Rant, pretty pointless but I needed it!

Iago

what a fcuking day...all day long I've been getting outdrawn on the river. The last 10 STTs and 5 MTT's I've played I've gone out on the river, culminating in the following hand.

$25K on VC 400 starters 180 players left
Blinds at 200-400 and I'm on the button, I've around 15.5K in chips, and I'm dealt AcKc.

UTG limps and it's folded to me, I raise to 2K. Both Blinds fold and UTG goes all-in for another 18K.

I think about it and just as I run out of time I call him, he turns over AsQs

Flop comes down 7s Ks Kd
Turn is a blank
River 2s

and instead of being chip leader and in a great position to win the thing I'm out in 180th place. The hands that have knocked me out today are below..

Aks v 78s ~ 7 on the river
QQ v's TT ~ T on the river
KK v's AQ ~ A on the river
JJ v's A3 ~ A on the river
QQ v's KT ~ straight completed on river

and so on and so forth, I know it's averages and it'll balance out and I take some consolation from the fact that I've been ahead each time the money went in but so many in one day is fairly soul destroying...

ok rant over, I'm going to give it a break and start again tomorrow.

NickyOD

Iago wrote:

ok rant over, I'm going to give it a break and start again tomorrow.

posted at 9:30PM

That's not a break!!!

Lafortezza

You know the way that there's the long term idea about poker where you might run very well for a while, then badly for a period, but over a long enough period of time it all evens out?

Consider that some people will be more 'lucky' in their poker career than others. The broad specturm of thousands of players means that there will be a range from players who are far far luckier than the average for years and there will also be players who are much unluckier than the average for a long period of time (a lifetime perhaps).

In the end these luckier and unluckier players are balanced out in the whole great scheme of things but it's sobering to think that sometimes no matter what you do you might be one of lifes unlucky poker players and never have a chance of winning.

Iago

Cheers Luke, you've persuaded me to give up completely

I don't know about the rest of you, but days like yesterday do tend to affect my game more than they should. I find that I'm less willing to bluff or semi-bluff, believing that I'm going to be called any time I try, I start limping into pots instead of raising and folding instead of calling. That's why I take a break from the game, try and refocus myself.

Nicky, you're right it's not much of a break, having thought more about it last night and this morning, I'm actually going to take a week or two off. I'll see how I feel after that.

Ardent

I played about 5 tournaments on VC yesterday. My appalling luck was unbelievable.

Four times I raised strongly from a good position with AK and, while almost everyone would fold, some guy would call all-in with:

a) 55 or some such low pair and not a single A or K would turn up for me
b) JT or A7 and hit a run or flush on the river

Not to mention anytime I went in with QQ or JJ I would get busted by a lower pair making trips or fluking an unintentional flush on the river.

By the time I finished my last game I screaming at the monitor "b*ll*cks!".

I'm not playing VC again. It's too much of a lottery. The number of weaker hands being rewarded is too much of a coincidence for me.

kinaldo

lafortezza wrote:

You know the way that there's the long term idea about poker where you might run very well for a while, then badly for a period, but over a long enough period of time it all evens out?

Consider that some people will be more 'lucky' in their poker career than others. The broad specturm of thousands of players means that there will be a range from players who are far far luckier than the average for years and there will also be players who are much unluckier than the average for a long period of time (a lifetime perhaps).

In the end these luckier and unluckier players are balanced out in the whole great scheme of things but it's sobering to think that sometimes no matter what you do you might be one of lifes unlucky poker players and never have a chance of winning.

i guess i'd consider myself one of the luckier ones

Lafortezza

kinaldo wrote:

i guess i'd consider myself one of the luckier ones

Personally I think I'm on the good side of the luck average too. I rarely have any bad beats that make me want to shout and break stuff, if I do they're usually early in a tournament when it doesn't matter as much.
If I'm playing a cash Omaha table and all the money goes in the middle, if I'm ahead (odds-wise) I usually seem to stay ahead, top set vs flush draw+gutshot for instance. More than the odds would predict at least, although that could be my subjective memory in action.

I don't think I've ever run badly. I'm terrible at online hold'em cash games so I don't play them any more, STT's, MTT's and omaha high have all been decent money makers for me. Here's hoping it lasts.

