Psychological analyses and concepts

Introduction

In this Article

• Typical problems in a poker game
  
• How to overcome these obstacles?
  

The psychological factor in poker is very
important, especially in the No-Limit Hold'em game. It is important
when considering the opponent, the judgement and control of their
actions, or, even more importantly, in the context of your own behaviour
and how to control yourself. The psychological factor is also decisive
in persuading yourself to become a poker player who is always able to
make rational decisions, and who is able to look at setbacks as what
they are: part of the game.

Personal management, bankroll management, table selection, creating
objectives, concentration during the game, being conscious even over
small amounts of time, and the ambition to play your A-game in any
situation, determines about 70% of your success.

Bad Beat

When you seem to be the sure favorite, you put your
chips in the middle and the opponent hits his lucky card after all, his
Kicker, Runner Runner Draw or Gutshot: the Bad Beat.

• Experience helps you to digest bad beats easier

Over time a poker player will see more and more hands in which the
favorite loses and after some time he simply does not care. The chances
to score six of a kind when throwing two dices is 2.8%, the chances to
get a runner runner straight in poker are 4.9%. After playing for some
time, the player learns that these occurrences are part of the game and
therefore nothing unusual.

• There is nothing more you can do when having an advantage other than putting your chips into the pot

That's how easy it is. If a person was able to accept things which
are out of his/her control (meaning cards which are unveiled on the
turn or river), the problem probably would not exist. But we usually
think of it as unfair if we play a good game and still lose.

But poker is not fair. It is fair in the long run, but when you simply
look at the few hands of one session, it is not. There are four cards
in a deck which can complete a gutshot, and sometimes one of these four
cards appears and you're not able to prevent it. Try influencing the
situations which you can have an impact on, e.g. the pot odds, which
you give your opponent for his/her draw, and which secure your
long-term winnings. The other sort of situations, you should simply
accept.

• Good players suffer from more bad beats

Be sure to note that good players have to accept more bad beats since they are the favourites more often if
a lot of money is in the pot. A bad player, who goes all-in with a
gut shot, will never be favourite. All he can do is hand out a bad beat.
He will have a hard time getting a bad beat himself, as he, being a bad
player, will naturally slow play his sets in a tricky way. He uses the
wrong moments to put his money into the pot, which is your gain. Maybe
not in the hand in which he hits his lucky river card, but there will
be many others during which you will be the favourite and the opponent
does not get his four lucky outs.

Once you have played against stronger opponents and you go back to
playing at your normal limit, you'll be happy to put your chips into
the pot as favourite even if you have to accept a few bad beats and
suck outs.

Cooler

A cooler refers to the situation in which you have a
strong hand, yet meet an opponent with an even stronger hand, and hence
lose (all of your) money. A cooler is the little brother of a bad beat,
but much more dangerous. While it's obvious that you aren't at fault
for a bad beat, some players start doubting their decision of whether
they should have thrown away an AK on an AK7 board, since a set of 7s
is lurking.

• Think about Ranges

Let's assume the above situation. You bet on the flop and someone goes
all in (the stacks are rather short, so there is no big overbet). You
call, and your opponent shows his set. While you are contemplating
about whether you made the right decision, avoid thoughts that are only
directed towards the outcome. Don't say:"Of course he had a set. I had
to be behind." The situation was not certain.

The decisive point is that any player would have pushed his/her set
here but the fact that you fell victim to a monster, does not give any
information as to whether your call was good or bad. It is all
determined by the range which you expected from your opponent.

When playing against an opponent who would have pushed every Ace and
77, and whose range would have enclosed A2+ and 77 (and maybe also
AA/KK), there is only one hand which you are behind against. Which hand
he really had, whether it was an AK, A4 or 77, is irrelevant. Decide in
respect to the range of your opponent, and do not doubt your decision
just because he shows a hand which beats yours. If your decision was
mathematically correct, then it will stay correct. In other situations,
you'll see an A4 or an AT instead of a 77. The question is not about
which hand the opponent is holding, but about which hands he would have
played the same way as you did way up to the point at which you had to
make a decision.

You should follow the same thoughts in regards to bluffs. Let's assume
you raised preflop and someone calls. The flop consists of a 754 and
you make a continuation bet, which is also called. The turn reveals a
ten and you and your opponent check. The river reveals a 2. You now
decide to use a riverbluff, since you imagine your opponent holds a 65
or a small pair. But instead of folding, your opponent raises and after
you fold, he shows a 22.

