Pokerwiner.com → Within poker principles
4.Overplaying hands.
This can evolve out of a player’s efforts to play better and extract more profit from hands played. He rightly takes to heart the importance of aggressive poker play. The problem occurs when he fails to see where to draw the line. He may misconstrue the advice he has seen, or may be heeding advice that was too narrowly focused on the importance of aggression. In these cases, he is acting on the basis of a kind of misinformation.
Alternatively, subtle tilt may of course be the culprit. In any case, it is not hard to rationalize crossing the line of correct play by too often raising when a call or a fold is preferable. As an example of overplaying a hand, say you are dealt before the flop. You raise in an early position, a weak player in a middle position calls, as does a player in late position. You are unfamiliar with the late position player. The blinds fold. The flop comes:
You bet, the first player calls, and the second player raises. You reraise, the weak player calls, and the unfamiliar player caps it at four bets. How do you play from here? Remember that you don’t know this player. Options you might consider include:
- Folding right there. (I hope you wouldn’t seriously consider this option given your pot odds at this point.)
- Calling with the intention of checking and folding if you don’t improve and he bets on the turn.
- Calling with the intention of betting out on the turn provided the turn cards does not appear to have completed poker draw for the raiser.
- Calling with the intention of calling him down if you fail to improve, and no scare cards or subsequent action force you to fold.
- Calling with the intention of check-raising on the turn whether or not you improve.
Without getting into the correct play, option “E” would be overplaying the hand against a “typical, ” unfamiliar player. It would not be a terrible error, for you might in fact have the best hand and extract maximum profit by playing it this way. It would not be a big surprise to see a skilled played choose this option, but it would indicate that he had strayed slightly out of the zone of correct play as a result of some diminution of judgment. It would often indicate a big of tilt. Under different circumstances, his awareness of the strong chance he is beaten at this point, and will have to improve to win, would guide him away from this option.
5.Making too many fancy plays.
This is another error to play well. A player reaches a certain level of competence and asks, “Where do I go from here?” Making more and more fancy plays may seem like a logical choice. Such fancy play can easily become habitual – habitual Holdem slow playing, habitual use of unusual plays….This turns costly as it takes the place of careful judgment in individual situations. Deception and unconventional plays have their place, but used indiscriminately they dilute your results.
Conclusion
If you have good reason to believe that you are capable of a certain hourly rate, but your results over a subsequent (sufficiently Long) period are disappointing, one explanation to rule out is that you have been playing with subtly impaired judgment. As a conscientious player you should frequently monitor your play for the errors I have described as well as others which reflect diminished judgment. (*I have certainly not exhausted the list of errors which players make when their judgment is subtly impaired. Your ability to recognize errors will be limited by your knowledge of poker theory. By analyzing your play and looking for evidence of subtle losses of judgment, you will improve your chance of playing consistently at your best. Different players stray from sound play in different ways. Any category of poker error may be involved. Another common and important category, for instance, is calling when you should raise. Consistently playing too passively in this way means making pot costing errors – a very costly problem.
On Tilt: Part II – The Professional Attitude / Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part I
Subtle Losses of Judgment: Part II / A Poker Player in Therapy