How often do you mess up?
 

After a session I tend to look back at the biggest pots I lost, this is pretty common I'm sure.

When you're looking at this list, how often do you see hands you misplayed? Most of the hands I misplay are where I call a bet too quickly without thinking because my hand is 'too good to fold'. I don't stop to consider what my opponent would be making a bet of this size with.

Are there people who look back at the list and the 10 biggest losers are all perfectly played coolers? It terrifies me that this might be the case. I've had the odd session where I've been totally satisfied with my game, but it's rare.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I'm pretty self-critical so I don't think I ever have a session where I feel like I played perfectly. When I play a hand that I thought through, as long as my logic is sound I don't beat myself up.

At the same time I realize sometimes the world just [censored] you in the ass and I would've lost anyway.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

Yeti,
I've thought about this a lot. Basically this is what it comes down to for me.

My goal is to play optimally
This is impossible(obviously).
Every session I will be upset with my play because it is suboptimal.

Given this I have learned to still be critical of my play but not let poor decisions bother me as much as they used to.

I'm not sure if this helps but just my 2 cents.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I play terribly. Luckily, so does everyone else.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I'm happy if I stack off badly only 2 out of every 10 All In's. My averge is about 8/10 though.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

there's plenty of times where I regret how I played a hand immediately after it, not just because of results just from further thinking

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
there's plenty of times where I regret how I played a hand immediately after it, not just because of results just from further thinking

[/ QUOTE ]

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
there's plenty of times where I regret how I played a hand immediately after it, not just because of results just from further thinking

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah. I talk them to myself out loud as I think it helps me remember it.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

I suggest be more like Federer

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]
New custom title?

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]


If you change your avatar on 2+2 and all poker sites to Venus Williams, I will coach you for 4 hours (6 hours if I'm feeling generous)

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
Yeti,
I've thought about this a lot. Basically this is what it comes down to for me.

My goal is to play optimally
This is impossible(obviously).
Every session I will be upset with my play because it is suboptimal.

Given this I have learned to still be critical of my play but not let poor decisions bother me as much as they used to.

I'm not sure if this helps but just my 2 cents.

[/ QUOTE ]

im in the same boat. i used to tilt ridiculously if I felt I made a poor play(s). Now i'm still very critical of my play, but realize that dwelling/obsessing on particular hands (the past, rather than the present)in a NEGATIVE manner is completely counterproductive and breeds monkey tilt. basically for me its like, everyone makes mistakes, you cant be succesfull without learning from them but you also have to move on and not let prior hands affect your actual mentality

i think this is the sort of thing that halts development in a lot of players. some ppl just cant admit to mistakes/evaluate their play objectively

pretty simple stuff but w/e

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

Usually a couple of big ones every thousand hands or so. Not always "messed up" though, lots are pretty close.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

When I'm multitabling, occasionally I just forget to think about a situation. Like, I'll be deciding whether to call or raise a river bet, and I'll think "Okay, well obviously calling makes sense here. Oh, but raising does too," and then I'll just choose one without bothering to reason it out.

I'd say this happens once every 300 hands or so.

I'm really curious to learn how often other good players do this. But, I'm pretty sure people are pretty awful at assessing how frequently they do this stuff.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
When I'm multitabling, occasionally I just forget to think about a situation. Like, I'll be deciding whether to call or raise a river bet, and I'll think "Okay, well obviously calling makes sense here. Oh, but raising does too," and then I'll just choose one without bothering to reason it out.

I'd say this happens once every 300 hands or so.

I'm really curious to learn how often other good players do this. But, I'm pretty sure people are pretty awful at assessing how frequently they do this stuff.

[/ QUOTE ]

I dont' believe that counts, zee's posts make it seem like doing what u just explained may be BETTER than thinking (because it's better than overthinking). OP is talkin about actually making a mistake.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I throw at least one absurd bluff per session. I regret too many, but it gets me paid in situations I might not have otherwise

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

I'd like to hear from more of the ballas on this. I personally am terrible at playing my best, and I'm not talking about tilt at all (though I do that once in a while). It's more like what Stinger mentioned; almost immediately after certain decisions, I realize that had I thought about it just a bit more, I'd have picked a better play. I know this is about focus, and I'm seriously trying meditation as a route to focusing better, but in my case so far, this is slow going.

