What now?

corblimey

While playing a live game last night, and literally getting 2 hands all night, AQ all in against a pair of Jacks (the Jacks held up) and (after a rebuy) 77 all in against AT with a T on the river, it occurred to me that I haven't won a hand (seriously!) in the last 2 weeks. I've stopped playing ppp now - I lost my entire bankroll in 3 horrible days - but I think it has affected my live play more than I thought it would. I'm playing more defensively than I think I should, primarily because of the suckouts I've seen. Of course it doesn't help that a suckout threw me out of the live tourney last night, but that's poker.

I'm just wondering what I should do next. Should I continue to play live and expect that the cold deck and my weak tight play improves? Should I sit back, read some Harrington and try to get back to where I was 2 months ago (3 final tables in a week, one first, one second, one 7th)? Should I admit that poker is just not for me, and start playing blackjack

By the way, when I say I got literally 2 hands last night, I mean I got 2 hands I felt comfortable playing with. Kx, A-rag, small pp all went by the wayside after pre-flop raises, hands I now think I was just too pessimistic about.

ChipLdr

I went card dead for two solid weeks in poker.And i play a lot of poker!!!! It seemed every tourney i played in i just couldnt get the cards.Every cash game i'd play i would sit for hours waiting or premium hands and when they came i'd get outdrawn.

One Big tourney i played in the best hand i got in 3 and a half hours was AJo...not even one PP.Everybody experiences this aspect of poker and i feel if you have the willpower and(bankroll) you can ride through it.Straight after the tourney i went on a winning streak after the deck was smacking me in the face till it felt like i was cheating.

When you're down in poker it's a horrible thing,You become such a pessimist and expect the Bad Beat to come when you get your AA in against T3s preflop(he hit a flush btw).Every flop or turn that brings a scare card gets you playing so defensively that you end up losing a lot of money as you dont realise your playing a complete fish who will call even if he's missed the 4 cards on board.All you're thinking is BAD BEAT BAD BEAT.Take a break from poker when the cards run dead or else you'll find yourself tilting a lot of money away and start playing crazy games like Omaha!!!:D

I considered giving it up a while back after nearly going broke but simply asked myself the question, Am i good enough to make money from poker?I think we know what the answer to that was.Stick with it but if you stop believing in your ability well there's no hope in ever conquering this lovely game.

cardshark202

corblimey wrote:

While playing a live game last night, and literally getting 2 hands all night, AQ all in against a pair of Jacks (the Jacks held up) and (after a rebuy) 77 all in against AT with a T on the river, it occurred to me that I haven't won a hand (seriously!) in the last 2 weeks. I've stopped playing ppp now - I lost my entire bankroll in 3 horrible days - but I think it has affected my live play more than I thought it would. I'm playing more defensively than I think I should, primarily because of the suckouts I've seen. Of course it doesn't help that a suckout threw me out of the live tourney last night, but that's poker.

I'm just wondering what I should do next. Should I continue to play live and expect that the cold deck and my weak tight play improves? Should I sit back, read some Harrington and try to get back to where I was 2 months ago (3 final tables in a week, one first, one second, one 7th)? Should I admit that poker is just not for me, and start playing blackjack

By the way, when I say I got literally 2 hands last night, I mean I got 2 hands I felt comfortable playing with. Kx, A-rag, small pp all went by the wayside after pre-flop raises, hands I now think I was just too pessimistic about.

Sounds like you're not lucky enough. I'd give up before you go into debt...

Seriously though, this is a moan thread. To the bad beat sticky with it....

ianmc38

corblimey wrote:

Kx, A-rag, small pp all went by the wayside after pre-flop raises, hands I now think I was just too pessimistic about.

I wouldn't get overly optimistic when i look down at Kx and A rag tbh.

5starpool

cardshark202 wrote:

Sounds like you're not lucky enough. I'd give up before you go into debt...

Seriously though, this is a moan thread. To the bad beat sticky with it....

Stop picking on him!!

To the OP, there have been lots of other similiar threads over the last few months (and probably years), and the overwhelming response is one word - variance.

For some reason poker does seem to be a streaky game, whether there is any tangible proof of that is irrelevant, it seems like you are either going good or going bad. Of course statistically there is no real difference between your chances of getting AA on any hand on any night, but it seems different a lot of nights. Sometimes you can't miss, sometimes you can't hit.

This is probably mostly a psycholigical thing, and as has been suggested above, a break for a couple of weeks to clear your head, and restore belief that you might get cards, and be able to win with them is a good way to recharge your poker mojo.

