Poker Discrimination

I've played online poker for quite some time now and there's 2 leaks in my game that I've been trying to address.

The first one I will call poker discrimination. Much like racial discrimination, this is when you make certain assumptions about other players based on certain data that is available to you. And you then adjust your play accordingly which usually ends in disastrous results.

An example of these false assumptions are like the following:

1. See a player from China. Immediately assume gambler type. So you give no respect to raises until he catches a monster and you overplay your hand and get trapped.

2. A player with a girl avatar and a name like "littlemissmuffet" or "blondbombshell". You immediately discard her poker skills and think timid or worse dumb. What you don't know is that behind the avatar is a 19 year old math genius who's going to eat your fishy behind.

3. A guy who never stops yapping at chat. Continually berating you and other players such that you slowly get irritated and before you know it, he's gotten under your skin and you start playing marginal hands against him.

Let it be clear that I'm not talking about your reads on other players during the course of a tourney as these are crucial to going deep. I'm referring more to those online actions that act like a false tell. Since you can't read facial expresssions or movement unlike brick and mortar play. Some people take advantage of what's available and give you signals that provide a fake impression. If you fall for it, then you're playing sub-optimal poker which was their intention in the first place.

So how do I avoid these? Well of course, being aware is the first thing. Also, I've long turned off avatars whenever poker sites allow it. When somebody starts to talk trash in chat, i immediately block him off. This way, I can concentrate on the hand in play and play it according to its own merits with no external factors involved.

The 2nd leak is playing like crap after an MTT win. I'm pretty sure most of us are susceptible to this "human" reaction. Obviously after a big win, you're sitting pretty with your fat bankroll feeling all content. Your usual buy-in feels like peanuts compared to the amount that you just won. So what happens? Well, it's like you don't really care whether you win or lose. If you lose, so what. It hardly made a dent to your BR and you didn't even feel it. So you play loose and fast. The other possible effect after a big win is you feel invincible, you act like Hellmuth after winning his upteenth bracelet so you now play fancy with those semi bluffs on open ended straight draws and other tricky stuff. We can guess what happens next. You start a downward spiral and we all know how hard it is to get out of a losing slump.

So what can you do? Well, there's one thing I now do as part of my bankroll management. I make it a point to immediately withdraw half of the winnings. I do not keep it in the poker sites one second longer than necessary. Why ? It's still your money whether its in the site or not. Because for me, its more mental than anything elses. A $10 buy in with a $1000+ bankroll is more or less equal to playing like crap. There's no real penalty that I feel if I lose. So I try to cheat myself into thinking I have less money. I know its kind of lame. But it usually works for me. My focus is better and the incentive to win is there. Although I admit to a lesser degree. Taking a short break after a breakthrough win may also be a good idea. It allows the euphoria of the win to die down so that you go back to playing your normal game. Although, some may react strongly against this especially if you believe that poker is all about "riding" the moment.

What about the option of going up in limits? Well, this is actually a good idea for some of you out there. But since I now play a good amount of MTTs while still treating this as a hobby. I've come to respect MTT variance and I know how cruel the bitch can be. So this would depend on a lot of other factors before I make this decision.

Whatever you do to get yourself out of the afterwin funk, you have to admit, it's certainly a better problem to have than not winning at all. =)