Mistakes

Success in games means making less mistakes than the other players and I am becoming increasingly frustrated with my error-riddled play. I keep making the same mistakes and these leaks are eroding my profits and therefore my chance to move up levels. In order of frequency here are my top 5 errors, hopefully writing this out will exorcise them from my play and serve as a warning to my fellow donkeys:

1. Playing when tired/bored. This is my biggest leak and a sure fire way to dribble cash away.
2. Getting it all in with top pair/an overpair. This is likely a product of tired play, I often get impatient to trap fish and end up shipping premium pairs to the sole TAG player on the table who shows down the inevitable set/two pair/combo draw with a million outs. I should chant the mantra: small hand small pot, big hand big pot.
3. Playing a crap sit and go/tourney when the cash games are dry. This again relates to problem#1 since I only ever shop around for another game when I am impatient for a decent cash game spot.
4. Playing back at donkeys/over thinking their play. Donkeys are irrational because they do not even know hand rankings in some cases, so level 2 thinking is as far as you will ever need to go. If I catch myself 'representing' a hand or a range I should instantly log off.
5. Limping. Bad players limp all the time with 100% of their range in some cases. To limp speculatively, even in position is to play passively and therefore badly. I need a second mantra: if it is not worth a raise it is not worth playing.

On a positive note my cash game winrate is still good and the other day I got wined at in chat for getting 'lucky' by a short stacked fish who shipped KJ preflop, caught a pair on the flop but lost to my dominating AQ which caught the river. Players who consider 'luck' to be the only mediating factor between them and untold riches are making far bigger mistakes than I am:)