Mindset: Playing Tight in Cashgames

I come from a Holdem background, but Matthew Janda used math to show how--assuming you are playing against competent players--you usually do not want action when you raise preflop unless you are doing so with premium holdings.

In a live cash environment with bad players, this range widens, but when you factor in the rake and lack of fold equity, the principle remains applicable.

PLO is a game of making the nuts much more so than Hold em with even less fold equity unless you are willing to barrel 3 streets, so my recommendation would be to start off by only playing hands that can make the nuts and folding the rest.

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I think that if you understand what the actual EV of the hand you're playing then you would know that you're making a negative EV play pre flop with some hands. The mindset is a long term mindset, that if you played this hand in the long run it's not profitable.

So if you know what hands to play pre flop what the long-term EV is for those hands, that could help have a mindset for playing profitable poker in a cash game or tournament.

If you find yourself trying to get lucky, that would be more of a short term or gambling kind of a thought process.

if your playing plo and live then open up but have phases of tighty tighten tightness, talk to people that's my strategy, a good conversation can really change the dynamics of a table.

Play at a level that has an impact on your bankroll. Seriously. If the money means more to you, you will take better care of it 😉

Otherwise, it's just practice -- you have to teach yourself to change your mindset -- it is all in the mind, after all.

Just read this. It seems not only do you need to change your mindset -- you need to learn what hands you should be playing first. Then, stick to a tight range. Pretty simple. I thought you were just getting bored at the table and playing looser than you should, and maybe that's still kind of the problem. That's where the higher stakes can help you tighten up, but you need to understand what that means first if you are playing any suited A 😉 My advice is to start studying the game.

Imo when you have the nut flush draw , play it agressive, and many times will get the money in with a lower fd , that's the money .
Of course you want to be connected to the board as well .

easy. my method:
i just think about the long drive home and how shitty i feel after a loosing session, mulling over the hands, my bad decisions etc. ... gets my head right back in the game, to play solid TAG style

so let me get this straight: instead of recognising that variance dictates your results to a gigantic degree, especially in live poker sessions, and that losing doesn't at all mean you played bad nor winning mean you played well, and then using that to decide to be happy just to play the best ev you can and not worry about short-term results - you decide to give blessing to your subconscious patterning of associating short-term results with performance in order to punish yourself for playing badly, and furthermore to weaponise the threat of you punishing yourself as if that's a carrot to induce you to play better, when of course it's a stick? And that works? I guess ¯\_(ツ😉_/¯

I don't think that's what he's doing. If he plays loose/bad, he knows he will regret it, so it makes him play better. It's not about winning/losing; it's about losing because you did not play well. It makes sense to me.

I dunnow, this feels like finding excuses to beat yourself up just with extra steps. I'm not well-motivated by punishment of any variety, from myself or otherwise and I don't think that's a very healthy mechanism

I think if you are not playing well and you know it, and you know that if you lose you will be pissed with yourself so it makes you play better is perfectly healthy thinking.

In other words, punishing yourself for playing poorly is fine if it makes you play better -- you never actually get to the punishing part 😉

In all honesty, if you are playing really bad and you know it, yet you keep doing it -- don't you get mad with yourself? I know I do. It's human nature. He's using that knowledge to his advantage.

It's like he's met human nature and said 'here's the keys to the house and do what you like'. Not all human nature is to our advantage. It's in human nature to be racist. When you face your demons and say 'have at it bro' rather than try to beat them, it's like choosing to live a lie. It's imagining that you can cherry-pick your sessions to the point where you only play well.

Of course I get annoyed at myself when I play bad, but my main risk of tilt is when I'm annoyed at myself. I don't know how to explain further how the idea of the threat of mental self-flagellation in order to play well to me is such a bizarre idea.

Don't punish yourself for playing badly. That's not a good long-term tilt-avoidance strategy. Aim to play well every session, and if you don't, well, you're human, and your aims are a) to make fewer and smaller mistakes than you did previously and b) to make fewer and smaller mistakes than your opponents. Especially in live poker but even for big online poker sessions, you risk your self-image and mood by attaching either to your results or even performance. 'lol oh well that was a donk move I guess' and then load up the barrel next time you think there's a high chance he'll fold and then laugh out loud when they pull out the awful call at the bottom of their range and pick you off yet again, for two big bluffs called! oh no! did i play bad? maybe i should reign in the bluffing for this session!

nah. just make the best play and analyze your hands after to see what you can learn from them. don't add imaginary and unnecessary self-flagellation. if these words haven't convinced you then no further ones from me can

Create a survival aspect. Make a rule with yourself that you may not buy in more than once or twice.

You need to learn the ranges preflop for various situations from rfi to 3b , bb defend etc. The best way I learned it is to look at each spot as "what is the worst hand in this situation Id vpip" and go from there. Plenty of resources out there, you dont have to memorize them all and it sounds like you have no interest in doing so(like me), so this method helps you as it gives you the ability to conceptualize what hands to play in a pretty straightforward way

However your overall approach shouldnt be how to minimize your rebuys, especially as someone who doesnt care about the money in the sense of youre not relying on it to live. Aggression is always the best option imo, especially in a game like plo. Just dont get into unnecessary spots which requires you to make better preflop decisions. It really adds up if youre too loose preflop as youre losing a few bb's just seeing the flop, then often will bet or call flop, only to fold t/r. Spewing chips like this is really costly.

nice 555 post.

Also, maybe. Learn with short stacking and then defending against short stacking. GL

The whole point is he avoids self-flagellation by playing well. You are over-thinking it.

No, I'm just thinking through logically what's going to happen. He's not going to be able to avoid playing badly forever, and when he does, he'll feel unnecessarily bad about it. If you want to have a slice of chocolate cake, if you do decide to have it, you don't have it come with the condition of regretting it in order to avoid doing so in the future. You're underthinking it.

Wazz is right of course. Playing well doesn't mean you will win or that you will never a decision that appears "bad". People who don't understand poker also cannot identify bad decisions, only ones that happen to lose or happen to be wrong against the actual holding.

Just learn to play and ignore the noise.

LOL. Wow, you guys just don't get his point. The whole point of the thread is how to inspire yourself to play better at the table. When he starts playing badly, he reminds himself of how much he hates it afterword when he plays badly, and that helps him tighten up and play better. That's it. It has nothing to do with winning or losing or beating yourself up or being able to play perfectly all the time. Nothing.

OK. Good to have you here to guide us back to the point of the thread.

Are you talking about this post or about something else? If yes, is it fair to say that it can be interpreted in various ways? He does say loosing (sic). And it doesn't matter if someone is losing, what matters is the quality of the decisions. Is "solid TAG style" meant to mean good poker? I honestly do not know.

I don't know how to say this without coming across aggressive but have you considered the possibility we have entirely got his point and it's the two of you that are underthinking it?

+1
the lady gets it right

that's not what i'm doing, but i get your point.
Javanewt describes it better than me.