Poker is Swingy

Okay, forget that this is Friday. But I ran a 2k hand session earlier, I ended up down like almost 4BIs. I came back for another 500 hands, I shot up 6BIs. There were a lot of bad players though and I was getting hit by the deck.

Anyways, I've been really changing up my game a little. More and more, I'm thinking of the backdoor possibilities of my hands. It's something I did not care about before, but I feel it's really important as you play more aggressive. You don't want to go raising turn with air when you want to take the pot down. You want to at least have some outs no matter what. Also I've been doing a ton of thin value bets, it's amazing how often donks will call. I guess I'm just making use of my better hand reading skills and kind of playing unconventional. Something I'm definitely working on asking myself this: "what am I representing here?", or "what does the villian think I have?" Against regulars these things are golden, even against donks, I find knowing this can be very helpful when to value bet and when you only will get called by better.

I mentioned to this to a few people. I feel I'm really getting into the whole poker mindset these days. What I mean is, I see my AK vs KK pf, I'm like shit, I lost money no matter what the result is. I had the nut straight against a set, all in on the turn, the river pairs the board, I go "oh well, I make a lot of money in a long run there". Those things don't bother me at all, because the short term results is not what makes you money. The difference between a winning player and losing player is really down to whether you can see the short or long term. I know how well a session is running just by how often I go in as a favorite and how often I'm drawing dead or as a huge underdog. Those numbers go through my head as villian turns his hand face up, I could care less about the results.

Putting this into perspective for today's session. I think I played decent even being down 4BIs. I did make some horrible plays that I shouldn't have, I spewed a little here and there. But overall I was happy how well I played overall, money went in good or ~50/50. And on the second session where I went up 6 BIs, there were almost no coinflips. I was making money as a huge favorite on every pot, which is crazy. People were calling my river bets with really horrible hands, so those plays were no doubtedly hugely profitable. If they keep paying me off with worse there, it'll be almost more profitable than getting paid with every set. When people pay you off stupidly, no odds goes against that and the money goes straight to pure profits(no owing Sklansky bucks!).

Anyways, I think this is a breakthrough and I'm happy about it. Though I still have a problem with keep playing when I'm running really really well. My emotions just goes crazy and it distracts my play. I really want to work on that.