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Hate me stunt poker, Cpt Kernow, 29. Apr 2003 01:55
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I've just started playing poker online at Party. Previously to this I have participated in a fortnightly home game for about 4 years.

My win rate after 26 hours at .5/1 is $6.6 an hour or 6.6BB. However I know it could be much higher than this, but my general winning play has been blighted by two phenomenon I have called hate me poker and stunt poker.

Sometimes ill sit down to play, and for some reason I hate myself. I want myself to be destitute and penniless and this reflects perfectly in the way I play cards. I bet hands that should never be bet, I stay all the way to the river on hands I KNOW are beaten and all the other things that represent fundamentally awfull poker.

Other times something different happens. I start playing stunt poker. This doesn't involve turning into a calling station, but becoming super super aggressive. Im not satisfied unless I've won the pot by some method involving slow betting, a check raise and a bluff. In fact bluffing and super aggressive raising become like an addiction and I cant stop myself. This isn't allways as roll destructive as the above phenomenon and if the texture is right on the table it can even make money, however the general trend is for the 1-3 decent players on the table to identify me and then start beating me up pretty badly.

Now I know the above win rate 6.6BB an hour is above the much quoted 1.5BB an hour but ( I know Im a novice but bare with me) the standard of play at Party at the lower limits is so fantastically bad that a player willing to wait patiently for his opportunity can win a lot more than this in my opinion. What Im saying is that even though my win rate at present is 6.6BB an hour, I reckon my periods of hate me stunt poker have cost me 5BB an hour at least, or if I have played optimally for the whole 26 hours my win rate would be at least 11BB an hour. (For this given 26 hour period, Im willing to accept that over more time even given optimal play this could decrease).

My optimal play I would describe as tight/aggressive with a good eye for when to attack (Stunt poker turns my strengths into my weaknesses)

I would like to sum up with some questions for this community.

1. In a vague philosophical way I would like to ask:
Why does this happen? Why do our own psyches sabotage our own attempts to play good poker?

2. How do I make it stop? Whilst there are obviously technical weaknesses in my play that I am not aware of, these can wait a bit as for now I must kill off the twin demons of hate me and stunt poker. When these are gone I can then look at improving what I consider my optimal game.

Anyway thanks for reading my ramblings any input would be appreciated.

Kernow
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, shorn, 29. Apr 2003 05:07
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Cpt-

Very interesting post. I think I have experienced these phenomenon at one time or another as well and I will tell you what I have found.

I seem to play "Hate Me" poker in two specific scenarios: After taking 2 or 3 horrendous bad beats in a row, or if I have been playing for a number of hours (especially late at night) and haven't gotten any good cards and I feel like my stack is being "blinded" away. Fortunately for me, my records indicated to me that most of these sessions occurred on Friday night after a long work week. So, my solution was never to play on Friday night. My advice would be to keep very close track of your results including the day of the week and time of the day tat you are playing and then label the sessions that you know are "Hate Me" sessions. This is easiest to do in Excel. Then you can sort the sessions by your labels and look for trends.

I also found that stunt poker occurred often in the same sessions as Hate Me. Again, this mostly occurred after a few bad beats an (for me) mostly at night. One other time that Stunt happened for me was if I sat down to play with an hour or less before I had to go somewhere or do something else. THIS IS A BANKROLL KILLER SO AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!!! I would always play much looser than if I had two or three hours to kill because I wouldn't want to fold 45 hands in a row and then leave. Anyway, I have stayed away from these short short sessions.

Bottom line, it all comes back to being disciplined in every session played, every hour of each session, and every hand of each hour. That is my goal. Setting your table optimally by recognizing conditions which cause you to lose your discipline and then avoiding them should help you to save those BB's lost.

Good luck,

Steve
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, 4 POKER, 29. Apr 2003 15:35
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on 29. Apr 2003 05:07 shorn wrote:
> Cpt-
>
> Very interesting post. I think I have experienced these phenomenon at one time or
> another as well and I will tell you what I have found.
>
> I seem to play "Hate Me" poker in two specific scenarios: After taking 2 or 3
> horrendous bad beats in a row, or if I have been playing for a number of hours
> (especially late at night) and haven't gotten any good cards and I feel like my stack
> is being "blinded" away. Fortunately for me, my records indicated to me that most of
> these sessions occurred on Friday night after a long work week. So, my solution was
> never to play on Friday night. My advice would be to keep very close track of your
> results including the day of the week and time of the day tat you are playing and
> then label the sessions that you know are "Hate Me" sessions. This is easiest to do
> in Excel. Then you can sort the sessions by your labels and look for trends.
>
> I also found that stunt poker occurred often in the same sessions as Hate Me.
> Again, this mostly occurred after a few bad beats an (for me) mostly at night. One
> other time that Stunt happened for me was if I sat down to play with an hour or less
> before I had to go somewhere or do something else. THIS IS A BANKROLL KILLER SO
> AVOID IT AT ALL COSTS!!! I would always play much looser than if I had two or three
> hours to kill because I wouldn't want to fold 45 hands in a row and then leave.
> Anyway, I have stayed away from these short short sessions.
>
> Bottom line, it all comes back to being disciplined in every session played, every
> hour of each session, and every hand of each hour. That is my goal. Setting your
> table optimally by recognizing conditions which cause you to lose your discipline and
> then avoiding them should help you to save those BB's lost.
>
> Good luck,
>
> Steve


That really is an interesting an honest post.
I can relate to the situations that you replied back with Steve.
Good post, Good response.
4 POKER
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, stdioh, 29. Apr 2003 07:47
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It won't be much higher than that. 26 hours is as close to nothing as you can get in poker. You probably have a statistical certainty of being within 10 big bets of 6.6 that is about 5% accurate. You need to put in a lot of hours before you know where you stand.