Samba

Like Luke I seem to be very luck in so far as I tend to avoid the Bad beats where they count most (for me anyway) In cash play.

MTT's, I have given up, it's been over a week since I have entered one.

STT's, $50 6 seaters have been great to me, I have cleaned these up.

I played one this morning and won it due to downright luck.

Im on the bb, stacks are even at around 4k I just doubled up and blinds are at 200/400. I look down and see the ducks, the button calls, sb completes, at this point I am thinking, time for a steal to put me slightly infront.

So I push, presuming both will fold, oh lord he he called AND the bb is seriously thinking about it. Gulp, I know I just ran in to slow played rockets.

BB folds, SB flips over AA, I get up and go to the bathroom, when I get back I have just over 8k in chips with the timer about to run out on my go.

I rivered a 4 card flush to take out the Aces with 22.

After that I destroyed my remaining opponent in 3 hands when he pushed on a flop which he had bottom pair, with myself holding top.

I have had my share of beats like this and inflicted my share also.

Those days where nothing goes right, can get to you, I think if you start to sense one of these days, get up, go for a walk/drive, take your girlfriend to the cinema, forget about poker for the day, clear your mind.

NickyOD

No one can be incredibly lucky or unlucky over a perioud longer than a few thousand hands. Bad plays catch up with you very quickly and good plays are rewarded more often than they are not.

The strength difference between one two carded hand and another is marginal enough for you to expect an extended run of ass-reaming which can go on for several thousand of hands. Collectively in these beats you may have been a 1000-1 favourite to win atleast one of them but that is by no means a miracle and every now and again you should come to expect losing all your chips where you're a 95% or better favourite to a faeces throwing monkey. It can easily happen the next hand, and the next and the next. Such is the nature of poker and all of a sudden you can easily feel like there's a black cloud hanging over you or that old lady you cleverly nudged out of the way in the bus queue gave you some really bad Karma.

You can just as easilly go through a tournament winning several times over when you got it all in preflop as a 4-1 dog only to go out on the bubble getting your aces cracked by 9-3o. And of course then you'll say to yourself you were unlucky.

It's all to easy to mistake luck or bad luck for normal variance. Long term there is no such thing as luck in poker. There are winning players and losing players.

Ardent

Samba wrote:

I rivered a 4 card flush to take out the Aces with 22.

That's VC poker for ya.

Lafortezza

NickyOD wrote:

No one can be incredibly lucky or unlucky over a perioud longer than a few thousand hands. Bad plays catch up with you very quickly and good plays are rewarded more often than they are not.

It's all to easy to mistake luck or bad luck for normal variance. Long term there is no such thing as luck in poker. There are winning players and losing players.

Say I'm part of a group of 1,000,000 (random number plucked from air) poker players and we all play poker as a hobby/2nd income for a lifetime. That 1 million players could be sorted or graded by how lucky they were throughout their lifetime of playing poker. Lucky being how much their results were better than the statistics would dictate for each hand.

So out of those 1 million players (on the luck scale) you could have the top 1000 who might not be better players than the bottom 1000 but who would have beaten the odds more often than being drawn out on or running badly.

I remember a thread on 2+2 entitled "Exactly how long is the long term?" where it was discussed whether long term variance of results at poker might not be as short as a certain number of thousand hands.
One of the pros on 2+2 (who 8-tabled 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, for the past 4 years iirc) thought that it might be a case where the "Long Term" could be longer than the average person's life.

So you could basically run bad for your whole poker career, or equally some of us could just have started a 20 year stretch of running way above normal. Which would be nice.

NickyOD

lafortezza wrote:

So you could basically run bad for your whole poker career, or equally some of us could just have started a 20 year stretch of running way above normal. Which would be nice.

It's a good thing I had my golden-horshoe-anal-implant-surgery last year then.

pmk19

Ardent wrote:

I played about 5 tournaments on VC yesterday. My appalling luck was unbelievable.

Four times I raised strongly from a good position with AK and, while almost everyone would fold, some guy would call all-in with:

a) 55 or some such low pair and not a single A or K would turn up for me
b) JT or A7 and hit a run or flush on the river

Not to mention anytime I went in with QQ or JJ I would get busted by a lower pair making trips or fluking an unintentional flush on the river.

