An Obvious Leak of Mine

I just realized that I think I have one really big leak. I don't know how to win money without going to showdown. This means that I'm playing my own cards a bit too much and that I'm not applying enough pressure to move opponents off hands when they don't have anything.

I'm pretty disappointed about this. For some reason I thought it was standard, or it made sense to me that I lost money when hands don't go to showdown. However, I was scanning twoplustwo today, and most of the players there made money when hands didn't go to showdown. This actually makes more sense. The reason why I'm losing money is that when hands don't go to showdown, I'm folding much more than I'm making other people fold. Well, until I can figure this out, I'm going to hold back from moving up to $5/10 nl. Plus figuring this out I think will also significantly help out my win rate. Right now over 70k hands, I'm running at about 3.5ptbb/100 in $2/4, and over 25k hands 3ptbb/100 in 3/6nl. I really should have these in the 5-6ptbb/100 range before I decide to tackle $5/10nl.

I'm going to have to put in more work to figure out how I can incorporate this into my style. I think maybe that I should drop down to 4 tables for a little bit to readjust my game.


So just to illustrate this, here is my PokerEV graph. I know I'm running pretty good right now, but what's really disappointing me is the gap in between the red and the green. Until I learn to apply pressure in spots that I can profitably make opponents fold, I don't think I will ever be a "tough" player to play against. I think that the higher I move up, the more observant players will notice this and I think that I'll be very exploitable.