When do we play well and when do we perform poorly?
It is not true that you play well when you are winning and play badly when you lose: good gameplay means bringing the most out of your winning hands and minimise losses with losing hands.
Following these guidelines, we can say that bad play occurs when you deter from optimal gameplay in the given situation.
Why is it so important to make these clear? We are not psychologists, so don't expect 100% correct conclusions in this case, but a learning process in any case occurs by trying out something, and if that has a positive overall effect, the cause itself will be considered a positive pattern. If you are not conscious about this, you can easily fall for the mistake of saying things like "AA is a losing hand most of the time" and that "fishes play any kind of hand from any position", or that regulars can be seen limping in from SB, or call a raise in a multiway pot with suited connectors from OOP.
The legend "AA is a big loser" exists because beginners tend to lose huge pots with it because they are unable to let go post-flop, even when they feel they could easily be beaten. When you look at your long-term stats, however, you will see it really is a winning hand most of the time.
In the case of draws (connectors, suited cards, sc-s), it is the other way around. There, players tend to remember how they won a few huge pots with hitting the draw, and tend to forget how they were forced to check/fold on the flop or turn, while being OOP. Not being a pre-flop aggressor, these hands are practically -EV playing. Suited connectors mainly make winning hands when in position and having a good fold equity.
If you are in position, it is easier to realise profit with drawing hands. Our opponent, OOP, can check behind anytime, seeing the completed draw, but if they check, you still have the opportunity to bet out. To check this, have a look at your winrate with suited connectors OOP and not being the first to raise; you would be surprised if it came out to be +EV.
A few more things about your Ego
The 'ego question' is so important that it gets two chapters in this book.
The fact that you are better does not mean that you will always win, but that you make better decisions, which, however, will not always make you the winner. Twisted around a bit, this means that when you win a lot, it does not happen because you were so much better than your opponent.
There are certain situations, when your opponent loses against you with good gameplay. You will lose these hands the same way (preflop all-in with JJ+ and you have the overpair, or postflop top 2pair vs. set vs. straight vs. flush vs. full house). Less experienced players tend to think in these cases that the money is already won, while they will lose exactly as much when the whole thing turns around and they have the worse hand that is too good to fold.
If you look at all the big pots after a winning session, you will see that most of the money came from hands like the ones mentioned above, which actually means that you have not really won that money, it just happened so that you are holding it at the moment. And when you lose it, it can really hurt your sense of justice.
"How can it happen, that I am such a good player, won a whole lot last time, and now I keep losing with the same hands?"
There are more possible answers:
- Last time you were holding AA, and now KK
- last time, the overpair didn't make the set or the gutshot straight draw didn't hit that one card and now it did
-and so on...
If you manage to explain to yourself that most of your winnings are not real winnings, just money that maunders from here to there, it will be much easier to accept that sometimes you can lose big in one session, when the cards don't come the way you would expect them to.
