The trouble with Poker...

Iago

...is not only the variance, but the effect of that variance on your play.

There has been a recent increase in the number of posts around online play being costly and not entirely fair, I don't beleive any of it, but I am getting increasingly frustrated by variance and bad luck. This post is for Doc, he's been known to complain that nobody posts the bad stories or runs, so here's one for everyone to enjoy.

Last month for the first time I ended up down on STTs, a significant enough amount of money to get my attention, representing around 75% of my allowed bankroll for the month. I've only been tracking my results since March of this year, so a relatively short period of time by anybodys account but still it was a bit of a kick in the teeth for me all the same. I also managed to lose a small fortune on cash games during the month (about 3 times what I lost in STTs), wiping out my cash game profit from the previous month and a little extra on top of that. In fact going by PT I am officially the worst cash game player I've come across (if you can't spot the mark etc etc) Now overall last month wasn't too bad due to some nice casino wins and some sporting bets so that I only ended up the month down $135, easily manageable and workable.

This month I'm also down on STTs, which is forming a worrying trend, and although I'm being compensated slightly by my cash game play, I still have a long way to go. My ITM % remains fairly constant, but I'm seeing far more 3rds and 2nds than 1sts. In fact I haven't had a 1st place finish in my last 20 STTs (now that is a disaster) I'm down in MTTs but then I'm always down in MTTs so that's to be expected, I don't play a lot of them and the loss there is tiny compared to other areas so I'm not overly concerned.

Now I could post up hand histories to show how unlucky I am, e.g last night in the space of 10 hands I lost $250 in with KK, QQ, JJ each time ahead when the money went in and each time lost out. That was followed by AA on the BB two orbits in a row when everybody folded around to me :mad: I could point to the MTT losses I suffered with AA and QQ when I was outdrawn on the river to knock me out instead of becoming chip leader down to the last 20-30 players. Or the STTs where I was knocked out in 4th when my KK ran into AA, or when the shortstack outdrew me with A2 v AT and then knocked me out in the next hand with A9 against my AK...but that's only half the story.

What about when I pushed with QJs on an OESD and lost my stack against KKK, or went all-in first hand with AQs and lost to TT, or when I bet $50 into a pot of $75 on the river on a bluff after missing both my flush and straight draws?? and so on and so forth

All badly played hands on my part, unforced errors if you will, and all came after a particularily bad outdraw on the same table, or the previous table. For me Poker has been a nice supplemental income for the last 8 months or so and I've fallen into a comfort zone, and although I shout at the screen and at the various donkeys that cross my path I have to admit that I am, in part at least, responsible for my own demise.

I think I need to take a break for a while and go back and read some books about this, need to be fresh for the xmas spree!!

If you've read to the bottom of this, sorry I haven't given you any direction, just needed a rant!

TacT

it's a killer alright, I got up and screamed bloody murder at my monitor the other day after suffering a few and it does indeed adversely affect play. I had
3 sets rivered by two pairs filling bigger boats in the space of 30mins, shortly
followed by this little beauty...

5 people call a $4 raise and I call for value with QKos. Flop comes A105 rainbow. utg makes it 10 and everyone calls. Turn is a beautiful Jack giving me the nuts and I move in. My opponents that called have A10s and 105s.
The river brings a 10 and some chap exclaims, "I FOLDED A TEN!"

It was a $400 odd pot that cost me my buyin when the gorgeous river brought the only card in the damned deck that could help either opponent.

So what I do after suffering a bunch of rubbish like that is I beat the living $hit out of my pillows and call it a day and come back fresh, while trying my best to forget the sickness I witnessed the day before. Nothing you can do about it but soak it up and move on. Last week was teh first week in months I didn't make any money and it drove me up the walls!

OilBeefHooked2

TacT wrote:

5 people call a $4 raise and I call for value with QKos. Flop comes A105 rainbow. utg makes it 10 and everyone calls. Turn is a beautiful Jack giving me the nuts and I move in. My opponents that called have A10s and 105s.
The river brings a 10 and some chap exclaims, "I FOLDED A TEN!"

This is a piss take?

On a serious note i've been experiencing similiar bad beats lately aswell e.g KK,QQ v's AKo and losing and when I have AK against pp it doesn't hit... all this started after I came 2nd in 10k rebuy on PPP winning 2.8k.
As a result i've cut down on the amount of games I'm playing to the point I play only freerolls at the moment.

TacT

david-k wrote:

This is a piss take?

On a serious note i've been experiencing similiar bad beats lately aswell e.g KK,QQ v's AKo and losing and when I have AK against pp it doesn't hit... all this started after I came 2nd in 10k rebuy on PPP winning 2.8k.
As a result i've cut down on the amount of games I'm playing to the point I play only freerolls at the moment.

The chap was indeed taking the piss