New to Poker, or struggling with your game? Ask away.

Tikay10

What the title says.

Please be assured, if your question is genuine, nobody will mock you - on the contrary, you'll get plenty of good advice & help from the Sky Poker regulars.

oynutter

Hi Tikay, Hope you are well, I miss the forum since I went mad lol... I am struggling with my game since I had a stroke, I used to have endless patience in deep stack tournaments. Are there any tips concerning how to handle frustration with my game? -- I played instinctively before I had a stroke, but now I think I need to stop myself tilting at the drop of an ace on the river ,... I was wondering whether you have any tips because you seem to have the patience of sixty seven and a half saints!

Tikay10

Morning mate, great to hear from you.

My first reaction is, if you are unwell, should you really be playing poker? To a lesser degree, I guess the same applies to me I suppose. We can't help ourselves, can we?

As to advice, the plan was that better players than me gave the advice, I just started the thread, which was suggested by Lord Prattle.

FWIW, in poker, worrying, fretting or tilting are all 100% negative - none of them help us make the right decisions. So, & I know it's hard, but just try to chill, & what will be will be.

Glad you posted mate, it took me back to that wonderful occasion at SPT Dublin, with you & Julie.

Take care fella, look after yourself xx

oynutter

Thanks Tikay, those were the days!--spt Dublin was a brilliant time, I really loved the forum then, I don't actually know what happened, but the stroke, and losing me Julee changed something.You are definitely right about negative thinking, and it is harder to chill these days, stroke recovery seems to happen in stages, and emotions seem to take a long time to heal--- If I could just get back my old attitude to life, sounds easy enough, maybe getting back into the forum would help. I lost the right side of my vision and it became harder to read and write, but I have to get back that part of my life and maybe my attitude can recover somehow, thanks again Tikay, you and Sky poker has helped me so much.

Tikay10

Yes, Dublin was a very special weekend.

Completely understand how things have changed your life since the stroke. I had a heart attack in March, &, in every way, it has changed my life for the poorer. And yes, it affects our thinking so.

Have a look around the Forum, & get involved, it can't do you any harm mate. Look in "The Rail", too, some threads in there might suit your zany sense of humour.

Take it as a compliment, but your sense of humour reminds me of this man;

Enut

Here's a true Spike Milligan story for you.....

My osteopath (Alan) used to treat Spike in his later life when he suffered quite a bit with back pain. Anyway Alan had recommended that Spike got some strong painkillers on prescription as they should help him sleep. Spike phoned Alan one afternoon and complained that he wasn't sleeping due to the pain.

'Alan, I can't sleep'
Did you get those painkillers Spike?'
'Yes'
'Have you taken them?'
'Not yet'
'Well take them!'
'And I'll get a good nights sleep?
'Yes Spike'
'You guarantee it?'
'Yes Spike'

4 am the next morning Alan's home telephone rings. He picks it up thinking it might be a death in the family and all he hears is........

'Lying B***ard!' and Spike puts the phone down.

Spike was a legend.

oynutter

Jeez Tikay, I am so sorry to hear you had a heart attack! I've been out of touch, and wouldn't have "told you I was ill" at all. Spike was actually my comedy hero, so it shows how perceptive you are. My sense of humour seems to have nosedived somewhat but I am trying to resurrect it. I certainly will take your advice and look in the forum, and get involved more. Thanks Tikay

oynutter

Thanks Enut, lol-- That's spike alright, and I have heard that story somewhere before, but can't remember when or how, proper legend, am cheering up already! cheers mate!

Enut

Genuinely I was told it by my physio, I've told a few people at the poker table over the years so maybe that's how it got about.

oynutter

Yeh, I was thinking of becoming sensible tho cheers lads,

Tikay10

oynutter said:

Jeez Tikay, I am so sorry to hear you had a heart attack! I've been out of touch, and wouldn't have "told you I was ill" at all. Spike was actually my comedy hero, so it shows how perceptive you are. My sense of humour seems to have nosedived somewhat but I am trying to resurrect it. I certainly will take your advice and look in the forum, and get involved more. Thanks Tikay

No need to be sorry mate, I was just paying the bill for being a life long smoker, so was completely self-inflicted.

Question for you - how many tablets do you need to take each day now? What a pain that is, taking tablets.

