Saturday, January 02, 2010

Resolutions '10

I need to find a way to play as well as I used to. I don't know how to do this except to do it. It starts with becoming more disciplined and making better decisions. I learned a lot last year, and now I need to plug the leaks that seem to have kept pace with my improvements.

I'll stop making hero calls. I'd better have a damn good reason for calling down multiple streets besides the thought that I simply don't believe my opponents. Too often, I lose money when an opponent's line doesn't make sense. I should realize that these days, strange betting lines are far more likely to be the nuts than air.

I'll quit playing the first time I curse at the computer. I'll keep playing when I'm on my game.

Those are my resolutions for 2010, and I plan to stick to them every day of the year.

Good luck this year!

2 comments:

Memphis MOJO said...

Good goals. GL in 2010

Foucault said...

My own experience with setting poker goals is that in order to stick with them, I need to make them quantifiable, and I need to have a clear course of action that I will take if I am falling short. For instance, one of my resolutions for 2010 (http://www.thinkingpoker.net/2010/01/my-2010-poker-resolutions/) is to reach Supernova on Poker Stars. I know how many VPPs I need to accumulate each month, and if I am on track to come up short in a given month, then I've pledged to put in extra hours playing a bunch of smaller stakes games in order to make up the difference.

I like your resolutions a lot, and I'd encourage you to think a bit more about how you will track and implement them. Maybe use Hold 'Em Manager at the end of every month to examine all the big calls you made and think critically about whether each was a good one.

Just a thought. The process of self-evaluation is an intrinsically valuable one, but in my experience, if you want to stick with a particular goal, you need some kind of specific plan for how you will change your behavior and what the consequences will be if you start falling short of your goal.

Best of luck!
Andrew