Bad Habits

[fade177]

Does anyone here get in the bad habit of attempting to buy too many pots? Last night I was thinking about my play and realized that I had been leaking money on flops that I missed and was in early position. I might have a pretty solid starting hand but I would miss the flop and bet hoping to take it there if my opponent hadn't hit. The problem is not with doing this occasionally, its with doing it too often. I think it's a leak in my game, and I'm probably doing it too often to make it +EV. If I raise the flop and then miss, I then have to make a bigger bet on the flop to get the information I want. Anyone of decent ability would notice how often I bet out and reraise me with anything. So, I'm gonna work on slowing down my play on the flop, especially when I don't buy the button.

Any suggestions as to how to work on bad habits or recognizing them quicker are welcomed as well...

On a side note, I feel when I have to take a break from the game, say a week or two, when I come back, I can play fine against good players but I can't play against fish at all. I look so bad when I make the right read on kicker, just to find they have some raggy two pair, or my AK PFR gets called by J3 and the board comes Jxx I can't help but yell at them for calling my raise with junk (obviously I can't actually yell at them, and no i haven't had my chat banned anywhere either). Does anyone else experience this phenomenon after a break?....

[Miffed22001]

recognising leaks is a good start.
In ep i dont like missing the flop either but sometimes you have to recognise that putting money in the pot is a waste of time. So dont imo be afraid to check it. The great thing with this is that if you hit the flop hard and check it you have the option to check raise. It opens a few extra options.
Also i get peeved when people call my raises with absoloute trash and i had the same problem after a break. I found the answer to that was to go back to more tight aggressive/passive poker. If the flop misse me i checked it and folded to bets without thinking. Also i made sure i took notice of being raises on the turn, a big leak i fixed quickly.
prehaps as i found u thought u could beat all comers with any hand, when the real story is that good player know when to fold a good hand. Once i figured this out it started to come back
i hope this is of somehelp

[lowBoy]

I think I have a c-betting leak as well, which I am slowly patching. For me it was recognizing who to c-bet and what boards to c-bet them on. Aggression is good and all, but METERED aggression is the key.

Another bad habit of mine is accidentally killing hookers on the coathanger in the bathroom at stag parties in Vegas.

[EricE]

C-Betting must be conditional. It can’t be an automatic thing or your opponents won’t respect them. That’s good when you have a hand but bad for the majority of cases since you most often miss.

Things to consider when deciding on a C-Bet:
Strength of your draw: Two overcards? One overcard? Flush draw[even backdoor draws increase your strength a tad]? Straight draw[even backdoor draws increase your strength a tad]?
# of Opps: The fewer see the flop the more a C-Bet is likely to work.
What cards flopped: Are any cards T-A and as such likely to pair one of my opponents?

Evaluate all these things before throwing a continuation bet. The stronger you are compaired to the board and your opponents the more likely you should be to throw a continuation bet. Be more inclined to bet if your draw is strong (straight or flush added to your overcard draw).

[Silly String]

Two suggestions for c-betting:
1) In absence of a genuine read, if you have the urge to c-bet, determine a % you want to do it and use your watch to randomize the occurence. Dan Harrington suggests this in his book. Say you want to C-bet half the time: when the second hand is between 0-30 = bet, when it is b/n 31-60 = no bet.
2) Change gears with c-bets. I c-bet a lot more when I get to the table to setup a loose image. Given the right table I get away with this for 10 orbits or so. When people start calling more or check-raising me I change gears. Changing gears doesn't apply to tables without astute opponents.

Two other givens when C-betting:
I c-bet quite a bit less OOP, obviously.
Don't C-bet into more than 2 opponents.

[BankItDrew]

I generally bet the flop no matter what comes up, as long as I've raised pre-flop. This has worked extremly well since I started playing, aside from yesterday.

I was wondering if players have begun to take notes on my play and using them against me. I know that this is a stretch and probably variance combined with bad play.

[r8ed]

Some people may have noticed but some people probably hit the flops that you missed. I've gone through streaks where its seems like I miss every flop and get called or reraised over and over again. I think it works enough to be profitable long term, especially if you bet the same when you actually hit.

[reap]

C-betting is a technique that is difficult to measure the effectiveness of. I always think I'm doing something wrong by constantly C-betting almost irregardless of the flop HU, with a relatively safe flop with two opps, and almost never with 3 or more when I don't have anything. But most days people just fold and fold.
You can't always check after missing and always bet after hitting. That's what the C-bet is there for. To obscure your strength. Same thing with checking with a decent hand on a dry flop. You'd like to induce a bluff, but even so, next time you check with unhit high cards they might just check, knowing that it's possible for you to be checking a strong hand. The trick is maintaining the right ratio of checks with strong hands and checks with weak hands and bets with strong hands and bets with weak hands.
C-betting also has a lot to do with your image. C-betting helps to create your image, but also, the effectiveness of your c-bets are somewhat determined by your image (which would then determine the ideal amount of c-betting, thus changing your image).
At the levels that I play at (50NL), half the time people don't have jack. And your c-bet is really a value bet when you have the best hand. That's also a reason why aggressiveness is favored. If you check a lot with strong hands to obscure your strength, your opp checking behind is not losing anything. But when you're c-betting a lot, they're going to have to call flop, turn and river bets when you do have something, and they're just going to have to call the flop (and maybe turn if you throw out the second one) bet even when you don't have anything.
The problem of people playing back at you with nothing is solved by not becoming maniacal about the whole thing. Check when it's particularly advantageous, and make sure you're not c-betting 90% of the time with nothing and 10% of the time with something.
A lot of times you've got to respect action when they do call/raise that c-bet. But if you do so all the time, it becomes very easy to see where they're at after they min-raise your c-bet. Occasionally I'm happy to come over the top of their min-raise with only an AK unimproved or something. Only two-pair and better is usually going all-in or smooth calling there.

I like Harrington's idea of randomizing your c-bets. But I'm c-betting a J72 rainbow flop almost 100% of the time HU, and I'm c-betting a JT9 two flush board a lot less. Each flop has it's advantages and disadvantages. If I get a call on the J72 flop, my opps hands are pretty limited - 88-TT, Jx are really all I'm thinking, with the small chance of a set. on the JT9 flop, there are a lot of hands that are calling me, and I need to form appropriate strategy off of these differences, even if, I might c-bet these two flops, given the right situation.

[Rondavu]

When I'm wasted I play a bad version of hyper aggressive. If I hit hands I make a shitload. Mostly I win some huge pots and lose some huge pots. My reads go non existent. Never play wasted.