In recent weeks, I’ve written about my holiday and how I’d hoped it would serve as a reset of sorts, allowing me to find some form at the tables after a tough year of losses. As you may have seen, my trip didn’t have the desired effect on my results, and I returned to more red numbers and a graph that continued plummeting downwards.
With options ranging from ‘give up’ to ‘try something else,’ I’ve started asking myself what I could do to turn the tides. Moving down in stakes was the first step, but I need something more permanent that will allow me to compete at higher stakes again.
In a shocking twist, and one that comes as no surprise, not playing for two weeks didn’t fix the leaks in my game. I’m still losing buy-ins at a worrying rate. To be completely honest, studying the game has taken a backseat amidst my content creation journey—streaming, events, and all things YouTube and Twitch. I’ve found myself lacking the energy and motivation for serious study.
Guessing vs. Knowing
In a recent chat with a friend, Ben, he was adamant that my poor form was rooted in a lack of curiosity. “You have to be curious,” he insisted. What did he mean by that? Simply put, you need to take an interest in the spots you’re in and care about why one action may be better than another.
Lately, much of my game has been reduced to guessing, since I haven’t been relying on recent theoretical knowledge. My guessing isn’t terrible, but it’s not as good as knowing. Instead of being curious and diving into spots where I’ve been guessing, I’ve been content with the thought that my guess is the best I could have made. But it turns out, it isn’t.
Once you start committing time and resources to studying the game, you reignite your interest in it again. I recently went over some hands with another friend who’s just getting back into the game. He wanted to show me a spot where he’d bluffed off a stack. He had flatted [cards] from the big blind against an under-the-gun open and opted for a check-raise on [flop]. His opponent called, and the turn brought the [turn card].
“Range check,” I asserted, offering one of my more educated guesses. Once we check-raise these flops as the big blind, the [turn card] removes much of our value range, so we have to check. It’s such a great card for in-position play because our [card] combos are counterfeited by overpairs, and our combos of [card] and [card] are hugely reduced.
My friend was surprised, but immediately intrigued (curious, if you will), wanting to look up the sim, explore how his opponent should respond to a check-raise, and see what would happen if the turn went check-check. That’s a clear sign of a player who’s going to improve rapidly and leave players like me behind.
The turn was, in fact, a check, but confirming that was only part of the process. It was actually pretty fun to deep-dive into a spot like that for the first time in a while. I think I now understand exactly what Ben meant when he said you need to be curious.
Build a Platform for Improvement
You can’t fake genuine curiosity, but sometimes it’s not until you start learning new things that you become interested. Maybe that spot comes up in your next session, and you feel excited to incorporate it into your game, having just studied it. That feeling of excitement is powerful and motivating, and it’s one I haven’t experienced in a long time.
To sum up, the key isn’t just taking a holiday and hoping for the best. It’s about being curious and taking a deep interest in the things happening in the game. There’s nothing wrong with guessing along the way—you don’t need to know everything right now. But the problem arises when you guess and don’t care enough to figure out how or why you might be wrong later. Every guess, whether right or wrong, is an opportunity to learn and improve.
Now, I just need to take my own advice…