By the time I finished my last game I screaming at the monitor "b*ll*cks!".

I'm not playing VC again. It's too much of a lottery. The number of weaker hands being rewarded is too much of a coincidence for me.

I agree. There was a period where None of my hands would win I was getting raped from behind everytime. I even resorted to telling people what i had so they wouldnt chance they're luck...but most of them thought i was lying..im on ppp now..and im going good..not too many bad beats so far

Waylander

If by PPP you mean Paddy Power, I am sorry to break it to you but it is the same network with the same players and the same tables as VC so you have not really changed sites at all.

Iago

Sfortuna al gioco, fortuna in amore

I suppose I'll have to give up cards then

Seriously though, I do think that over the last 6-12 month period I have been unlucky far more often than lucky. That brings us back to the whole debate about why you get outdrawn more when you're a good player than a bad player. Does it mean I'm a good player because I get outdrawn more? Or is it just that my betting/play/image is significantly bad enough that players feel that they can call me regardless...I don't know for sure yet.

BTW what's a good ITM % in STTs? I seem to be far more successful there, I've around a 44% ITM with just over 20% win rate at the moment. Predominantly $5-$10 but with a reasonable amount of $15 and $25 STTs as well. Maybe I should stick to these!

DapperGent

Waylander wrote:

If by PPP you mean Paddy Power, I am sorry to break it to you but it is the same network with the same players and the same tables as VC so you have not really changed sites at all.

Yeah but Neil VC is rigged and PPP isn't.

Waylander

Ah right Rossa, my mistake. Sorry PMK I take it alll back.

bohsman

PPP is every bit as much rigged as VC.
Ive yet to take a bad beat on Doylesroom so thats definitely not rigged

DeVore

lol bohsman!

Iago, the temptation to say "GOOD, now you know how I felt the first time we ever played against each other and you called for inside straights and hit them" is almost too tempting!! Its karma baby, comin back around

More seriously, a run of bad luck can nail your feet to the floor in game terms. I think Iago has just hit The Fear for the first time.

With SuitedAces off the air, I found this (below) in Google that I wrote way back last year. I think you'll probably empathise with some of it.

I just had a month of being kicked in the bollox by the cards, nothing went right, I'm not sure I even won one euro last month which is a disaster for me. This week I started it off with a surprisingly comfortable money placing in the 2,500 GTD on PPP and from there I havent looked back, including yesterdays money split in Oscars game. One decent win blew away all the self-doubts etc. But I know the state you're head is in, its not a nice feeling.

--


The Fear

If you are a beginner player (like me) and you havent encountered "The Fear" yet, count yourself lucky!

Confidence is important at the table. You have to look like you are smooth, suave and in control (So thats Luke in trouble!). Theres nothing worse then self-doubt creeping in and making you second guess yourself. This we all know. The Fear though is something stronger, something deeper then a lack of confidence. I first felt it about 3 months after I started playing this game. Until then I had merrily driven through the opposition like Mr Magoo, uncaring and unnoticing of the danger I placed my chips in. Ignorance really IS bliss!

As I learned a little more I started to realise things like even a higher pair was only a 5:1 favourite over a lower pair. Suddenly my chips seemed in jeopardy all the time! Add to this the fact that I'd had a nice run of wins in the tournaments. The old timers in the club were complimenting me on my play and I was in profit from a few big wins in a row. That should be great for your confidence but suddenly I felt that I HAD to perform, to make final table, to make the money. Suddenly 3:1 didnt seem like enough domination for me to put all my chips on! In short I bottled, big time. I couldnt make the big moves. I couldnt let it ride... because as much as we all want to claim poker as a game of skill (and it is!), its also about taking chances and gambling. If you cant stand your ground at the table you need to get away from it.

The Fear makes you feel like your opponent can see into your soul. It can make you feel like you are doomed to lose this hand and should cut your losses now when the right play might be to push harder! You are certain everyone at the table knows you are a loser who doesnt know what he's doing and you were fooling yourself to think you have any skill at this game. Sure you won once, but anyone can get lucky and no matter what the others say you are a GREAT BIG FRAUD.

Nice 'innit!

This is where I tell you how I over came it, I triumphed over my Fear[tm]. Sorry, no can do. Even yesterday I bottled a big hand which ultimately cost me a tournament I wanted to win, badly. Too badly.

