How do you win when your opponents are craping horseshoes?
Just a little glimpse into my month:
Playing 3-6 limit on UB today. JJ, beat by 10-10 when a 10 hits on the river, ok no big deal it happens. K-high flush beat when a guy who has middle pair stays in despite the raising and the board makes three of a kind on the river to make him a full-house. Cripes that was unlucky. KK beat by QJ when the river, damn river, brings the flush card. Not again. And the grand finale, QQ beat by 79off when the guy hits bottom pair with a 7 on the flop and stays in all the way to the river to see a shiny 7 come out to give him the pot. Ridiculous. That guy called three bets cold with that 7-9off preflop. And I'm playing these hands aggressively, no slow playing, no smooth calling, I'm pushing them for what they're worth.
In an hour and a half lost 30BB on 4 hands and that represented my entire loss for the session. Other than those four hands, I would've been up about 5BB-6BB.
Now sure, these days happen, we've all had'em and you deal with them and move on. However, this has been happening for THREE WEEKS straight! Almost every day I'm losing substantial ammounts when I have the best hand and the other players are drawing out onb me. Sometimes they're right to draw, but most of the time, they don't have odds to make their draw, or theyre putting money in on their two outer, or whatever, and BAM. There it is.
I know how to deal with situations like this when theyre isolated, but how do you manage this kind of ridiculous streak when it's pushing a month long! I realize that having a losing month is nothing to be overly concerned about, and I wouldn't be if it was just a losing month. This has been RIDICULOUS though. I've been sucked out on so many times in the last month that I could write a book! It's almost enough to want me to put all my money in on 2-7off just to hope that maybe this time it'd be my turn to put a bad beat on someone!
Is the only solution to give it up for X ammount of time, come back later and hope that the poker gods don't crap all over you again? Or is there some systematic way to beat "bad luck"?
Playing 3-6 limit on UB today. JJ, beat by 10-10 when a 10 hits on the river, ok no big deal it happens. K-high flush beat when a guy who has middle pair stays in despite the raising and the board makes three of a kind on the river to make him a full-house. Cripes that was unlucky. KK beat by QJ when the river, damn river, brings the flush card. Not again. And the grand finale, QQ beat by 79off when the guy hits bottom pair with a 7 on the flop and stays in all the way to the river to see a shiny 7 come out to give him the pot. Ridiculous. That guy called three bets cold with that 7-9off preflop. And I'm playing these hands aggressively, no slow playing, no smooth calling, I'm pushing them for what they're worth.
In an hour and a half lost 30BB on 4 hands and that represented my entire loss for the session. Other than those four hands, I would've been up about 5BB-6BB.
Now sure, these days happen, we've all had'em and you deal with them and move on. However, this has been happening for THREE WEEKS straight! Almost every day I'm losing substantial ammounts when I have the best hand and the other players are drawing out onb me. Sometimes they're right to draw, but most of the time, they don't have odds to make their draw, or theyre putting money in on their two outer, or whatever, and BAM. There it is.
I know how to deal with situations like this when theyre isolated, but how do you manage this kind of ridiculous streak when it's pushing a month long! I realize that having a losing month is nothing to be overly concerned about, and I wouldn't be if it was just a losing month. This has been RIDICULOUS though. I've been sucked out on so many times in the last month that I could write a book! It's almost enough to want me to put all my money in on 2-7off just to hope that maybe this time it'd be my turn to put a bad beat on someone!
Is the only solution to give it up for X ammount of time, come back later and hope that the poker gods don't crap all over you again? Or is there some systematic way to beat "bad luck"?
Comments
GL
You can run negative bb/100 as a winning player for 10k-15k hands. Streaks happen. Everyone in this thread will give you good advice about what to do, but understanding:
1) We're gambling
2) The long run is a long run
3) You take the good, you take the bad , you take them both and then you have the facts of poker.
will let you deal with it better.
I am in the midst of my worst losing streak ever. $8500 in the past eight days. Ugh.
Just prior, however, I was enjnoying my best (and longest) hot streak ever. When I was in the hot streak I KNEW that the storm was coming. I KNEW it. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT. Eventually, there is always a storm.
Now, standing here in the storm, soaked to the skin, lightning crashing all around me, it FEELS like I will never see the sun again. However, reviewing my lifetime results is comforting. Eventually the storm will blow over.
And, of course, I am examing my game to make sure that I am playing well. I'm not. Not badly enough to explain this amazing loss rate, but there are things to fix.
Im again playing 3-6 limit and first I have JJ busted by 55 when the guy calls to the river with all overcards on the board spikes a 5 on the river.
