I’ve been hearing the same chorus of criticisms from the couple readers who care about my poker outings. So I reread all my poker posts and comments.
Observations:
1) More bad beats in there than I expected. I really don’t think I forget about my good beats – I was surprised to see how many times I went in with the best hand and lost.
2) I’m getting better at bluffing but it is still against my personality.
3) A lot of big hands that I write about could have turned out different if I had bet very aggressively on them.
4) I am an early chip leader a lot.
5) I don’t use a big chip stack to bully people, I use it to wait opponents out.
Conclusions:
1) I’m not that bad. Poker has a lot of luck in it. When you play a hand right, go in big with the better hand, but the other guy catches better cards – what can you do? And it’s happened to me more than it has to the other guy. As a statistics guy I know this is often a justification used by losers who aren’t observant and honest enough to remember what really happened. I don’t think I’m that way. When I’ve won due to good luck I’ve been upfront about it.
2) I need to bluff more. I’ve always known that.
3) I am not going to particularly concentrate on betting more aggressively within the big hand. The critics are right to see how some of my hands could have gone better with bigger betting. However, that is still a “could go better” not “would go better”. The harder question is how much better I did by not always being aggressive in hands. I’ve saved lots of money with well-read folds. Sometimes you bet aggressively and you end up losing it all. For the most part I’ve managed to avoid the “big mistake” hands. In addition you don’t want other players piegon-holing you as an always-raising player, you want to keep them confused. I don’t think any of them can read me or my bets and that’s how I like it. But the main reason is that I am instead going to concentrate on:
4) Bullying. Master Men, you’ve got me there. I need to use my big stack to intimidate other players, pick up cheap pots, keep them from ever being in hands against me. Don’t let them limp in. Keep them afraid of playing against me, keep them playing against each other and knocking each other out while I take a “big stack tax”.
That’s my resolve. When I’m ahead, act like it. Instead of playing for a seemingly-certain 3rd or better finish, I’ll use my stack continuously to keep getting richer.
I’ll keep you posted on results.