When you're Running Bad...

Hork42

How do you keep treading water while you are getting the worst of it for an extended period of time?

I understand the importance of keeping a big enough bankroll to survive multiple bad sessions at your limit.. By 'extended period', I am talking about close to two months of irregular live game play (avg 3x/month) and almost daily online play.

The typical situation for me is cold cards overall, but when I do get my rare AK, QQ or other playable hands, the flop turns out to be 7s 8s 9s or some other ridiculous board where I have to abandon my hand.

I was at Seneca casino the other night and played approximately 4 hours at a very loose passive 2/4 game. Frequently 8+ players to the flop, very little raising. 3 hours in, the highest ranking hand I had made was trip 4s w/ King kicker which lost on the river to a full house (guy holding 4-2 made his boat with a 2 on the river)

Ok, so what have I learned from all of this so far? In an effort to discover what has been going wrong, I have gone through many of my online hands in pokertracker and I *have* found some small gaps in my play. Nothing too serious, some missed bets here and there, a couple of loose calls, playing a little fancy at times against players who have no clue. Nothing critical, but having looked at it all, I know I can make some improvements to my game (what doesn't kill me will make me stronger...)

The hand histories confirm that my situation is mostly a bad run of cards vs a larger than normal suckouts by opponents playing badly. Which is ok, the long run should be kind to me if I keep on playing with these opponents.

I suppose a lot of patience is required to endure this type of thing without opening up and chasing slim draws yourself... I think I have that patience for the most part. Suckouts are a problem, but the same players that suck out are the ones who pay you off... I know there is still sloppy play at 5/10, and I have sat and won there before, but I'm not convinced a move there would help me.

Now for my real question. What adjustments, if any can I be making to my game to survive this? I keep enough of a bankroll to play the limits that I play so I'm not in immediate jeopardy of busting out, but ultimately I would prefer to build the bankroll up instead of seeing it go bye-bye.

This post is a little long, and I hope I don't come off as too whiny about my recent misfortunes... this is not intended to be a bad-beat/feel-sorry-for-me post. I'd love some feedback from people who have been through it and some tips/pointers on how to endure the pain.

Thanks in advance.

hork.

Unknown

I would suggest taking a break. It's worked for me in the past... As fior the length, whatever works best for you; a week, two weeks, a month, etcetera. I find that if I'm running bad (and I check my hand histories to make sure it's not due to my own play) taking a break helps me to clear my head, forget about my frustration, and generally focus on more positive aspects of my life.

If you weren't playing your 'A-game' before your break, you will be when you return. If you were already playing your best, then taking a break completely eliminates the possibility that you'll tilt (due to the frustration that comes from bad beat after bad beat), and lose more.

Sorry I don't have anything a little more concrete than that to offer in terms of advice... maybe others do. Losing streaks absolutely suck... they can be pretty demoralizing. Taking a break every now and then has done wonders for me, though, so it might be worth a try if all else seems to fail.

Cheers,
all_aces

Unknown

Oops... forgot one important point. It's important to note that there's something besides tilt that can happen after taking bad beat after bad beat, night after night. It's kind of the 'anti-tilt', but it's almost as destructive.

Players who go on tilt play too many hands, too aggressively, and lose. No doubt. However, some players (who are experienced enough to not succumb to tilt) do almost the opposite. They play too timidly. They avoid every marginal situation, and only bet the nuts, because there's some psychological assumption that they'll lose on the river anyways, so they should try to lose as little as possible.

I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's what happens to me. That's my version of 'tilt'. It's tough to pick up in hand histories, but 'playing dejected' (which is kinda like 'playing scared', but not really... you're not scared of losing a hand, rather, you've accepted it as a foregone conclusion) can be almost as disastrous as playing on tilt. Poker is about calculated risks, but you're not taking enough of them. It's also about betting and raising to protect your hands (among other reasons), but you're doing too much checking and calling.

Like I said, it's subtle. If a good aggressive approach to limit hold'em is what usually works for you (and it should), then make sure that a series of bad beats doesn't cause you to slowly but surely lose your aggressive edge. A break, as I mentioned, will usually get you your edge back.

Regards,
all_aces

ScottyZ

I hear where you are coming from. Even with optimal (or very close to optimal) play, you're going to have your bad sessions, weeks, months, etc.

It's really important to focus on your play, not your results. This is easier said than done obviously. It's an excellent omen for the future that you've mentioned going back and analyzing your play to try to learn from it. However, try not to downplay your small mistakes too much. In a game where win rates are on the order of 1 big bet per hour, a few loose calls or missed bets here and there can really cut into your *long term* performance.

