The Hobgoblins of Consistency

[shipitfish]

Ok, I have to come clean on something. I think that, albeit temporarily, NL HE bores me. I need a long break from it. At least a month, I think.

I think there are three factors relating to my current boredom. First, NL HE is my primary poker money-maker, and I'm using poker income for some expenses now. Therefore, NL HE has warped in my mind to “work”. And, for most people, and certainly for me, there is a slight piece of passion that leaves you when something you love becomes work.

Second, it's all most people want to play. I attend a a wonderful home game regularly with great people, but the host has given up on the idea of mixed games. We tried it, but many of the guests weren't comfortable learning new games. Of course, I'm going anyway to see everyone, but I have this odd feeling akin to that feeling you get when someone has asked you to help them move. Sure, you always help your friends move when they get a new apartment, but you do it to be helpful and to be social, but not because you can hardly wait to lift up heavy boxes and carry them on and off a U-Haul truck. I'd really want to shake this feeling, but I can't.

Third, I think that I have become somewhat rigid in my thinking about winning at NL HE. I have a set of strategies that work in most of the games I encounter. I am particularly careful about game selection, so I am usually selecting games that I can approach with the few different gears that are most comfortable for me. I lately usually book big winning sessions, or small loss sessions, still plodding along at 5-7 big blinds per hour (or hundred hands). I haven't really been experiencing much wild variance, indeed, almost none at all since I quit playing limit HE for serious stakes back in December.

But, this is clearly a recipe for disaster. Complacency and boredom are the big enemies of one's poker game. I must assiduously combat this. Here are some strategies that I'm considering, some of which I've already begun to implement:

• When you say, Doctor, it hurts when I stand on my head!, the doctor says Then, don't stand on your head!. Simple enough: it's boring when I play NL HE and I feel I'm getting complacent about my game, so I just shouldn't play it! However, it's tough, because I keep having this thought that somehow not playing NL HE is an affront to the poker boom. In other words, that I am failing to cash in on the free fall of funds from bad players. I think that this thinking is at least somewhat wrong-headed; I can't live my life around cashing in on the boom. Positive EV isn't just about external factors, it relates to your internal approaches to the game. Yet, I struggle.
• Find ways to enjoy NL HE again. I think attending low stakes NL HE home games is probably a good way to do this. There's basically no pressure to win because the entire session variance is more or less what I'm used to in one hand. I can relax, not feel like I have to extract every penny by absolute perfect observation and situational advantage, and just play. It will help, of course, if the rest of the attendees aren't in a hyper-poker-obsessed mood, but most of the usual crowd at the home games I attend are pretty good about this.
• Get really into another poker game. The past two weeks, I've played a substantial amount of Stud High, and PLO/8 (and even NL O/8 — odd game), and a little bit of tournament NL HE (the last of which with amazing and statically surprising results). I strangely find that NL HE tournament poker is actually different enough that it doesn't give me entirely the same feeling as cash games do, although there is a bit of a twinge. I've never much liked tournament poker, other than the nice return on investment it can bring, but perhaps that, or some other game, should be a place to focus. Another option is bouncing around a lot in different games, but that is what I had been doing for the last two weeks and it doesn't seem to be helping. Anyone who has suggestions on where some juicy games are of the non-NL HE variety (either online or NYC), I'd be very grateful to hear about them. There is a $15/$30 limit O/8 game in NYC that I've heard about, and I'm thinking of giving a whirl, but I probably need some additional O/8 practice for lower stakes before I do.
• Find mixed games. For those who are interested, C.H.'s game is getting going again soon, which is a $4/$8 limit mixed home game. I'm going to go there if he gets enough players. (If you are in NYC and want to play, feel free to email me for an introduction.) I've also been giving serious consideration to running a mixed home game at my place, but I am a bit concerned that it'll be difficult to find a pool of players who want to play mixed games at stakes I'd want to run. I'll probably post a poll about it later this week.