Later AA beat by K-9. Guy calls 3 bets preflop with K-9 off, hits a K on the flop, of course keeps in despite the raising and then turns another K.
Then the final hand and the best one of all. I have JJ and raise it preflop. One caller. Flop is 478 all rainbow. He bets out, I raise, he calls. Turn is a J for trip jacks. He checks, I bet out, he calls. River is a 5. He checks and knowing the luck I've been having lately, I do to.
Sure enough he turns over 6-7off. He called the raise preflop with that trash, then stayed in on the flop and turn with middle pair and a crap kicker, and then rivers his gutshot. Amazing.
I left the table and cleaned out all of my online accounts.
I don't believe that the sites are rigged, but after a month of nothing but shit like this, I could make a stong case for it.
Regardless, right now no good can come of me playing online.
If you can review your play, do so... Pokertracker is a good tool for that if you are not already using it. I've found leaks every time I've run into slumps... unfortunately, it usually takes a slump for me to take the time to really review my play. Always find something though...
When you get back, try something a little lower in stakes. I don't know what your experience level is, but 3/6 UB is not the easiest game available. At the very least, a bankroll swing won't be too severe if you are playing .5/1 or 1/2...
Just remember, if you're being drawn out on while you are the favourite, it will even out eventually.
Now, here is my point. I know EXACTLY HOW YOU FEEL!!!!!!!!!! As i was in transition fomr playing regular $20-$40 buy-in homegames, to playing $100+ games, i went on the worst streak of my poker career. No matter what kind of hand i was dealt, it was beat. straights consistantly beat buy low-end flushes. High flushes beat buy Threes full of twos. Boats beaten buy quads (and no i'm not just being dramatic). All within 2-3 weeks.
So, as a player alot of people saw as a really cool headed guy, when i started showing my frustration it surprised a few. the words straight from my buddy kevins mouth "Wow, i've never seen you mad before...........HA HA HA".
I took a break for a whole week and a half. Honestly it felt odd to not be playing poker, but it was good for me.
and thats the only advise i can give i guess. TAKE A BREAK. and if you say "But i just cant stop", then make sure you have outs. If you are playing a home game and you bust early, just courtesy deal the rest of the game. It's a great way to get back in the mood to play, and it gives you time to think about your game.
thanks
johnny
nice touch.
Three weeks is nothing, it's not hard to find accounts by big name poker pros of times where they went up to six months without much luck. Poker is a game of variance, and that means that sometimes the cards are just not going to come for you. Since there's nothing you can do about the cards (well, nothing legal, anyway), the only thing you can change is your own mindset. This means
(1) make sure you're adequately bankrolled.
(2) play good poker, win or lose.
(3) don't let it bother you.
That's much harder than it sounds, and everybody's approach to getting there is different. What I usually do when I'm on a long losing streak is move down in limits to the point where winning and losing doesn't really matter that much to me, and then concentrate on playing a mathematically correct game. If it's just a variance downswing, then it'll work itself out soon enough, and if it turns out that I've been doing something wrong (pushing marginal hands too far can be a big problem for me, there's a fine line between aggression and stupidity) then I have a better chance of discovering it when I'm not fretting over the size of the pot.
The quick (and entirely accurate) answer to this question is "You don't."
Poker is a game where variance (or if you like, luck) is far far far far more of a factor than skill in the short term. Of course, the dilemna is how short the short term actually is. If you have a single session loss, are you a losing poker player? There is definitely no basis for such a conclusion. If you have overall poker losses during a 10 year period, you are almost certainly a losing poker player, rather than just being incredibly unlucky. The true short term/long term divide lies somewhere between.
This is a great article by Andrew Glazer on bad beats. I was thrilled to see that someone else out there finds that particular Jesse May quote (see the article) as profound as I did. :cool:
www.poker.net/headlines/articles/badbeats.htm
Some more thoughts.
1. Keep track of your poker results accurately, completely, and honestly. There is no possible way to ever know whether you are a winning or losing poker player otherwise.
2. You can choose to not be bothered by outcomes of individual hands. This is difficult. I would say, the most difficult poker skill I have ever learned (and, am still very much in the process of learning). I have not chosen words carelessly here. I truly believe that acheiving such a state of mind is a conscious choice a poker player can make; and that this is a poker skill, just as important as (if not more important than) many of the things we typically think of as poker skills (e.g. starting hand requirements).
3. Accept the fact that you are not special. The cards don't know you from Johnny Chan or Daniel Baldwin. You aren't some kind of poker martyr who will somehow receive an unfair share of bad beats. You aren't some kind of luck magnet who can get by in poker with inadequate skills. In terms of poker, you are nothing more than the sum of the poker decisions that you make. I appologize for sounding like a Peewee hockey coach, but there is nothing more you can do than play your best poker at all times.
