Creating the right mentality for play

You may have noticed in recent posts that I have been getting somewhat emotionally attached to my results which have, lets be honest, not been great. However throughout this period despite internal fears of losing and the fact that my misery at the tables has spilled over into my homelife and meant that I've been a pain to live with (ask Nat), depsite this I have maintained my calm and made good decisions at the tables. There have in nearly 6000 hands of holdem only been one hand which I would play differently. Obviously I have made mistakes and misread situations BUT I have been happy with what I have done in a playing sense.

This is absolutely fundamental to poker and success in the game. If you approach the game with a negative attitude and assume you are going to lose, then shock, horror you will virtually every time. Now I know I have felt like this and have written about it here, but whenever I have sat down to play I have done so looking to win and playing the situation rather than my bankroll. I have not been scared by losing and laid down hands because it all got a bit big in the betting. I have not chased flushes and straights trying to win a monster. I've played good fundamental poker and am genuinely happy with how I have played at both hold'em and omaha.

Sadly results have been in a downward spiral and it is very difficult to look positively when outside of sessions when all you seem to have is misfortune.

Today I sat down after having had minimal sleep but I felt good and was concentraing well so I played a short session. I hadn't intended to play but it felt right for me and I was back into the right frame of mind to play. I've only played 600 hands and have quit for the day as tiredness has caught up with me again. For once hands hit me and I played nicely once more. The very last hand I played before quitting I was dealt AA in early position and the following happened

http://www.pokerhand.org/?1703593

It had been going pretty well and I decided to take a bit of a flier with my AA and overplayed it quite deliberately. I wanted to raise and get one not two callers. This said my raise is one where I am comitting to the pot a quarter of my stack so it is most unlikely I will be folding this regardless of the flop. My usual raise here with AA would be lower but I like mixing it up with my big hands and the overraise felt right to me.

As soon as I was called by the early position caller I put him on AK/JJ/TT. If he had more he would have reshoved and the way he played it the AK felt most likely. Plus he hesitated a lot before calling so I was confident it was not KK.

Anyway the flop came KJ8 which was going to be either brilliant or disasterous. Either way I am playing this hard. I raised just under pot and got put all in. Standard call (can't drop now) and luckily he did have the AK which I suspected. However it is always a relief when it gets pushed to you in these situations. It could have been JJ and gone the other way quite easily.

I've spoken before about how I like the overplay of hands. Usually they either pre or on the flop so I like to do it with big hands and more marginal ones as well so I keep people guessing. Plus because I do get seen (and show) when I do this with lower hands it gives me more margin for getting called and stacking someone when I do have the goods.

After the preflop call he can't do anything but go all in when he hits the K, if he doesn't go in then why has he played the hand in the first place? Anyway it was a superb note to finish on and is a good example of one way I occasionally play AA.

Anyway I won $1000 for the session and that makes rather a difference to how I feel about poker right now.

Hands - 6006
Profit - $1616.95
PTBB/100 - 3.37 (still not high enough 5.0 is the aim long term)

Steve