Anyway, I always add up the plays that I made that I know better than to make, but just didn't for whatever reason, in a session, and it's scary how much money I've given away like that. This is especially true, given how many of the decisions involve play on the river, when either me or my opponent is "drawing dead." And to be clear, I'm not talking about misreads; I mean mistakes GIVEN the read I had at the time.

Bottom line for me: I play live poker 3 days/week, ~25 hours/week, with the odd trip thrown in where I play a ton (like last week in Vegas), and I have played 3 sessions since December that I am confident I didn't leave over 50 BBs on the table due to unforced errors. Looked at as a percentage of sessions, that means I'm batting like .125, which is acceptable to a Cubs fan, but otherwise gross.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
(like last week in Vegas),

[/ QUOTE ]

TRIP REPORT!

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

less and less seldom but still pretty frequently. moreso when running bad ofc, so yeah it IS a form of tilt.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

this thread makes me feel better about this leak of mine...which isn't good.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]


If you change your avatar on 2+2 and all poker sites to Venus Williams, I will coach you for 4 hours (6 hours if I'm feeling generous)

[/ QUOTE ]
[img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img] [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]
VNH.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

About once per session, usually after I've been playing for a while, I will make a stupid play. And it almost always involves calling where I should raise or fold, and then firing again on the next street to make up for what was a bad call on the prior street. Which amplifies the mistake.

After the hand, I either (a) immediately admit to myself how stupid it was as I think through the hand, when I am in a good frame of mind, or (b) rationalize how villain made a bad play with a weakish hand and should have folded, when I am in a bad frame of mind. Situation (a) leads to better play for the session, while situation (b) is the downward tilt slope.

Frequently at least once a session, which can be the turning point for a good or bad session. I can be my own worst opponent.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

[ QUOTE ]
I think I make more terrible plays AND more great plays than 98% of people who play HSNL.

I like to call them unforced errors and call myself the Venus Williams of poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

you sound just like my friend who i'd beat at ping pong all the time, but insist it wasn't becaues i made good plays, it was because he made "unforced errors". it doen't make much sense and you suck

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

A useful way of conceptualising mistakes (in life and poker) is to categorise them into two broad categories:

A) Sloppy errors.
In poker, these are chiefly due to loss of concentration and tiredness. The solutions are fairly obvious and have been discussed elsewhere - e.g. play when alert, exercise regularly, eat healthily, play lots of short session, don't have distractions like TV or IM when playing, take time over every decision and have a dialogue with yourself about hands, quite when tilting & running bad, etc. The importance of these thing really struck me recently when I was thinking about the mental tiredness I feel after playing a full session of poker. The only thing I can liken it too is the feeling I had after sitting a difficult 3 hour important final exam. Playing poker at a high-level is mentally gruelling - would you sit an important exam when hungover? Or with the TV on?


B) Learning opportunities.
This is when you realise retrospectively that there was some piece of information available at the time that could have led to a better decision. These are by far the most interesting types of mistakes, and are a massively important learning tool throughout life in general. It's actually a positive thing if this is happening, because it means you are still growing as a player.


Essentially, you shouldn't really regret mistakes as long as you can turn them into some sort of positive learning experience. Even a mistake that appears to be a type A error can be, on further reflection, a learning opportunities. Go through a mental checklist with each mistake:

1) What was the mistake?
2) Why did I make it?
3) What can I do in the future to avoid it?

In short - mistakes can be positive experiences, embrace them!


*****

As for the actual question, I make a crap-ton of mistakes, of both types, and probably don't learn nearly as much from them as I should! I do try and reflect on them on a daily basis though. I normally divide them into:

1) Big e.g. 1/4 of a pot size or bigger, such as a bad call down with AA against an obvious set.
2) Medium e.g. a missed thin value bet etc.
3) Small e.g. a loose preflop call OOP

I have been learning NL for the last 6 months, and it's only recently where I have started logging the odd session where I don't consciously make any big mistakes. Through the last 6 months I honestly think I may have averaged 1 or 2 big mistakes per 1000 hands -- a huge sum of money.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

another fantastic post stigmata, you're doing the euros proud.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

stigmata,

Clear your inbox. I just wanted to say, "Great post" but wordier.

Re: How often do you mess up?
 

Cleared.... I guess you need to re-send it [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]
Thanks for the feedback - it's appreciated [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]