If you are playing bad bad poker, you can be almost certain that your expectation is negative.
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, Cpt Kernow, 29. Apr 2003 08:01
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Well most of the time I am not playing hate stunt poker but a game that I feel is reasonably solid.

I have read that earnings are realtive to the skills of the other players. Perhaps those who play larger limits do not realise that there are plenty of players at the lower limts playing bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad bad poker. As I said if i handt gone hate me stunt at all during the loged 26 hours, the win rate for that specific 26 hours would have been more than 6.6BB. I dont feel my hands have been spectacular, nor have I hit outlandish and freaky draws, I have just noticed a phenomonen whereby players just cant lay down there hands as so the pots are perhaps relatively larger (in comparison to the bet) at lower limits.

Cheers.

Kernow
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, stdioh, 29. Apr 2003 10:15
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Oh, I've played the low limits plenty and there are plenty of BBPP's there. Notwithstanding, 1.5 BB/hour is really about all you can expect...now you get to muliply that by two because there are more hands dealt per hour online, but you're really never going to be able to maintain more than 3 BB/hour online nomatter how wretched your opposition is.

And as an example of how short a period of time 26 hours really is, so far just in 2003 I've had a 26 hour stretch where I have lost 120 BB and I've had a 26 hour stretch where I've won 130 BB. There are some very good times and some very bad times. Just because you've started off catching some good cards does not mean that it will continue. You may well be beating the game for 3 BB/hour or you may not be beating the game at all. Chances are better, I'm afraid to say, that you're not beating the game than that you are making 3 BB/hour.
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Re: Hate me stunt poker, Don Quixote, 29. Apr 2003 10:32
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I play .50/1. at Empire/Party Poker. We have probably played at the same table. I play as jimdham on Empire. What nick do you use?
Maybe we could audit each other and compare notes. I played about 50 or 60 hours in March at a 1.77 BB win rate. In April, I brought my average win rate up to 3.97 BB per hour for both months. Total hours in both months came to over 100 hours and over 6,000 hands.

I had a fantastic day yesterday with 30 BB per hour win rate, but I am not too excited because I know that future sessions will average me out to around 4 or 5 BB's per hour. I am well satisfied with this because I am playing just for recreation.

Give me a shout if you set down at my table. I also play as Diogenes when I am playing from Party.

Good luck!

Don Quixote

on 29. Apr 2003 01:55 Cpt Kernow wrote:
> I've just started playing poker online at Party. Previously to this I have
> participated in a fortnightly home game for about 4 years.
>
> My win rate after 26 hours at .5/1 is $6.6 an hour or 6.6BB. However I know it
> could be much higher than this, but my general winning play has been blighted by
> two phenomenon I have called hate me poker and stunt poker.
>
> Sometimes ill sit down to play, and for some reason I hate myself. I want
> myself to be destitute and penniless and this reflects perfectly in the way I
> play cards. I bet hands that should never be bet, I stay all the way to the
> river on hands I KNOW are beaten and all the other things that represent
> fundamentally awfull poker.
>
> Other times something different happens. I start playing stunt poker. This
> doesn't involve turning into a calling station, but becoming super super
> aggressive. Im not satisfied unless I've won the pot by some method involving
> slow betting, a check raise and a bluff. In fact bluffing and super aggressive
> raising become like an addiction and I cant stop myself. This isn't allways as
> roll destructive as the above phenomenon and if the texture is right on the
> table it can even make money, however the general trend is for the 1-3 decent
> players on the table to identify me and then start beating me up pretty badly.
>
> Now I know the above win rate 6.6BB an hour is above the much quoted 1.5BB an
> hour but ( I know Im a novice but bare with me) the standard of play at Party at
> the lower limits is so fantastically bad that a player willing to wait patiently
> for his opportunity can win a lot more than this in my opinion. What Im saying
> is that even though my win rate at present is 6.6BB an hour, I reckon my periods
> of hate me stunt poker have cost me 5BB an hour at least, or if I have played
> optimally for the whole 26 hours my win rate would be at least 11BB an hour.
> (For this given 26 hour period, Im willing to accept that over more time even
> given optimal play this could decrease).
>
> My optimal play I would describe as tight/aggressive with a good eye for when
> to attack (Stunt poker turns my strengths into my weaknesses)
>
> I would like to sum up with some questions for this community.
>
> 1. In a vague philosophical way I would like to ask:
> Why does this happen? Why do our own psyches sabotage our own attempts to play
> good poker?
>
> 2. How do I make it stop? Whilst there are obviously technical weaknesses in my
> play that I am not aware of, these can wait a bit as for now I must kill off the
> twin demons of hate me and stunt poker. When these are gone I can then look at
> improving what I consider my optimal game.
>
> Anyway thanks for reading my ramblings any input would be appreciated.
>
> Kernow
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