What bad poker habit took you the longest to break?

ebazynski

ebazynski

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  • #76
Staying in too many hands when the flop gives me a backdoor straight or flush draw, particularly when the possibility of drawing a possible nut hand is present. Still haven't conquered this, but am trying to focus on the situational impact of continuing or not.
 
miric007

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  • #77
I struggled the longest with the need to “get back what I lost.” After a few bad pots, I felt I had to recoup my losses immediately, which often led to overaggressive play and poor decisions. It took me a while to accept that each hand is a separate decision and that the previous outcome shouldn't affect the next one. Today, as soon as I notice that emotions are starting to make decisions for me, I take a short break and refocus on the quality of my play.
 
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MARCIO123

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  • #78
The bad habit that took me the longest to let go of was the emotional attachment to strong initial hands, especially the famous “pair of Ases” (AA) or “Kings” KkkK.
 
gustavofuentes2

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  • #79
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?
My problem comes and goes. I lose my patience when my cards just don't show up for some time. Then I would really lose it when the other players would just keep making their crazy rivers after my great hand. My frustration would just have me going all in with any 2 because if it worked for them it would work for me. (NOT). I learned to control that emotion and just say it's part of the game. When i look at that way I play great poker and make the final table many times. Uffortunately after a little time I seem to forget and fall back into that bad habbit. Well I guess this is going to be a life long problem. I just have to deal with it. Don't fall into this habbit, just play your game and dont let your imotions led you astray. Good luck at the table
 
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  • #80
gustavofuentes2 said:
My problem comes and goes. I lose my patience when my cards just don't show up for some time. Then I would really lose it when the other players would just keep making their crazy rivers after my great hand. My frustration would just have me going all in with any 2 because if it worked for them it would work for me. (NOT). I learned to control that emotion and just say it's part of the game. When i look at that way I play great poker and make the final table many times. Uffortunately after a little time I seem to forget and fall back into that bad habbit. Well I guess this is going to be a life long problem. I just have to deal with it. Don't fall into this habbit, just play your game and dont let your imotions led you astray. Good luck at the table

Play 2 tables, or 3. This helps me a great deal as it keeps me disciplined when I'm card dead. With 2 tables open we rarely go very long without playing at least one hand here and there, so we don't get bored waiting for good cards. Even if we are only seeing 30% of flops, we will be playing at least one hand more often than none. When I'm feeling good and sharp I can easily play 3 tables will full attention to all 3. I thought that it would be impossible but once I tried I found that it's actually much easier than I thought it would be. Just don't start with heads-up games or tables with less than 4 players because the action comes quite quickly. Add those tables in once you get more comfortable with it.
 
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