4. Accept your mistakes. The "No bad beat" state of mind is difficult to acheive. There will be shortfalls, and they are both natural, and okay. I will get frustrated by my opponents' crazy draws. I will tell people bad beat stories. I will post bad beat stories on internet poker forums. I will think the cards have somehow turned against me. I will believe that the world treats me unfairly. I will make mistakes. I will try my best to acknowledge them, try my best to forgive myself for making them, and try my best to learn from them. I will try my best to move my mind forwards to the current hand I am playing, leaving the past behind in some ways, but not in other ways.
There is playing poker well, and there is not playing poker well. There are no bad beats.
ScottyZ
Great advice already. Some more -- take a close look how you're playing the other hands. I bet you'll find some intersting stuff.
Cheers
Magi
While the WAY I'm losing is partially what's driving me insane, the biggest factor is that I am very significantly over-extending my bankroll.
I'm a University student taking engineering and my course load means I don't work in the school year, so needless to say my bankroll is not very large. I've always known I overextend like this, but for some reason I never looked to it as a cause of the stress I've been under due to poker.
Sure I've been taking some disgusting losses, but those wouldn't bother me nearly as much if they didn't hurt me so much financially.
For example, I was playing 3-6 and sometimes 4-8 on UB with at most 600 in my account and sometimes as little as 400. One bad session and anywhere from 1/6 to 1/4 of my ENTIRE roll could be gone.
With that same ammount that I use to play in the cash games, I was buying into $30-$50 MTTs on a fairly regular basis.
When I was having successful results (which up until this month, my last 5-6 months had been), these limits and buy-ins were never a problem, because I was making money, for example in the last 5 days of march I made about $600 between UB, Pacific and Stars., playing about 2-3 hours a day, so playing over my head financially never seemed to be of any concern.
However, now that I'm on a downswing, which I knew I would hit eventually, the stakes I'm playing at are hurting me big time.
Also, I think the fact that I had my cumulative pokermoney (about 1200) spread out between 3 sites in a 6:4:2 ratio. Had I had it all in one site, then I likely would be in much better standing financially playing at those limits, but by spreading it out between sites, I was diluting my effectiveness on each site.
So I've decided that if I want to seriously play poker and actually make money, that I have to start learning to manage my money better and that I have to build up a roll substantial enough to play at the limits I want to play at.
I've decided to stop playing regularly online (I'll still play the occasional MTT for the fun if it), until I have a roll that is enough so that I can endure the worst of downswings.
I know I'll never be able to eliminate losing streaks, but hopefully this way, next time I hit one like I'm on, it won't effect me emotionally and financially as severly as this one did.
My question now is, what would you say is a strong enough roll for me to have with the following stakes in mind.
Online Cash Games: 3-6 limit or .50-.1 No Limit
Online Tourneys: Direct buy-ins normally $30-$50
B&M Cash Games: Likely 5-10 limit (I hate anything from 2-4 to 4-8 live. It seems like limit games are substantially looser and more bingo-like live then they are online. i.e. UB 3-6 is much less wild than a 3-6 game live)
I'm thinking that I should have at least $1500 online (preferably on one site) and have probably about the same available for the live $5-10
So about $3000 in total would be safe.
Is this enough? Or would you recomment I have more in order to deal with the downswings?
The standard given in many books is 300xBB for limit, and roughly 1500x big blind for no limit. So if you want to play 5/10 limit, have around 3 grand available to do so. If you happen to drop below 200xBB or 1000x big blind for no limit, move down in limits until you rebuild. I have never seen a similar guideline for tournament play, but I imagine it'd have to be related to how often you finish in the money - i.e. a winning player at multi-table tournaments likely needs a much bigger bankroll than a winning player at sit&gos, since the former finishes in the money a lot less often (even when they still take home the same amount over the long term).
Maybe just to back the train up a bit... Why do you have these stakes in mind? Because it's stakes where you can win significant money (if things go well), or because it's a level you actually KNOW you can beat? If you're not a winning player (and without tracking results this becomes difficult to gauge) NO bankroll can ever be big enough. This isn't a shot at your game, if you are indeed a winning player at these levels then please disregard, but based on your limited bankroll at these stakes, I'd find it somewhat questionable how many hands you have in at these levels. In a nutshell, variance can be a real bitch, but first you need to figure out if variance is the real problem or not... Just my 2 cents.
If I only had certain limits in mind based on how much money I could win, I wouldn't be choosing 3-6/4-8 limit and $30-$50 tourneys.
I'm very tedious when it comes to tracking wins/losses and I know (or at least am very certain) that I can beat these games.