Play, not results. I have come out of *winning* sessions feeling pretty low because I had realized that I had made a lot of mistakes and had simply gotten lucky more than my fair share of the time. I've come out of many losing sessions feeling satisfied that I had played a top-notch game. I will not go so far as to say that I was doing Balki's dance of joy of course. The importance of luck (well, I should call it variance because I don't believe in luck) in the short term cannot be understated. And the short term can often last longer than people think.

Bad beats will happen. Your opponent will river his 2-outer one out of every 23 times. The other 22 times, you probably won't even notice the threat was even there. I would call this "realization bias". (I'm sure I din't make that up myself, and maybe there's even a better term for it.) You are fooled into thinking that unusual events occur more often than they do simply because you pay more attention to unusual events the times that they do occur. For example, you observe someone winning the Lotto 6/49 every week or so, so you may begin to believe that winning the lottery is a more common occurance than it actually is. More to the point, you almost never notice the fact that some particular person in North Bay, ON did *not* win the lottery this week.

To make a long winded story less of a hurricane, don't let the nature of the bad beat warp your perception of the true frequency at which the bad beats occur.

There aren't really adjustments that can be made to somehow "recover" from a bad streak (except in cases where your bankroll is threatened, which you've said is not so). But do try to improve your game by asking yourself the larger questions like *why* the losses are occurring. More improtantly, ask how the overall playing style of the opponents affects your own strategy.

For low-limit, read what Lee Jones has to say about what he calls "implicit collusion". Fully understanding this concept is pure low-limit gold, and could very well be the bread and butter of how to adjust your game whe you play LL. Also, understanding this sort of thing may even help soften the sting of those bad beats. Well, maybe that's asking a little much.

Keep working on your game. Keep improving. Think about poker on both micro (How should I have played this particular hand?) and macro (What's a good overall strategy for low-limit?) levels.

You *will* win at poker in the long run by doing nothing more than trying harder to learn and improve than your opponents are.

ScottyZ

esool

I agree with AA, take some time away from poker and do the other things you have been putting off. And/or I would suggest switching to cheaper sit n go's for a little while. You get more bang for the buck. IMOHO.

DJP

Yes, I had the same answer too before I read their's. lol It's happened to me too. Poker burnout, bad run of cards, whatever you care to name it. But I find I play better poker, if I don't play it every day. So now I don't. Try it and see. What do you have to lose by not playing for awhile?

Hork42

I am familiar with the implicit collusion concept and I make sure to keep aware of it at the low limit tables. It actually hasn't affected me too much lately as I'm simply just not matching the flop when I get the cards. Not many options when you have QQ and the flop comes AAK.

I've played less limit holdem lately and more small blind No Limit. A game where I can PROTECT my hands, imagine that!

The reverse tilt idea is interesting. I am still betting my hands and playing aggressively, but even when I get AA, I'm expecting my hand to be busted - I get to the showdown, roll the Aces over and say things like "Ok, who has the straight?" It's a confidence thing and I have felt a little bit intimidated at the table lately. Not intimated by the players, but by the game itself... Perhaps a break might be good for me so that when I come back the game will seem a little more "fresh".

Thanks for the feedback guys!

hork.

ScottyZ

all_aces wrote:

I know that sounds ridiculous, but that's what happens to me. That's my version of 'tilt'. It's tough to pick up in hand histories, but 'playing dejected' (which is kinda like 'playing scared', but not really... you're not scared of losing a hand, rather, you've accepted it as a foregone conclusion) can be almost as disastrous as playing on tilt. Poker is about calculated risks, but you're not taking enough of them. It's also about betting and raising to protect your hands (among other reasons), but you're doing too much checking and calling.

This "inverse tilt" concept is great (and quite far from ridiculous).

I had mentioned in a different thread that I have been thinking a lot about my LL river play. This idea really nails down both exactly what I have been thinking about, and why.

The key idea I want to look out for is that I do *not* want to start missing too many (i.e. any) river value bets (value betting on all streets being the guts of LL profits) just because even the most innocous looking card *might* be a scare card.

For example, I was recently beaten when a MP player showed me J3 to my QQ on a board of J2843. Should I have checked the river here? Of course not. I probably would have hand-picked that 3 from the deck if I could have chosen the river card myself. (Okay, I might have taken a 6 instead...)

The previous is a silly example of course. The more important issue is how to evaluate a more "realistic" scare card falling on the river.

In my experience, the river is a highly specialized betting round in LL. The point at which no more cards are coming represents a *radical* point of change in your typical LL opponent's behaviour. The chasers have either now caught up, or will pay to chase no more.

ScottyZ