I don't play enough ... and I think I know why

[aislephive]

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Graphs work well for me. Whenever I feel the dread coming I pull up a graph of total winnings for the year. This helps me view downswings as inevitable, minor bumps in the longterm road. Afterwards all I worry about is playing my A game and shipping more monies.

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Yeah I tend to stare at my graphs while I'm not playing thinking of how much richer I'd be if I multiplied the amount of the X axis by 2-3. But for some reason it doesn't really motivate me. The thought of going on a downswing depresses me.

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OP,

Your situation describes mine to a tee. And I am also feeling that if I can't figure this out soon, I am going to go in a different direction in my life. Wish I could offer you some advice, but I haven't figured it out myself.

One small thing that has at least helped keep me from ever having short sessions is simply, never looking at my cashier, during play. You can still cut it short on those nothing will work days, to avoid tilt. But obv for a winning player, those days are rare. Most days you will be winning and only have a pretty rough estimate of how much in your head. This makes it easier to forget about it and focus on a time or # of hands target.

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I'm not a big fan of short sessions and they haven't really worked for me. I usually like to put in one or two sessions a day at most to get the most out of the day. If I put in a 3-4 hr session I can have the rest of the day to do whatever, where as with constant mini-sessions I don't really have that comfort.

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When I run bad, I do the same thing. Play short sessions and few of them. When you play this game long enough, you'll know what variance can do...even if your playing your A game.

I also hate to loose and when your on a slight bit of tilt, it's hard to drop that premium hand you were dealt, even if the flop looks bad.

My advice: Play a lot when your running good. Do the same thing that your doing when your running bad, shorter sessions and fewer of them until things turn around. Maybe drop limits and play a bit tighter.

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I've tried dropping down sometimes, but I find that I can't really take the games too seriously and end up spewing a lot. And I'm definitely guilty of not playing enough when I'm running well, but I think that's very common.

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I feel the same way as you do OP. Except I keep playing when I lose because I don't like losing. And then I get angry and tilt.

I believe the best advice is what BlackRain said. Just concentrate on playing good solid poker [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] and not worrying about the results constantly checking the cashier.

I remember TillerMan did an experiment with this on his blog. He went a few days or weeks-- I cant remember --without looking at his cashier. He believed it messed with his head constantly worrying about his short term results.

I'm going to work on doing that.

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Believe it or not I don't check the cashier or PT while I'm playing, but sometimes in a really swingy session I'll check and usually quit right after.

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do you get rakeback? that motivates me to put in hours.

how about moving up in stakes, changing that $100/hour to $400/hour eventually, isn't that thought appealing? it's going to happen a hell of a lot sooner if you put in lots of hands.

consistency works for me. consider putting yourself on some kind of hand schedule, like 2000/day.

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Those are all good points and I do get RB (sorta) and want to move up. And I've also tried doing hand schedules as well, but it all goes back to me being afraid to lose instead of just accepting variance.

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Your putting all your emphisis on winning and losing. Just concentrate on playing well. Playing 6-8 tables doesn't sound like a guy looking to improve his game. It also sounds like you may be playing over your bankroll. I don't play NL but when losing more than 3 buyins is considered unrecoverable I would think that's a big part of the problem

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I have > 50 buyins for the level I play, bankroll issues are of no concern. Yes I do play a lot of tables, but I don't think that's part of the problem, as I'm winning pretty soundly in my games right now. I guess I just don't want to mess with the 6ptbb I've been running at for the past few months, which is pretty silly all things considered.

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a5:

while I didn't have many months where I played significantly more hands than this, I suggest sticking to a time when you should play, every day, and playing for the same amount of time. I used to play from 10 pm to 1 am ish - put on live at the bike in the background and went to work.

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Yeah I'm going to try to get on more of a schedule, that usually helps me put in hands.

Thanks for the responses so far everybody.