The Pursuit Of Happiness

Which is called ... "Emotional Control" ...

OK, smartass, yeah, i knew the word before. BUT, i think i grasped some more nuances of it lately. Lets get to poker first: I stick to 100nl, play fulltilt and ipoker, have written down the times of the FT-Happy-Hours, have played my first RUSH (which is too slow for me), really play some strange lines, and won today on all platforms, which feel great.

I again did not make a single big mistake, but valueowned people pretty hard. I am not nearly as aggressive preflop as i used to be (or rather with different hands), and enjoy slowplaying some big hands preflop immensely. I think that you just make an insane amount of value when you call wiith AK in a pot that is getting squeezed often enough and HU a decent amount of the time, and you just raise a cbet with any hit, cause you get action by such a looooooaaaaad of hands that snapfold to a 3bet. 

So, playing poker is easy when you got a starting hand chart and learned which hands to fold vs a 3bet, but postflop vs a fishy looking guy with strange timings and betsizes? thats where the real fun begins, thats where people make mistakes. I mean, sure, i do lose some value for sure, but nowadays, when people squeeze so wide, and also, when peoples ranges are so very easy to define, AND, when people dont like to fold cause its usually not necessary to do so very often in certain spots, then why not make money in exactly these spots? Its strange, and its pretty fancy from time to time, but it also makes a lot of sense. 

Oh, and i still do 3bet a ton, and also for value. But just not every single time. I wanna have fun. The pursuit of happiness i called it, and thats what i mean. I just feel so good when i play well and solid, but can make my fancy play from time to time and win or lose or whatever but get their attention. Blablablablabla. This sounds like im not playing a single hand in a std or straightforward way. Thats absolutely not true. I just try to exploit my opponents as much as i can, and see where that gets me.

Now about emotional control:
True, its a smart thing to go at it aggressively, move up when you have 30 BIs, and so on. But, not everybody can do it. Cause what you dont learn, is emotional control. You will be on a rollercoaster tide, up, and down, playing for biiiig money, playing for tiny amounts again, winning, and losing. Your swings will most likely be in the 40% of your BR region quite regularly. Why not pause a second, stick to a limit, and learn emotional control? After that you can go crazy as usual, but why not first learn it?

Well, Im gonna learn it now, its my new keyword, my new "motto", im gonna take my C-game (which might be my B-game already) to A-game and my A-game to A+-game and im gonna be happy all day and actually i really feel its working. Im writing such a crap, nh!