This isn’t going to turn into a poker blog… there are plenty of those out there, including Iggy’s Poker Blog. He pointed me to a bulletin board post from David Ross, who’s trying to play online poker for a living. Ross notes:
One revelation from this week is that I’m still paying off too much when I’m losing. Turn raises from players that don’t bluff, when I’m holding just overcards, or the river bet when the flush card hits. I think I threw away a lot of bets. It’s an interesting phenomenon actually. It’s almost like I want to see what I was beat by this time. There isn’t much doubt I’ve lost, its just a question of to what. And I still pay it. Definitely something to work on.
Don’t I know it! As I said in the post just below this one, my high for the day was $175. 50 minutes later and I was down to $155. Sure, it’s loose change to a guy like Ross, but the point is that I started chasing with overcards and paying to see winning hands. Brutal. It’s just not worth it. If I play enough hands, someone else will show me if the guy who’s betting into me is an aggro bluffing river rat with shit hole cards.
Gotta keep focused on profits.