For the week of August 10-16 I played 28 tournaments and I cashed in only two. One of the cashes was just after the bubble and in a $10 tournament, so my net result was about - $1,100 for the week. Am I worried? Do I care about losing the money? No. I'm playing well within my bankroll with really only one tournament that was a stretch, so it's not affecting me financially. But I'm going to take a couple of days off now because it's starting to affect the way I play.
Up through about 25 of the tournaments, I was playing fine. In fact, I was playing some of my best poker ever. I was getting a lot of 2 outers and runner runners against me, but I just brushed it off and moved on to the next tournament. But since I am playing more volume now, I have to be prepared for bigger swings and my tolerance level for taking the blunt end of the variance stick is going to have to increase. So, at about 25 tournaments I was starting to get sick of the nastiness and while I didn't make any tilty donk shoves or anything, emotion was starting to cloud my judgement and decision making.
The following are the ways in which I think running bad was affecitng my play:
- Bet sizing, stack size and pot size calculation - for some reason my emotions cloud everything and I don't think on multiple planes. I just think 2-dimensionally (bet or check/fold, call or raise vs. how much, what will my/their stack be on future streets, etc.). This might be coupled with being tired as well, but either way I need to take a couple of breaths and make sure I'm thinking multi-dimensionally.
- Narrowing the range too much and focusing only on the hands that might beat me - After running bad, the baggage/scar-tissue starts to build up and sometimes play in fear of a hand that might beat me vs. playing against my opponents entire range. For example, I raised with KK in ep, the sb calls and the flop is AcTcXd. Villain checks and I check behind for pot control, inducing bluffs, etc. The turn was Qc. So now I have a gut shot and nut flush draw. Villain checks again. Well...because of baggage in a few hands a couple of weeks ago where an Ace checked twice and my KK lost, I decided to check behind again and let 44 catch up to make a set on the river. Now, this doesn't mean that next time I'm going to overshove so that I don't let someone suckout on me. It just means that I need to bet the turn because while he could have an Ace (or even a made flush), he can also have a lot of other hands as well. Some of those hands fold and some weaker hands call. I also have lots of outs if he does have an Ace.
- Folding instead of stealing, 3-betting or bluffing - when I am playing and running good, I am very confident in pulling the trigger when I sense the situation is right for a steal. However, when I'm running bad I start fearing people waking up with hands and talk myself into a fold. I am losing a lot of equity by doing this and while it doesn't mean that I need to play like a maniac, it means that I need to quit worrying about the "what ifs" and pull the trigger when I have a read...even if I have been running bad in those situations....NO BAGGAGE!
- Not assigning a hand range - When the affects of running bad start wearing on me, I start betting based on the value of my hand and stop putting the other guy on a range. I mean, I might think "strong vs. weak", but I really need to think deeper and say to myself the hands he could have played pre-flop that lead us to this situation.
- Betting for thin value - I know there are times I checked behind on the river and left value on the table because I was afraid of losing a bet
- Not c-betting - While I don't think this happened recently, I know in the past I had a tendency to shut down in spots where a c-bet is standard because I didn't want to get check-raised or called.
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