Poker Wimp

BigDragon

I don't know what to do at the moment. I must have made 20 final tables or bubbles in the last 2 weeks and I just cant close. The light at the end of the tunnel is blinding but feels fcukin miles away.

I know its not because Im too tight as Ive tried being the big stack bully and come unstuck. Ive played tight, loose, mixed it up. Im not looking for a shoulder to cry on as I know what its like to never get near a FT and I should be happy but...

Ive worked hard at my game and am seeing the results. Its just a killer to see the hard work not pay off.


How do the winners on here deal with this? Some of you guys must have been here.

Maybe Im just a poker wimp.

NickyOD

From what I saw at the boards game you have nothing to worry about. You are just running bad and believe me at some point in your career you will run a hell of a lot worse.

At least you're not **** at omaha like me.

OilBeefHooked2

BigDragon wrote:

I don't know what to do at the moment. I must have made 20 final tables or bubbles in the last 2 weeks

sounds like ur not doing a whole lot wrong going by those results.;)

DeVore

NickyOD wrote:

From what I saw at the boards game you have nothing to worry about. You are just running bad and believe me at some point in your career you will run a hell of a lot worse.

At least you're not **** at omaha like me.

What Nicky said, including the part about being sh*t at Omaha


I'm very much in the same situation as you BD, I've hit a hundred final two tables and not gotten into the money. Recently I've hit a few but SE on Saturday was another example.

If you played that PPP Xmas Cracker 70 times, I think you would win it at least once. Which, given the quality of that field, says a lot!
Talk to Mike, I think he's about to get therapy for bad beats and bubbles....


DeV.

Marq

Dave, you know the answer to your own question: This is variance. You are a good player with a string of good results under your belt and a very positive attitude towards the game. That you have made 20+ final tables or bubbles is a good sign , not a bad one. Although it's frustrating to frequently come so far and not make the big money, there's no reason to think that it's because you are not playing well. If you really are playing badly, then you know well that there's no quick-fix solution.

However, I don't think you're playing badly, I think you are experiencing variance, and you know as well as I do where I think this should have been posted.

BigDragon

Marq wrote:

Dave, you know the answer to your own question: This is variance. You are a good player with a string of good results under your belt and a very positive attitude towards the game. That you have made 20+ final tables or bubbles is a good sign , not a bad one. Although it's frustrating to frequently come so far and not make the big money, there's no reason to think that it's because you are not playing well. If you really are playing badly, then you know well that there's no quick-fix solution.

However, I don't think you're playing badly, I think you are experiencing variance, and you know as well as I do where I think this should have been posted.

OK Mark. Point taken. Im just curious about at which point variance becomes a skill problem/psychology problem/playing too much poker problem/ etc etc.

Its advice in coping with that variance Im looking for. The answer may be as simple as 'fcuk off and deal with it!' but there is a ton of experienced players here and Im asking for the experiences of others in that position in the past.

My blog is a personal reflection thing and, to me at least, boards and the guys I call friends (including you) are the ones Im asking the advice from.

I know poker is inherently a selfish/individual game but its the like of boards and its discussions that make me realise I can never learn enough. Hence the query beyond the 'what should do here with bottom set' type query.

DeVore

Again I would say I'm right where you are or at least have very recently been. I'd echo what Marq says and add this:

Variance only needs to be dealt with in two situations:

1. You're on the wrong side of the odds from playing badly and you should improve your play.

2. You're play is being affected by undue concerns about variance.


You aren't doing 1 so if its a problem, it must be 2 imho. Perhaps you don't have either but you need to avoid problem 2 as well.
Last year I hit how many final tables? At one point it seemed like the 20-game was my personal ATM. This year, very very little in the trouphy cabinet. There are a lot of reasons for that that I wont go into from lack of time to getting more "cocky" and needing to re-discipline myself.
Not to mention a lot of those tournies last year were 30-40 players, whereas this year they are 100+ runners at times.

What you are basically saying is "My head is wrecked with these outdraws, cold decks and long tournies with nothing to show for it, what can I do?"
The answer is very little though, here are my suggestions:

1. Stop playing poker. Get out, go do stuff, don't think about poker for a week (if you can!) then come back ONLY when you feel focused and determined and see yourself winning the tournie.

2. consider that you now have probably 250 experiences of the start of a tournie, and about 40 experiences of final 2-3 tables. And yet you seem shocked that you are getting better at the former faster then the latter.

3. Suck it up biatch. Let me see, I've missed a 30k MCM ticket, a shot at beating almost all of the Full Tilt guys on a single table (for SSF too!), a ticket to represent Ireland ON THE TELLY, and the recent SSF game. Thats just the highlights, not to mention how many times I've been rivered out of tournies I've gone deep in. It sucks unmercifully but the reason I (or you) got to that situation is the LAST THING we should change per se.

Caveat: if you think there IS something theoretically wrong with your game, as they're was with mine I believe, then you might want to have a think about it. But don't tinker with an engine thats getting you "there or thereabouts" because you don't really have enough data points to draw any reasonable conclusion about your end game play.

DeV.

Marq

BigDragon wrote:

the guys I call friends (including you) are the ones Im asking the advice from.

I haven't won a penny for six weeks. I've been coping by playing a lot of chess, and trying to analyse poker without any regard for results.

