What bad poker habit took you the longest to break?

Certainly to play out of position, I still play in some cases, not least because of playing so much, I learned to play out of it. More less often!

In my opinion the worst habbit as poker player is when you dont quit playing if you get tilt, so i have learned to quit really fast when im playing
@CASH table and recognizing that im having a downswing in my game or other players having their day and hitting the board the whole time.
So it is up to you if you wanna risk more from your bankroll then you want, it is necessary always to stay calm and ask yourself is this a table where i can
make money while spending my time or it is just fun and you dont care, but last is a rare phenomenon because nobody has fun if loosing money.

If i have the feeling, something is going a bit strange while playing, i quit and try it in another session or a different game with lower buy in or a freeroll just to relax and enjoy just the game. It is never a fault to take a break even if you had a good run, because you will never know what happens next ...

pay to split.

nabmom said:

We all know that there is a learning curve to playing poker. We also know that sometimes, once we pick up a bad habit, it is hard to shake it. Combining these two things, I'm wondering what bad poker habits you had in the past that were the hardest to stop. Or maybe you still have a bad habit that you know isn't helping you, but you just can't help yourself.

For me, learning how to stop chasing losses during a slump in cash games took a long time to really conquer. It was often so tempting to "just play a bit longer" and try and win back what I had lost. Studying my hand history really helped me understand what I was doing and how it wasn't helping to be tilted and try and win back my buy-ins. Taking a break was a much better strategy that was easier to manage once I created a clear "stop/loss" amount. Once I hit that, I walked away from the table.

So, what bad poker habit did you conquer after some effort, or maybe you are still battling?

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When I first started playing poker, I had the bad habit of playing the same hands the same way regardless of my position at the table. I didn’t realize that a hand could be profitable in a late position but problematic in an early position. Over time, I learned that position is one of the most important factors in poker, and adjusting my hand ranges accordingly can make a huge difference in my results.

Even today, I still catch myself occasionally ignoring position. It’s a difficult habit to completely overcome, but it happens sometimes

To reenter tournament 3-4 times, although more than hour has passed from the beginning.

Playing too many hands out of boredom. Folding felt boring, but my bankroll thanked me once I learned patience

My biggest weakness is patience in long tournaments. After about two hours, I start feeling bored and restless, which sometimes pushes me to play hands I would normally fold. I know it's not the best approach, but staying focused for many hours is still something I'm working on. Short breaks help, but I think improving my patience is one of the biggest challenges in my poker game.

the expectation that playing one style will yield results everytime

One bad habit I had was going on tilt after one player stacked me. I would get obsessed with winning my chips back from that specific player and no one else. It took me a long time to realize that poker is about making good decisions, not getting revenge on the guy who busted you. Sometimes I still have this bad habit

I have them so many that I cannot remember them all at once. Today I'm going to write about patience (or impatience). When I play MTTs in most cases I play how I want for about 90 minutes and then I lose patience and start calling with hands that (by my rules) are for folding. For now I haven't managed to get rid of it.

nabmom said:

We all know that there is a learning curve to playing poker. We also know that sometimes, once we pick up a bad habit, it is hard to shake it. Combining these two things, I'm wondering what bad poker habits you had in the past that were the hardest to stop. Or maybe you still have a bad habit that you know isn't helping you, but you just can't help yourself.

For me, learning how to stop chasing losses during a slump in cash games took a long time to really conquer. It was often so tempting to "just play a bit longer" and try and win back what I had lost. Studying my hand history really helped me understand what I was doing and how it wasn't helping to be tilted and try and win back my buy-ins. Taking a break was a much better strategy that was easier to manage once I created a clear "stop/loss" amount. Once I hit that, I walked away from the table.

So, what bad poker habit did you conquer after some effort, or maybe you are still battling?

Click to expand...

I think my biggest bad habit is calling big bets with AJ or AQ. Because when that happens—usually after a three-bet—I end up facing a big pair or AK.

What bad poker habit took you the longest to break?

In my case was Tilt, so many types of it - the main resource that helped me with it is Tendler's books * The Mental Game of Poker 1 & 2... in his books, Jared identified 7 primary types of tilt and quite a few variations and/or secondary types... I won't get too much into it as it will be too much to write about this subject, what I want to say that helped me the most is the different examples on how to recognize your triggers and early signs, some of the best 'fixes' (the one I like the most and often recommend on our community is taking (short) breaks from gambling in general and don't wait to 'burn out' and/or for the bad sessions to come * I often take breaks after winning runs/sessions) and to focus on process over results... I would say that my poker mental game is pretty good ATM, but I'm till battling some things and like with other aspects of the game - there's always room for improvement and that's why so many of us love poker