I never said I had all the answers. We never said we're world class players but if you've gone from being on top of the world to feeling like you dont know what you are doing and should stop before you hurt yourself, then you know what I'm talking about. It can pass but it will also come back. If you never feel like that then I envy you but I think you might be lying...

Iago

Ah Yes, Karma indeed...well I've had more than my fair share back, when do I start dishing it out again?

Once again proving that I'm great at giving advice but terrible at taking it I logged on to VC last night and signed in for the $5K guaranteed game ( actual prize fund was just under $10K).

Early on I doubled up when AKs was called by A4o and neither of us improved (I thought, maybe my luck is changing) alas it wasn't to be. I was crippled when QQ was outdrawn by TT and spent the rest of the tournament looking at rubbish. I didn't even find a marginal hand to consider throwing chips at.

Eventually I was down to just over 3K with the blinds at 200/400 and I had KsKc in first position, hector arrived at the rails to wish me luck just as I pushed all in. I was called by the button who turned over AhQh. Flop was 3 spades to go with my K, unfortunately one of them was the A, and no K or spade landed on the turn or river and out I went.

I continued watching the touney until Hector was outdrawn by a muppet with a shed load of chips when down to 11 players, think it was AT against A5 but I might be wrong. This after a hand that boggles belief where the aforementioned muppet checked on the river with a full house letting another player escape with chips and then double through twice in a row. Still don't understand what happened there.

Anyway played a $25 and $15 STT then and won the $25 game, finished 3rd in the $15, so ended up with a slight profit for the night. Mainly thanks to a large slice of luck. Running shortstacked with 5 players left I had 5h5d on the button. Folded to me and I pushed, called by both the SB and the BB who proceeded to check it down.

Flop 2s 3s Jc
Turn 5s
River Js

Golly: 5h5d for a full house 5s full of Js
SB: 8s8c for a flush J8532
BB: TsTh for a flush JT532

and from there got a couple of nice hands that brought me the game. Including 62o in the SB when 662 landed on the flop and a guy kept betting into me all the way to the river with AJ.

very bad luck in that tourney Hector, O'callagh who I think posts here, although I haven't met him, was going great guns and was up to around 200k (3rd in chips) with 10 players left...

Hectorjelly

O'callagh finished third I think. That hand was incredible. I raise utg with AQ. A relative shortstack calls me from middle position and the chip leader calls from the button. The flop is 2 2 3 and I check. The shortstack bets 10k and the CL calls. If the CL had of folded I would of moved all in as I had odds to call and hit 1 of my overcards, and maybe the shortstack would fold. Anyway once the CL called I was done with the hand.

The turn is a 7 and the Shortstack bets 10k, again the CL calls. The shortstack now only has 4k left. The river is a 3 and the Shortstack checks with 4k left, and a pot of over 60k. The chip leader checks behind with 52s, shortie had AK.

A few hands later I raised the shortstacked BB with AT, she called all in with 86 and won which crippled me. The call wasnt bad as she was pretty shortstacked, but the hand should of never happened.

Iago

Hectorjelly wrote:

O'callagh finished third I think. That hand was incredible. I raise utg with AQ. A relative shortstack calls me from middle position and the chip leader calls from the button. The flop is 2 2 3 and I check. The shortstack bets 10k and the CL calls. If the CL had of folded I would of moved all in as I had odds to call and hit 1 of my overcards, and maybe the shortstack would fold. Anyway once the CL called I was done with the hand.

The turn is a 7 and the Shortstack bets 10k, again the CL calls. The shortstack now only has 4k left. The river is a 3 and the Shortstack checks with 4k left, and a pot of over 60k. The chip leader checks behind with 52s, shortie had AK.

A few hands later I raised the shortstacked BB with AT, she called all in with 86 and won which crippled me. The call wasnt bad as she was pretty shortstacked, but the hand should of never happened.

The excuse was laughable "I was worried about the higher house!!!, for an extra 4K into a pot worth 64K with over 250K in chips?? Then the next hand he calls an all-in preflop with KTs and loses 25% of his chips to AQs (or something similar)

It really gets to me that someone like that can finish in the money when I get lucked out of tournaments...if I had a cat I'd kick it