Anyway, do what the Doctor says, & look after yourself.

Duesenberg

Going back to the original question here, dealing with the emotional side of the game can be one of the most complex but also most profitable areas of ones game to address.

When it comes to the frustration involved in river suckouts when someone has called you down with naff all but got there in the end, it can help to take stock of your opponents odds in this spot and realise just how profitable these situations are for you over the long run. Although it's never nice when it happens, if we can remember that it is play like this which makes poker a long term profitable proposition for those of us who work hard on our game and play with discipline, it can become possible to view such moments in a positive light instead, which helps to combat game harming frustration.

The best general recommendation I can make would be to invest in The Mental Game of Poker by Jared Tendler. It's a really good thorough analysis of all aspects of the mental side of the game and may well highlight problems in your game you didn't even know existed. In my case for example, I had always thought tilt was just about getting angry/frustrated and spewing chips through overly loose aggressive play as a result. However, as a cash game player, it helped highlight to me how I would sometimes start to play in an overly tight and protective manner once I was up a chunk - tilt in another form but still something harmful to the winrate over the long run.

Good luck out there on both the health and the poker front

oynutter

Hi Tikay, hope you gave it up! I only have to take warfarin and bisoprolol atm, thinking of researching more about what other stroke survivors do regarding the emotional symptoms of stroke, bit of a minefield by the look of it. Zen and the art of motorcycle maintenance might sort me out,I was thinking of reading it , have you read it?

oynutter

Cheers Duesenberg, I will get that book for sure. I suppose there are lots of kinds of tilt, I tried learning how to play "don't worry, be happy" on guitar, but even that seemed frustrating without Bob marley, drums, girls, and marijuana
Positive states of mind are just around the corner, hopefully

rainman215

Good afternoon Mr Nutter.
I have a copy of said book, if you pm me i will send it on.
Free of charge.
All the best.
Rainman
215

oynutter

Thanks Rainman, I have it on order, but many thanks anyway -- happy new year to you!

Enut

It might be helpful of some of the more experienced players on here could give their views on variance. I know there are frequent posts complaining about the site when players run badly (there's one running at the moment) but over what period should people expect variance to even out (i.e. for the number of times you get unlucky to even out with the times you get lucky).

For example if you call heads on the toss of a coin and it lands tails twice in a row you wouldn't particularly think that the coin was 'fixed' but if it landed tails 10 times in a row I think I would become a bit suspicious.

What about with poker? How many hands played (in cash) could you expect variance to even out? How many tournaments? I note that the complainant in the other thread is complaining about Sky being fixed (specifically against him) yet he has played in excess of 2500 tournaments. I would suggest that after that many tournament it is much more likely to be that he is losing due to not being very good rather than the site being rigged against him or even a bad run due to variance.

Duesenberg

The tossing a coin example is a really good one to use when it comes to thinking about variance in poker. If you tossed a coin a million times it would be statistically unusual if there wasn't a stretch where it landed on the same side 20 times in a row. If you were gambling on this in a casino game, you'd be beside yourself if you just happen to show up at the time of this statistical 'anomaly'. However, if you played this coin toss game week in week out ad infinitum, the real anomaly would be if this never happened at all. This is much the same in poker and we can never know or predict where we may happen to be at any given time in the ebb and flow of statistical extremes which will inevitably accompany any game that has an element of chance to it. The only guarantee is that if you have the stomach and desire to stick with it long enough, you'll eventually get through the cycle of experiencing all ends of the probability spectrum. I was once dealt pocket aces three times in a row on the same table. The odds of this happening are 10,468,000 to 1. Isn't it odd how rarely that type of variance gets talked about in comparison to the times people whinge about their hard luck stories? It most certainly seems the case that the aromas of the shi**y end of the stick linger far longer in the nose than those of the sweet end.

In cash games many players have long been obsessed with knowing what their winrate is. Therefore, an accompanying debate has taken place as to how large a sample size one needs (to account for variance) before being able to arrive at a true and accurate winrate figure. Conventional wisdom currently holds that the swings of variance start to level out after around 100,000 hands but a figure nearer to 500,000 is needed for a high level of confidence. That's a helluva lot of poker (or around one week if you're Donttelmum ). As for how many tournaments that that may equate to, I frankly have no idea.