5starpool

ChipLdr wrote:

Take a break from poker when the cards run dead or else you'll find yourself tilting a lot of money away and start playing crazy games like Omaha!!!:D

Omaha is a great game, and don't you go dissing it.

clint_silver

I sat down at a .50/1 table last week at 10pm with 100$ on ppp. I didnt play one hand until 11pm as the best I think Id had was A3. the first hand I went in with was 89s and the flop got rid that. I waited another 30 mins of tripe, Id been blinded down to about 40 and still didnt have anything worth playing, called 1 for 2 hands just for the sake of playing but still wasnt getting anything so logged off and went and got a cuppa. Waited a few minutes, logged back on and played a few .50c and 1$ 1v1s. I figgered that if the poker gods are gonna go cold on me for x amount of hands I might as well get those hands out of the way as quick as possible. sure enough, played 4-5 1v1s, didnt win any of them, then won one. went straight to a 10$ 1v1, won that, figgered me luck had changed, back to the cash table and hit a run and cleared 200 in about an hour play .50/1.
Lesson learned for me, if Im gonna be card dead, try to get the dead cards out of the system as quick as possible.

corblimey

cardshark202 wrote:

Sounds like you're not lucky enough. I'd give up before you go into debt...

Seriously though, this is a moan thread. To the bad beat sticky with it....

Brilliant, thanks cardshark, problem solved. :mad:

If you actually read my op, you'll notice that I'm not moaning about the bad beats, I'm happy to put that down to "that's poker"

I'm just wondering whether it's worth playing through this little spot of bad luck, variance, cold deck, etc, or am I wasting my time and money and just use this time to take a little break and do a little book-readin'

cardshark202

corblimey wrote:

Brilliant, thanks cardshark, problem solved. :mad:

If you actually read my op, you'll notice that I'm not moaning about the bad beats, I'm happy to put that down to "that's poker"

I'm just wondering whether it's worth playing through this little spot of bad luck, variance, cold deck, etc, or am I wasting my time and money and just use this time to take a little break and do a little book-readin'

I guess joking in this forum is becoming 'bad etiquette'.

Iago

5starpool wrote:

To the OP, there have been lots of other similiar threads over the last few months (and probably years), and the overwhelming response is one word - variance.

For some reason poker does seem to be a streaky game, whether there is any tangible proof of that is irrelevant,

From 2+2

Having read all about variance on these forums and witnessed first hand the highs and lows I decided to simulate the results for a winning SNG player over a number of games played.

First off I decided that the player would exclusively play $20+$2 tables and that they would place:

1st - 14%
2nd - 12%
3rd - 14%

This results in a winning player ITM = 40% and ROI = 21.8%. So not the worlds best player but a solid winning player nonetheless.

I then decided that the player has decided to hammer party on 4 tables playing 50 in a day, 250 in a week, 1,000 a month and 12,000 a year.

THE RESULTS FOR A DAY (50 SNG's)

So I ran the simulation 10,000 times each time generating the result of playing a block of 50 SNGs.

The very worst day our player lost $580 and their best day resulted in a $1,400 win - but these are extreme results as on average our player won $240.

The interesting bit is that 10% of days resulted in losing $80 or MORE. 20% (including the previous 10%) of days played resulted in only winning $20 or less.

On the flip side our player went on a tear and won $580 or more 10% of the time and $460 or more 20% of the time.

However to me the interesting part was that 20% of the time this player would play all day and end up roughly breaking even or worse (and sometimes much worse). The other point to make here is that this player is absolutely immune from tilt i.e. the result of their next game is in no way affected by any of the previous results. So to reiterate this player will play 50 SNGs and 20% of the time they will breakeven or lose - and this pure variance and is never due to tilt induced bad play.


THE RESULTS FOR A WEEK (250 SNG's)

Once again the simulation was run for 10,000 blocks of 250 SNG's.

The extreme results for the week were losing $1020 and winning $3280 on average our player made $1180. So our player witnessed a 46 buy in downswing over 250 SNG's - which kind of make me wince even though this was only one result in 10,000.

However the good news is that as you might expect some of the variance seen in the days results is being ironed out by the larger volume of SNGS played. Now the player only breaks even or loses about 3% of the time - so maybe one or two weeks per year our player breaks even or worse.

Again there is upside with 10% of the weeks being $1940 or better and 20% being $1680 or better.

THE RESULTS FOR A MONTH (1000 SNG's)

Once again the simulation was run for 10,000 blocks of 1000 SNG's.

The good news here is that in 10,000 months (833 years!) of results our player never had a losing month with their worst result being a win of $1060.

On average our player won $4800. 90% of the months fell within a band starting at $2920 and ending in $6700. So I guess a fair spread of results but I would feel a lot happier never posting a negative month as this really would be awful!

THE RESULTS FOR A YEAR (12000 SNG's)

Once again the simulation was run for 10,000 blocks of 12,000 SNG's. If you played this in real time finishing around now then you might have bumped in to Jesus having by then completed 80% of the years!

Anyhow over a years worth of SNG's our players very worst year was 'only' winning $42,860. On average they won $57,540 which would have bought quite a lot back then! 90% of years fell between winning $51,100 and $64,460.


Anyway I thought that I would share this info as I know that it will help me the next time I break even over 50 SNG's and ponder whether I should have stopped after the first 4 when I was $52 up.

Next time this happens I will know that due to sheer randomness this result will happen about 20% of the time and that it is not some conspiracy due to cashing out or Party being bent.

Take a step back and see the larger picture.

Hitchhiker's Guide to...

cardshark202 wrote:

I guess joking in this forum is becoming 'bad etiquette'.

... its called netiquette !