Was the river bluff the wrong decision? Not necessarily! It is
understandable that the opponent does not fold after getting a lucky
rivercard. But the question remains whether he would have folded the
hands in his range enough times to turn the bluff into a profit. That
is hard to tell. If he was not willing to fold A5o, then the bluff was
wrong, since the opponent is only folding few cards in his range.

Think in hand ranges. Do not try to put your opponent into a precise
hand, or question your game in retrospect because he is showing the one
hand out of his range which beats you. It is only a mistake if you
misjudged his range. This is very difficult and takes a lot of
experience. Be careful that your assumptions are truly correct.

If someone thinks that his value bet of a middle pair/top kicker on the
river will be called by all pairs of the opponent, he is able to bet
"mathematically correct." But if your assumed range is wrong, and your
opponent does not call with all pairs but only with top pairs, and then
beats you with those, then you made a mistake, even if you tell
yourself you were simply the victim of a cooler.

• The better decision

A while back I played the following hand: I had a JJ and I raised after
a raise before me. The person who raised called my raise and the board
reveals an AJJ. We skirmish a little and then go all-in. He showed aces
full and I had four jacks.

Here's a second example: I am in the big blind, the cutoff raises and I
bet with 44. He calls and the board shows J54. We go all-in again and
he shows QJ.

What's the difference between the two sample hands? In the first
example I would have played the way the opponent did. I would have flat
called preflop with AA and I would have gone all in with aces full. I
was lucky to have quads and to become $400 richer. In this situation,
your poker skills won't help you out since no one can get away from a
set over set or quads over full house.

In the second situation I also won $400. But this time you can say that
I was lucky to hit my set on the flop. Had I been my opponent, however,
I would have folded preflop and I would not have gone all-in. If we had
played the same game twice, I would have taken QJ once and 44 another
time, and I would have still made $310-$360, just because I can fold my
top pair earlier.

So whenever you are confronted with a situation in which you aren't
confident about your move or whether it might have been a cooler, which
pulled you down, think about what you would have done if you had been
the opponent. If you make more money out of monsters with your
opponent's cards, and if you lose less with bad hands, then you are
better than your opponent and you will win in the long run.

It happens sometimes that your opponents receive better cards and make
you lose all night. As long as you recognize the mistakes your
opponents are making, however, which you yourself would not have made,
then you are a winning player.

Another part is to recognize when you are simply lucky. I, for example,
dared to take a shot at NL400. I was able to increase my $600 to $2500
in one session, and then leave the table. I felt like the king of high
limits, but when I looked at the big hands later, I had to admit that
my opponents made only few mistakes and simply ended up in unlucky
situations against me. I noticed I wasn't the NL 400 Pro at all, but a
general luckbox regular. This insight is helpful to avoid -EV limits.

Remember, not all mistakes you think you notice are actually
mistakes. If you are a bad poker player, you will notice mistakes that
aren't in fact real mistakes. Another problem appears because some
situations favor a certain type of player. If you want to avoid
mistakes by giving up good, but not excellent, hands, rocks make less
mistakes than maniacs. Therefore, if good hands are playing against
good hands, then, according to the above model, rocks make less
mistakes than their opponents, even though they possibly are worse
players.

Impatience

It occasionally happens that you lose a few small pots or even
blinds at the beginning of a session, and then start to become
impatient and to put pressure on yourself to win a big pot. Or you try
to break even or reach a self-determined goal (e.g. $5000 bankroll as
an even number but not $4989).

• The big pots are important

You have to understand that a few lost small pots are easily balanced.
If you lost the last four pots because your conti-bets were raised, a
single large pot is enough to bring back the money you lost. NL pots
grow fast. A pot that was raised preflop consists of $12 in NL100. If
you bet an additional street and someone calls you, the pot grows
significantly and then reaches $40.

• Its all one big session

These are words of wisdom by 2+2 which are very true. It means that it
does not matter when you take a break or quit a session. Breaks are
simply interruptions of the game, and it makes no sense to set
imaginary goals for each break. It does not matter whether you
interrupt your game for 5 minutes to visit the restroom, or whether you
go skiing for a week. It's all the same. Wouldn't it be silly to try
and achieve a winning session every time you take a restroom break?

It does make sense, of course, to end a session when you are tilting,
if your opponents are better players, or if you want to do something
else. Those are reasons which influence your profit. But don't end a
session just because you gained $1.20 and don't want to lose money. You
might lose money tomorrow and what's the point of having a bit more
money on the online account over night?

• Don't try to force a winning

Poker is a game where boredom and excitement take turns. Just as
variance changes your results, it also influences the flow of the game.
Sometimes you experience only boring phases, but then you play various
large pots right after. The fluctuation of the winrate as well as the
phenomenon of dry spells (card dead) are completely normal and can be
explained mathematically. The best you can do when lacking good cards
is to minimize your losses. Don't try to win without good cards because
it is simply impossible. Of course you can dare a few more moves with a
tight image, but you are going to be walking on thin ice.

