Sh-t/Care number (1 = couldn't care less; 10 = AA or nothing)?
I'm right in the middle, a solid 5.
I really don't know how to answer this one. Card values change all the time based on position, # of players who fold ahead of you, head count at the table, chip count, blind levels, etc. etc. etc.. Your question seems to place a lot of emphasis on the cards you start with and not the players you're up against. Such as the player who consistently raises behind you which keeps you from entering the pot at minimal cost with marginal
hands. But you can use that information to your advantage when you're holding stronger hands. All I know is I make a lot of mistakes, and I take advantage of the mistakes that other players make. It basically boils down to he who makes the fewest mistakes wins.
Example: Last night I was playing in a $50 triple up SNG game. Four players were left at the table. Blinds were 400-200. The next person out would be the bubble boy, missing out on the $150 payoff. I had 7,000 chips. The next player down had 4,000 chips. The final two players had the remaining 2,500 chips split among them. All the second chip leader and I had to do was to sit back, relax, and let the other two players duke it out amongst themselves. I had raised the pot to 600 and then 800 when the blinds increased when the second chip leader had the big blind. I wasn't bullying the players. I was actually raising on good hands. I held pocket kings and made a minimal raise to 800 once again while the second chip leader had the big blind. Apparently, he thought I was bullying and
bluffing, because he raised with all 4,000 chips. I called and caught him with his pants down, 10-4 off suit. I, and the two other players who were sweating it out with 1,200 chips each, won the game I'm sure much to their delight. The player who lost made almost too many mistakes to count. Mistake #1: He got frustrated with me raising his blinds and was going to teach me a lesson with a bluff of his own. I'm sure once I folded, he would have displayed his cards for everyone to see. Ego has no place at the card table, but had I been holding something less than huge pockets it might have worked. Mistake #2: Unless you're holding a huge hand, never go all in against someone who can take you out of the game. Only go all in against those who you can take out, like one of those other players with 1,200 chips. Losing against one of them wouldn't have diminished his
odds of winning the game by much. Mistake #3: This is his biggest mistake of all, the one that cost him $150.00. He already had the game won. Odds are one of the other players would not have survived another round or two of blinds. Those are the major mistakes he made, but there were others. I must have laughed for half an hour after the game, thinking of the expression he must have had on his face when I called his bluff and exposed his 10-4 against my kings.