Just another poker blog...: I really have to stop bluffing...

I have had a fucking wonderful start to the week.

Monday I lost £700. Tuesday I lost £500.

Weeee!

Looking back at both sessions, I did get unlucky in several hands but most of the money was lost bluffing.

Why bluff? Why give action?

Seriously, what do you actually gain from bluffing?

A loose image which you can take advantage of to get paid with your good / nut hands?

Yeah I suppose. But how much money do you lose through creating this image?

Or is it the case that if you are losing money while creating this loose image you simply should not be playing loose?

A loose aggressive style of poker (even a mildly loose aggressive) is very hard to execute successfully.

You need to be above all emotionally stable and cool under the surface, even though to your opponents you seem like a crazed individual.

Controlling your internal behaviour, while manipulating your external appearance.

You are involved in most pots so you have to stay alert and focused pretty much all the time. This is exhausting.

Also you will find yourself in tough / marginal spots very frequently. You will have many layers of information / misinformation to work through in order to make a correct decision.

The swings are huge, and you have to have enough confidence in your game to be able to be stuck £1k in a game and play through knowing your will reek the benefits of your image ("...let me just flop that fucking set...").

I used to play loose aggressive, not only that I used to "play for stacks". Big pot poker. Meh.

I have been working hard on putting together a suitable game plan to beat the game I play in at The Vic, and I would describe my current style as tight aggressive with loose aggressive tendencies.

I play small pot poker, frequent raises in position pre flop, and small bets on the flop. I prefer check behinds, and check calls as opposed to check raises and bet calling. My life is about pot control.

But several times during a session, I will run some sick bluffs. Some will work, some wont. I will risk my whole stack on these bluffs.

I will also from time to time (very frequently actually) make very light "hero" calls. I will find myself losing 50-100 BB pots calling down with ace high.

So my game is a ball of contradictions.

I genuinely feel if I take out big bet bluffs and hero calls out of my game I will plug a leak.

I don't know, maybe I am being a little bit result oriented here, but I simply cant afford to post these loses, with my style of play. I might as well go out and play super donk loose aggressive if I am prepared to have these swings. The whole reason I am playing the way I am playing is to reduce the variance.

Oh well. Vegas in like 4 days.

So I have been eating like a goat recently (working towards my weight loss goals)..

Snack...