Hectorjelly

First of all, this is all general advice, I dont think weve played much together. However I think its very likely that there are elements of your game that you could improve (as is true for everyone), and assigning a lack of success to varience will lead to worse results in the long run. The general problem that people have who post similar questions to the OP is they might play too passively, and if not that then perhaps they play too tight. You might want to try some more risky manueveres. Take a flop and outplay some tight fish (ie Bluff), or take a few flops and try and stack a loose one. Dont let the cards dictate how successfull your tournament is.

Secondly each time you get knocked out of a tournement it can be usefull to evaluate precisely why you got knocked out. If you got knocked out on a hand that it was impossible to not go broke on then was there any hands played before that where you could of got more chips, or did you pass clear steal opportunities etc etc.

Imposter

Hectorjelly wrote:

Dont let the cards dictate how successfull your tournament is.

In the end though the cards will determine how successful your tournament is. To do well (make the serious money) in a tournament, you've got to have luck. I'm going through a phase of collecting multiple beats (usually 2) from inferior hands to knock me out of tournaments when i'm in a great position. If Dragon is happy that he is getting the money in with the best of it then surely it is just variance. At this stage in tournaments you will have to see a flop at some stage and you or your opponent will also have to be all-in at some stage. If you're ahead going into those situations there's not much more you can do.

Secondly each time you get knocked out of a tournement it can be usefull to evaluate precisely why you got knocked out. If you got knocked out on a hand that it was impossible to not go broke on then was there any hands played before that where you could of got more chips, or did you pass clear steal opportunities etc etc.

This of course is always the case (Evaluate your play) even if you win the tournament.

Ive had a similar phase a while back which began to annoy me. either playing too loose or too tight. I found that analysing my game in terms of table position was key to improving my success at final tables. Begin able to steal blinds when they are big at that stage gives you more time to wait for the big starting hands. Knowing when to jump in and when not to from what position will help you. Read slansky and malmoth's chapters on position it explains it all very well.
when i get beat conisistently in a particular area i feel its best to analyse that area in detail and correct the problem.....you could be waiting for the variance to change forever....if variance is not the problem

mewso

Well I've only had one reasonabable win this year and it followed a period very similar to your own Dave. During that time I played well/ok/crap in no particular order and when I won I got seriously lucky to do so. What does that tell you. In general what helps me is walking away for a while as Tom has said. I'm dissappointed I haven't played in the Fitz since my september win because I think the confidence it gave me at the time would have helped.
Hector is right to say you are always improving your game but lets face it we play against players in the same boat so you have to expect success even if you are still learning. It's a cliche now but the biggest help to my game this year without doubt was Harrington's second book on the end game part of tournaments but I assume you have read that one.
One final thought is that weaknesses in your game can be subtle. I've noticed alot of times when I see a flop I might suddenly say to myself "Oh cool I'm last to act here" when of course I should have been aware of this much earlier.

Hectorjelly

Imposter wrote:

In the end though the cards will determine how successful your tournament is. To do well (make the serious money) in a tournament, you've got to have luck. I'm going through a phase of collecting multiple beats (usually 2) from inferior hands to knock me out of tournaments when i'm in a great position. If Dragon is happy that he is getting the money in with the best of it then surely it is just variance. At this stage in tournaments you will have to see a flop at some stage and you or your opponent will also have to be all-in at some stage. If you're ahead going into those situations there's not much more you can do.

If your ahead on that hand then theres nothing you could do about that hand. Thinking you played a tournament perfectly because you got knocked out on a bad beat is faulty thinking.

Imposter

Hectorjelly wrote:

If your ahead on that hand then theres nothing you could do about that hand. Thinking you played a tournament perfectly because you got knocked out on a bad beat is faulty thinking.

Sorry, yes I know this. I need to learn to phrase what i'm saying better! What I mean is that if you're happy with the way you played throughout the tournament but got knocked out while getting all-in with the best of it then that's just unlucky.

Gholimoli

This is an interesting topic. Here are my thoughts on the subject.
Being consistent in a tourney requires skill but to actually win it, requires a lot of luck and that’s why I think its much better to be consistent that to win here and there.
If you finish deep consistently that means, you know how to play the starting level, the mid game, and the end game.
If you make it to final table often enough, it suggests that you’re a good player who understand the game well. You need a lot of luck to win a tourney but you need to put your self in a position to get lucky and that is where the skill comes in.
Having said that, there is deffo strategies involved in winning when your at the FT or near the end.
Most players tend to be too tight or passive when they get near the end for what ever reason. either they wanna move up the money or they are just to scared to get knocked out having come this far .take advantage of that.pick your players,see which ones are scared to play anything but a big PP or AK.see which ones are just looking to move up in the money and keep picking on them. keep raising them and reraise them.you can be sure that they will not challenge you with out a real hand.
Avoid the big stacks as much as you can cuz they are the one who can bust you.
I can not emphasise enough how much aggression pays of near the end and most are just to scared to go bust.put pressure on them, make them decide for all their chips, make them know that when you raise they better have a hand or fold .
Having said all of that, in order to be able to do that efficiently ,you need to be prepared to go bust your self, other wise you will fall under the category of the people im saying you should go after.
Regards,
Gholimoli