Good stuff, bad sessions

After a slight recovery of my last bad day, entitled Horrible day. I had another bad one today. Omaha saved it a bit and towards the end of the session, I was fighting back. I ended up down less than 2 buy-ins, but it's far from important. I think today was one of those educational days I will be putting into practice in the coming days.

After a long talk with my friend, Tomson, I realized that all I need to do is to be more critical about my mentality and myself in the game. I feel I have (ever so deepening) knowledge of the game, but yet, I let results affect my gameplay. Durandal also mentions this kinda things in his latest post to his blog. I think he speaks words of wisdom in most parts of his writing and I agree, especially with the long paragraph. When you play long, don't progress, you get (or might get) a bit frustrated with results not coming - knowing this is wrong to think this way and actually realizing it are far away from each other. The gameplay, when frustrated, becomes more readable and more static and even the opponents at NL50 level pick some of this up - some don't, some will, but you'll end up screwed if you're playing a non-thinking game. This is the main issue I will have to work on for sure, to complitely ignore result oriented thinking and concentrate on playing a good game.

All this sounds so intuitively clear, but it isn't. Everyone who wants to really get into poker realizes and knows these things, but understanding and actually having it in you needs a lot of work. Maybe there are some natural talents out there, but let's face it - most people achieve what they have by hard work and I know that hard work can prevail in these matters too. What Tomson said about thinking what separates you from other players (I take it as he meant successful ones), it's the mindset. Of course this isn't the only part, but at the moments, I feel it's the greatest obstacle to overcome. Many beginning players don't realize this before they hit their first bunch of variance which'll nail them down and make them go broke.

The importance of position, the importance of reraising and the importance of firing the second barrel all come into the game when the limits start going up. The higher you get, the more important each one of these will gain. While talking to other players, looking at other players play and by playing, I think my understanding of these concepts is growing better and bigger at all times. The problem with learning quickly usually is that you'll try to forcefully apply everything you learn, which is why, I think that you should study after you've played and play more the next day when subconciousness has gotten the stuff well digested.

Going with your reads will be more important and although I terribly terribly misread this person, I still post this hand, because I really had him going with a missed draw. These are the kind of tilty plays, you might be making when frustrated, but I think I might play this the same in some occasions still. To be honest, I felt a bit ackward on the river, but the best thing besides a missed draw I could put him on was AT and I thought he would fold it to the reraise. Obviously he had a bit better hand than that.

Also, there was this short introduction in moving up limits. I found it to be quite interesting, very valuable if you're wondering on whether to move up limits.

Anyway, I guess that's my update for my revelations for know, I'll probably continue really playing on thursday, as I have some assignments and other studies to make anyway. Who knows, maybe I'll throw in a short session.