Online poker habits while playing
I love watching hockey, which has cut into my poker time a bit. While watching hockey, I don't play poker online, but I deal hands and try to think about how other hands can beat mine, then turn them over and see what the outcome was. It gives me a better idea of what hands could be out there on the table.
Anyway, while I was watching hockey the other night I was thinking about habits people have.
I have heard of people watching TV while playing poker (obviously a donk move), and have also heard that you shouldn't even listen to music while playing.
So, I thought I would ask the pro's and the other forum members what you like to do when playing poker.
How do you try to increase your level of play and concentration? How do you keep yourself busy?
For me, I like to play with chips, as a lot might like to do, and I also drink a crap load of water. Like probably 5-15 glasses per hour.
Recently I have started talking to myself, and that has helped out a lot. I voice my opinion about each hand I am in and try to think about what is the correct play. I walk myself through the hand.
So, what types of habits do you use to help your game?
Also, what bad habits do you have?
Anyway, while I was watching hockey the other night I was thinking about habits people have.
I have heard of people watching TV while playing poker (obviously a donk move), and have also heard that you shouldn't even listen to music while playing.
So, I thought I would ask the pro's and the other forum members what you like to do when playing poker.
How do you try to increase your level of play and concentration? How do you keep yourself busy?
For me, I like to play with chips, as a lot might like to do, and I also drink a crap load of water. Like probably 5-15 glasses per hour.
Recently I have started talking to myself, and that has helped out a lot. I voice my opinion about each hand I am in and try to think about what is the correct play. I walk myself through the hand.
So, what types of habits do you use to help your game?
Also, what bad habits do you have?
Comments
It keeps me very busy.
Otherwise I just surf the internets and listen to music.
wtf? Your kidneys will be dead before your next birthday
No music unless I'm really antsy, no tv.
I use extra time to take stupid notes, and look up opponents...and if I'm still not mentally tapped...I chirp
-edit..oh yeah..I also use advance action buttons when multitabling, and call 5-1 or better in the small blind..
It helps me get in the zone.
I've been debating for three minutes exactly what this means
Sometimes I'll play with chips while playing online but I find it distracting and just another thing I might potentially throw across the room.
I'll listen to music if I really feel it won't distract me. I find music is a good anti-tilt.
I'm almost always in my housecoat when I play online, not only for easy junk access, but just cuz I usually play an hour after waking up.
Watching TV or reading forums while playing is pretty -EV for me.
Some good habbits:
- don't play tired. It's just so easy to play bad, then go on tilt, then play worse, then go on double tilt, etc. I usually play after a good night sleep and two cups of coffee. I'm almost always at my best this time of day. Any time after this in the day, I have to check myself before I wreck myself, meaning, I have to ensure I'm mentally alert enough to handle playing. If I don't think I'll play well, I just won't play. Once I found that playing tired usually lost me money, I half assed trained myself to not want to play if I'm tired.
- don't play high or drunk, but if you do, play microstakes relative to your normal game. For the first say 20 minutes of having a dewb, I'm super into it and paying a crazy amount of attention to the game, but after I burn out a little, it's hard to get past playing in auto-pilot, cuz my head just isn't into it any more.
I do both of those although I shuffle dice instead of chips. I drink a ton of water while I play. Roughly 4-5 bottles a night. I listen to music and talk strategy over skype with other players while playing tournaments but I have banned myself from chatting on skype during cash game play because it simply takes more focus for me to make the difficult reads and huge folds that are necessary for cash games. I also do not allow myself to surf the net or watch tv while playing. Distractions cost money. Anyone who is a pro or wants to be a pro really must treat poker like a job and make sure every decision they make is in the best interest of making as much money as possible(in an ethical way).
That was a bit of an exaggeration.
I do drink a lot of water though. I take Maui Thai Kick Boxing classes and like to play after them a lot of the time. I find this is when I am most allert. Either way, after these classes I need a lot of water. I sweat more doing Muai Thai than you would sitting in a sauna doing yoga for 2 hours.
I do have a question though.
I started writing notes about each player on every table I was playing, but then realized they weren't helping me much in the long run. Here's why.