I am curious to hear from others about any “ruts of disinterest” you've had in your best game. This is my first experience of this. At the time when limit HE was my preferred game, I ended up switching to NL HE because of frustration at the high variance in limit HE, not temporary disinterest. Have you ever been playing a game profitably, successfully, and enjoyably and then gotten bored with it for a while? If so, what game was it and how did you get over your boredom? (This could also go beyond poker to things like bridge, scrabble, and chess, I would think.)

Comments

[roryk.livejournal.com]

When I sit in a game, I do a few things to keep myself interested and busy. I figure I can always get better at playing poker and the way to do that is right now when I am playing.

One of my favorite things to do is to watch how another player who I think plays better than I do plays and how they handle situations. I also like to watch players who I think I play just as good as to try to see if I can identify mistakes they are making in their game. Sometimes I just watch how another player acts, how they look when they bet or make a decision and I try to copy them if I like what they do.

With limit hold 'em, I rarely sit in a live game where I think anybody plays better than I do. That is mostly because I play at Foxwoods where the highest limit is 20/40 so the better players are better poker players in general and are playing high limit NL games or stud games or whatever. At Foxwoods I like to try to get better at other things, such as putting my chips in the pot or sitting still or paying attention every hand since I have problems with both of those things.

Online, it is a different story. Usually I am playing against at least one person who either plays better than I do or who I think plays very well. I try to see how they play and see if I can find a weakness in their game. If not then I try to see how things I like about their game could fit into my game to make it better.

I also have a rigid set of strategies in every game in which I play, especially in LHE where there really aren't a whole heck of a lot of different ways to play. But I have found that if you pay attention to the game and try to play your very best, even in a game where you have a set strategy, you can come up with a really nice play or pull off a great bluff or something at least once a session. I think about the rigid strategy as being like putting chips in the pot-- it is something that is so ingrained in me that I don't even really have to think about it. That allows me to deviate profitably from the strategy since the rest of the players are struggling to even reach the point of my rigid strategy.

I think if you branch out what you will find is you get much better at the other games quickly and then find yourself in the same spot, not really getting any better and sort of slumming around not crushing games you should be totally wiping up. I dunno what I'm saying but I think you can learn a lot in every game you are playing, even if it is not specifically strategy-related.

I posted a hand on 2+2 where I wound up raising KTs out of the BB in a 8 way pot, and then capping when it was 3 bet back to me in a LHE game. It was an unorthodox play but it wound up being entirely correct in the game I was in. If I had just been autopiloting, I would have missed that opportunity. I dunno that kind of stuff is where you grind out a little bit of an extra edge.

I still get totally pumped up when I play and I have played I don't know how many hands, it has to be like a million. I love when I make an awesome play I know most people wouldn't make. I think there are tons of ways to get better even if you think strategy wise you are pretty solid. One way is like reigning in your emotions or actually following through when you think a rebluff might work, that sort of stuff. Theres tons of things you can improve.

brettbrettrett

[brettbrettbrett.livejournal.com]

I wound up raising KTs out of the BB in a 8 way pot, and then capping when it was 3 bet back to me in a LHE game

I always figured you were *that* Rory.

Bradley, three letters for you....PLO.

As far as NLHE goes, I think you might experiment more with your game. When we spoke about it a few months back you said you didn't commit this percentage of your stack with x, this percentage with y, etc. While ok, I think this is probably too limiting for a good player. Maybe lag it up for a few hundred hands? See what you get out of it...

[patty-bush.livejournal.com]

I've found that usually when I get burnt out, once I get in the mood again, as soon as I sit down I have a really good time. I realized even though I thought I was sick and tired of it, I actually missed the game. But then again, I never played it as intensely as you so my levels of 'burnt out' are really that bad.

some people on my LJ friends list have found HORSE and Razz to be very profitable. I think Razz is starting to see in influx due to the recent interest in HORSE.