The bad habit that took me the longest to break was playing too many marginal hands just because I was bored or card dead. I'd sit there folding for what felt like forever and eventually convince myself that a weak hand was good enough to play. Of course, that usually just led to tougher decisions and lost chips.

my worst live ring game habit was continuation betting stong starting hands in late position that missed the flop .say i was playing $1/2 with about 80 bucks in front of me , and found a hand on the button like AQs or 1010 after 2 players limped .i'd raise it to $13 and get called by one of the blinds and one of the limpers . the flop would be something like 997 , and i'd bet another $27 after they both checked , and seemingly always get action .by the time the turn and river action came i'd wise up but too late . i'd see q9off suit or 98o every time and think 'how can they put in 6.5 big blinds with those cards' ? but they do , and half my stack would be gone, or more . plenty of brick and mortar poker room players come to gamble , and once they've entered the pot they don't like to fold pre flop . when junk hits it doesn't necessarily mean your big cards are safe .

i used to all in preflop with good hands and not getting the value needed from the hands and always get busted with bad beats

My bad habit was going to play the online slots on ACR after busting out in the CardsChat freerolls on Replay Poker . Not a well thought out move after just losing all my chips in a poker tourney !

It was the habit of wanting to play every hand. I had to lose many times to change that.

Once I got a handle on playing a wider late position opening range, I used to make the mistake of assuming that I could call an open with that entire range. "A7s on the BT, right on, I can open this, let's play!" And then the CO would open before me and I'd be like, "Aww, I was ready to open, but I can still flat call because I have position, right?" This situation is a fold or a 3-bet, almost always a fold and at micro stakes definitely a fold unless the stacks or Villain tendencies tell you otherwise.

The one habit that took me longer to let go of was being unable to let go when I flopped 2-pair no matter how fugly the board ran out.

J9s and 2 limpers to me on the button. "Right on, I can open this!" So I do. Then even better, the flop is 92J-rb! "Sweet! Top 2-pair and no one can put me on it. I even have back door spades. It's just a matter of getting paid." It checks to me 3-way. "Gee, don't want anyone folding here. I'll bet small. Just a 1/4," (failing to price out draws).

Both Villains call. Turn is the 8di, busts my backdoor spades. "Grr, QT just came in. Bah, no one has that. And I'm not worried about those back door diamonds neither. Both Villains check to me. I should bet small again, but just in case someone has a T, better go half-pot." They both call. "Damn, what do these guys have? Oh well, so long as the river isn't a Q, a T or a dia ... it's the Q of diaomnds. Horror show card!"

Villain 1 bets 1/3rd. Villain 2 calls. "What the hell is going on here? 45 seconds ago I had a secret monster. You can't tell me that I still don't have a monster. Gah, they could just be bluffing the diamonds. CALL!"

Then they show you the bad news. One of them a T and the other had diamonds.

I had to learn that he board texture changes your value. That monster is now a bluff catcher. That took a while. It's even worse with broadway cards. I open KJo and get called by the SB heads-up. Flop KJ-rag. Sweet 2-pair. Turn is a T. SB check-raises me. Oh, look out! If SB is competent, he's likely defending out of position with 2 broadways. This is very very often AQ. Probably have to fold our monster.

expecting to go to bed with a profit every day

Definitely complaining about Bad Beat lol
Compared to a while ago, I still complain today, but much less. I've already accepted that it's part of the game.

Well, it's been so long since I've played poker regularly that I've already forgotten a bit.🤣
But probably the most harmful habit is to relax, having the largest stack at the table. I mean, feeling ahead of everyone else, I started playing a veeewery wide range of hands, more simply parting with the chips. Most of the time, this led to a loss and it was really extremely difficult to keep control of yourself so as not to make a lot of mistakes.

The Tilt

Not sure if its a bad habit, but my weakness is distractions. I have the habit of loosing focus easily on the game & when it happens I start to play "weird" LOL. So taking this opportunity to apologize to my friends that chat me during games if I do not respond. Hope for your utmost understanding & hope we are still friends outside the tables LOL. As well as RL distractions causing havoc in my games so I try to avoid as possible by locking my room when playing LOL. I am practicing playing with multitasking (watching TV) but I think I have not yet overcome my bad habit. Embarassing that I have been penalized up to 4X for acting out of turn in a live tournament when I loosed focus LOL. Looking for a medicine on this or perhaps age is catching up on me LOL.

Losing! I finally found the cure - don't play cash, find a tournament type and level you can beat, and flog it to death.

The habit I had the hardest time overcoming was the desire to win all the important hands. At first, I thought I had to prove that I was the best in every situation, which led me to equalize stakes when I should have retired or to force unnecessary bluffs. Over time, I understood that poker isn't about winning every hand, but about making the best possible decision over and over again. My game improved markedly when I accepted that retiring judiciously is also a victory.