The players I wrote notes on usually changed if I ever saw them at a table again. I have barely run into the same person twice. I guess I am moving up in the stakes fairly quickly (went from $1 buy-in's to $11 within a few months of playing and still at a decent bankroll while winning) so the chances of seeing the same people would decrese a bit due to that I guess.
Also, everyone changes their game up in the later stages of the tournaments I am playing. So, if I mark someone as TAG at the beginning of a tournament, they might end up being loose and passive at the end.
Either way, what I have found to work nicely is to simply pay attention to everyone at the table when playing the game and try to figure out their playing style based on recent hands.
So, back to my question.
What types of notes to you keep and what do you include in your notes? Do you include the type of player each person is? Do you include some hands they played that made you question human intelligence?
I used to keep track of each time a player saw a flop and compared them to every other player at the table at hand. I would also keep track of how many times they raised and called a raise pre-flop. I started getting good at it, but felt it was a waste of time. I wasn't seeing a lot of other things I should have been paying attention to.
I would make most of my notes in the end game and my notes would look something like the following:
- will re-steal
- will not re-steal ever
- knows when to start shoving
- doesn't understand stack sizes
- calls off light
- folds too tight
- avoids confrontation
If you have a brain you will be getting deep in most SNG's. If you have a few ideas about how someone plays when their stack gets short it will make a big difference in your ROI.
I have been playing mostly HUNL cash in the last little while. Timing and bet sizing tells are the freaking bomb in this game and I will often call off a bit light early in a match to see what the opponent is holding.
This info is worth every penny because most people will not balance their ranges and bet sizes at all at $50 and $100 HUNL and they will tell you exactly what they are holding when they make a play.
I played a marathon with a guy this weekend who bet a full pot on the river several times in our match. I called twice and both times he had the stone cold nuts. Later in the match we got pretty deep and and I missed an open ender in a pretty big pot where a backdoor flush showed up on the river. I checked the river planning to fold and he bets like $25 into a $35 pot. I knew that there is no way he hit the flush and his bet size told me he was trying to either value bet a marginal hand or had air. I CRAI and he folds.
I'd say PokerTracker would be a wise investment. Not so much for heads up play.
Yeah, I've been looking at getting some type of software for tracking stuff.
I have used an ICM one before and found it helpful and I have used Holdem Genius (an on the fly calculator) and still have it attached to my game windows, but only use it for quickly seeing my outs. That software could be dangerous for a beginner who doesn't understand discounted outs, though. Especially cause it gives you your pot odds while including pairing the board to give you two pairs. It almost always tells you your odds are to call.
Either way, I am going to look at pokertracker. I have enough extra money to buy something like that in my bankroll, so I might as well do it and not make a cash withdrawal yet.
(I know, I have issues.)
I'll also usually either be surfing the web or listening to music off of youtube while playing as well.
so i don't go on autopilot
looking to find a decent screen recorder
so i can play back to see what the F was i thinking, when i stacking off with AA or KK again a donk that just river the gutshot and i didn't even notice there is a possible straight on board.
What I have done in the past is verbally try to figure out what hand people have when I'm not in the hand. Well, I do it while in the hand too, but it helps me remember names and situations they are in regularly.
So, yeah, surfing helps with patience, but I feel it takes your attention away from some key aspects of the game.
I also takes notes on whether I think the player understands the game and situations based on what I observe them doing in a particular hand. I think notes should help you to understand how a person thinks more so than putting them in general categories like TAG or LAG. As far as general categories go i think if I can categorize a player as loose passive or tight passive that is more helpful than TAG or LAG since it's more reliable that they will stay with that pattern of play in later levels.
I usually just write down plays that surprises me. For example: "player called a bet after a re-raise to $14, with 46 suited (in the BB and out of position-6 players)" or (will trap; slow played pocket aces on two occasions in the c/o). It's more objective and less situational.
If I am really focussed on winning, I will download a poker e-book or something and read that while playing, maybe even watch some videos on one of the training sites.
Most of the time though, I just focus on the games or surf this site.
Watch hockey
Listen to music.
Drink beer
Drink wine
Drink pepsi
Drink Water
I dunno... lots of stuff.
Friday night is drunk poker night. It's fucking expensive.
edit: thank god we're going out with friend tonight... nice restaurant+wine is less expensive than poker lol