the poker third eye. and good days, bad days.

[king of the deck]

(since i wont be getting real responses in bvv)

OK i have been playing tons of poker for about 3-4 years. mostly hold em, mostly no limit, never anything higher than 400 nlhe on a regular basis. for the most part, 6 handed.

in the last 6 months or so i feel like my no limit game has gotten exponentially better. as time goes on i start to get more and more aware of something i call the "poker third eye" basically a very keen awareness of where i stand in a hand, but more importantly where other player(s) stand. obviously i can really execute some great poker when i am feeling this.

unfortnately this does not come to me every day i need it. id say more than half the days, i can get in this zone, and fairly quickly. some days i cant at all, and my games suffer as a result. some days, i get in this third eye zone, and eventually slip out of it, and my game suffers.

now heres the problem - in a nutshell.
even when i am pretty sure i do not have this third eye working, i am too stubborn to quit and go watch tv, or do whatever, go for a jog, read a book. i think part of it is pride. another part of it is i am a greedy bastard and i want to spend every free moment i have accumulating wealth. can anyone relate to this inability to walk, even when you know youre not playing at 100%?

i figure this is probably something i will grow out of, just as i grew out of going on tilt over dumb stuff like bad beats. but in the meantime, it still sucks a lot and i would like to hear what anyone has to say on this. thanks!

[PunterSThompson]

I understand what youre talking about, and it really applies to any endeavour, not just poker. For instance, I play squash competitively. Some days i'm completely on and can't do anything wrong, other days I know i'm not at my best but I just knuckle down and do the best I can. I guess what i'm trying to say is, you're not always gonna play the best you possibly can, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't play, it just means maybe you should focus more on ABC poker.

Regards, Stuart