Extended Tilt

Most experienced players can control themselves when they have to
take in a bad beat or a cooler per evening. It also happens, however,
that bad beats accumulate over the course of several weeks. These
downswings tear at your mental strength and self-confidence which are
necessary for playing poker. Many poker players become desperate,
completely change their game and forget the characteristics and skills
which initially made them successful.

• For members of PS.com, poker is a large freeroll

You have a big advantage if you started poker through PS.com: You
never invested your own money. Hence, every amount you win is profit
without any risk. If you manage to build up your bankroll to $1000, and
then fall down to $400, don't say: "I lost $600 during the last weeks."

Instead you should say that you found a hobby which you like, that you
additionally own $400, and that you have prospects of wining much more.
You made $400 out of $50, and the $50 was a gift. Where did you lose?
Be aware that no matter what you do, you just cannot lose.

• Do not try to change your style radically

When you have a bad streak, players usually try to improve their game
and to calibrate anew. That is good and necessary. The problem starts
when the player wants to change his game radically.

It is good to think about concrete changes in order to eliminate leaks
or to make certain situations more profitable. Maybe you notice that
you should complete less at the small blind, or you recognize that you
should fold more often with a top pair on the flop because you have a
hard time letting go of your hand and hence lose money.
But you should not change your entire strategy like "I should become
more loose and raise at least 20% of my hands" or "I have to become
much tighter and hardly make any conti-bets."

It is already bad to radically change your game under normal circumstances. Doing so during a downswing is a really bad idea.

• Downswings are mathematically possible

Players who have never experienced larger downswings think that
those are rather unlikely or that they happen to bad players only.
After very good players have told me that they themselves have
experienced large downswings, I can easily say: It is everyone's turn
at some point, no matter how well or bad he is playing. It is
mathematically unlikely to lose 10-15 buy-ins, but it is not
impossible. If you accept this fact, you will not needlessly pressure
yourself.

On the other side, it is only human and convenient to call losses
downswings. If you cannot distinguish between downswing-losses and
losses due to a bad game, then you're likely to lose even more money.

Note the following thoughts on this:

a) A beginner is more of a bad player than an unlucky player. No
champion ever fell out of heaven and the majority of beginners are bad
poker players. Poker takes practice, and as freshmen, you should never
consider yourself a natural talent who simply got unlucky.

Instead you should try to improve your strategy and realize that it
will take a great deal of experience (long hours in the forum) to
become a good player. Good players, who are playing above their level,
should also be aware of this fact.

b) If you have high expectations, you experience few bad streaks, and
if you have a winrate right above zero, you have a very large variance.
If you have dominated a limit over a long period of time (e.g. with 12
PTBB/100 over 60K hands) and then experience a downswing, you should
not consider this bad luck. It is unlikely that such a large win falls
this drastically.

On the other hand, if someone only has marginal wins (and this happens
especially at high limits), he suffers from downswings quite
frequently. If you are sure about your ability to beat the limit,
preferably with a large sample size, then you can stay at the limit. Be
sure to note that you have a high variance in this situation. If you do
not want high variance, you should step down to a smaller limit, which
you can confidently beat.

c) Many players increase their losses during a downswing. I believe
that 2/3 of the downswings are not simply due to bad luck. Many people
tilt and lose 14 buy-ins, while otherwise their loss would have only
been 8-9 buy-ins.

There are very subtle forms if tilting. You don't necessarily have to
be angry to tilt. Being a bit frustrated or having a larger willingness
to call, leads to large losses and is many times not regarded as a tilt
even though they hurt you immensely. Ending a bad session is an
effective method of preventing tilts.

• Remember your successes

The assurance that you are a winning player is important for
keeping your self confidence. It is helpful to tell yourself that you
still have a good winrate despite the downswing and that you are still
managing your level well.

Conclusion

This article was written in order to teach you that downswings,
bad beats, coolers and unlucky hands are simply part of the game. You
cannot always win. You should not let bad streaks influence you, but
you should ask yourself whether you played the hand the right way,
whether you would play it the same way again, or whether there is
something else you can learn from your experience.

Those are the ups and downs of poker. You can still win if you learn
how to deal with setbacks and if you look at every hand as part of a
larger session in which you sometimes win and sometimes lose. You can
also win if you apply the above information and win more than you lose in the long
run while concentrating on making the right strategic decisions. That
will put you into an excellent position over all the players who are
not able to heed this simple advice.