Is there a 'wall' ?

Culchie

Had a frustrating couple of weeks.

Feels like information overload, in that it feels like increased knowledge of the game from different sources (books, experience, live games etc..) has actually tied my game up in knots.....feels a bit like the golfer that messes up his usual swing when getting lessons and can't hit the ball off the tee.

Can't honestly say that I feel I have had a bad run of cards, but yet I am standing still at present. Neither up nor down.

STT's have always been bread and butter game, but tried a few MTT's and had some final tables (just as well) because my STT game has gone to hell.

Anyone go though a similar phase?

Lafortezza

How long have you been playing for? How long has this 'dry period' been going on for?
What level STT's are you playing? Can you think of any reasons yourself why your game might be suffering?

Your perceived crappy run might be just down to variance. If it's not and you are in fact playing badly at your usual STT level maybe you should switch to a different game, try cash games, MTTs, omaha. See how that goes and then come back to your STTs for a fresh start at a later date.

AB03

Happens man, been the same way the past 2 weeks or so myself, just cant seem to do better than break even. Ive always used 1x1 STTs for my bread and butter, but even theyve been goin to ****e recently.
Think I may be back in the black tho, won 30 odd on a cash game 10c/20c last time I played on saturday and generally seem to be moving up slowly again, but Ive found Ive had a few false starts like this in the past aswell. End up losing the past few days profit thru an all in bad beat or some large stupid call that ends up costin me a bomb.
I dunno, spose unconsciously my mind isnt on the game during these periods, because obviously the cards are random every time (maybe not on PPP tho ), so that old 'stroke of unluckiness' excuse doesnt hold with me.

bohsman

Yes my game tends to hit the wall when Im trying new things etc, my advice is to play through it, try new things and your game should settle again soon enough

biteme

I feel like i'm banging my head against the wall for the past month and a half

Cianos

Culchie,
It sounds like you are thinking too much. You are trying to apply all your newly gained knowledge, but in a non-fluid way. You should take a step back and allow everything to sink in before you get frustrated and all your knowledge becomes sludgy. Maybe re-read a couple of main points, and go back to the tables and just concentrate on that aspect of the game. Also, a few days off would probably be very beneficial - just to allow it all to sink in. Your head would be clearer at the end, and your game will pick up. Aswell, you have to consider that you may be playing great skill-wise, but the cards are running dry. This in turn causes frustration, especially if your head is full of new ideas that you are dying to get out on the table.

catcher

Who cares u whining bastard get over it u nob jockey

Cianos

catcher wrote:

Who cares u whining bastard get over it u nob jockey

You should approach 2+2 for an author contract...

Doc Farrell

Hi lads,

Yeah, there's definitely a wall, in fact I tend to hit one every few months. But for me it feels more like a plateau in a very long uphill climb.
My game is getting better, but only in very small increments and sometimes if I move up a limit too fast or try a new approach or theory, (e.g reraising a maniac with nothing) I can get burnt and it takes the fun and feel for the game out of me.
Take some time off, don't bother reading about the game and in a week or two the feel and hunger will come back.
And when you read here about people making money take it with the knowledge that they are losing as well. Spread over a year I vey much doubt that there are more than a half dozen people here who are making more than 200 a week from the game in profit. The real pros in Ireland (unlike myself) certainly don't post their winnings and losses here. I use boards as a learning tool to help my game, use what helps and leave the rest.

Lafortezza

Doc Farrell wrote:

And when you read here about people making money take it with the knowledge that they are losing as well. Spread over a year I vey much doubt that there are more than a half dozen people here who are making more than 200 a week from the game in profit.

This bit is interesting, could you expand a little?

Doc Farrell

To be honest chief, thats just off the top of my head but most of the winning players here use poker to supplement their income rather than see the game as their main source. Only 3 pros here come to mind.

Playing at levels that don't scare me I can't make more than 6-8 euro an hour and I'm sick of grinding 30-40 hours a week so I'm only playing MTTS and for tickets to big games.

I accept now that its impossible for me and not desirable either to be a cash game player and make good money at it. So I'm sticking to low limts, making a few quid there, maybe a hundred a week and using that money to pay for live tourneys which are fun for me.

coz really, if it ain't fun, it an't worth doing....

I think the lads who are making money playing 10 stts a night and small limit games will eventually come around to my view too. That it just isn't a particuarly fun way to make a living.

however, each to their own and all the best.

Marq

Doc Farrell wrote:

I think the lads who are making money playing 10 stts a night and small limit games will eventually come around to my view too. That it just isn't a particuarly fun way to make a living.

Playing poker for a living isn't about having fun. Your perspective on the game is different to that of the professionals because as you say, you are using poker to supplement your income, and more importantly, have an enjoyable time.

There aren't many people who would still do their day job if they weren't getting paid for it, if they didn't need to make a living. Playing poker for a living is the same. Would I sit at a table for nine hours solid listening to idiots winge about their bad beats if I wasn't expecting a monetary return? Absolutely not, and I wouldn't deal that game either if I wasn't being paid for it.

If you decide to play poker professionally your view of the game must change. You must focus on the money. If you also enjoy yourself while you are playing, that's fantastic, it's a bonus, but it certainly shouldn't be your main concern.

Doc Farrell

Marq i hope you're not drunk.

The point that I'm making is that playing a game should be enjoyable. There are plenty of pro's, though not in a small field like Ireland, for whom it is fun. THATS the only level worth playing at professionally.
But ekeing out a living FULL TIME in lower levels is not worth it, even if you are making 30-40 grand a year. There are plenty of other more enjoyable occupations.
It isn't necessary to point out to me that playing professionally is about the money. I am aware of the obvious.

Marq

Right, so if someone can make forty grand a year playing 40 hours a week in the low limits, where the variance and risk is lowest , you believe that they shouldn't do this because you yourself would find it boring.

Sure there are plenty of jobs that are more enjoyable than this, but the same can be said of many jobs. You might think it's "not worth it" but those people who do it might think that working in a bookstore or a cardroom is "not worth it". It's hardly for us to decide what's best for other people.

Marq

And you should see me when I'm drunk. I'm hilarious.

Doc Farrell

you're obviously on some kind of antagonistic buzz today so rather than try to explain to you how it isn't possible to make 20 euro an hour at low limits for 40 hours a week week in week out (40 grand a year), I'll just leave you to whatever it is you hope to gain by writing in the manner you have chosen.

roryc

Marq wrote:

And you should see me when I'm drunk. I'm hilarious.

Prove it

NickyOD

Doc Farrell wrote:

Marq i hope you're not drunk.

The point that I'm making is that playing a game should be enjoyable. There are plenty of pro's, though not in a small field like Ireland, for whom it is fun. THATS the only level worth playing at professionally.
But ekeing out a living FULL TIME in lower levels is not worth it, even if you are making 30-40 grand a year. There are plenty of other more enjoyable occupations.
It isn't necessary to point out to me that playing professionally is about the money. I am aware of the obvious.

I could't agree more. There is ZERO point in playing poker full time unless you are enjoying yourself. The real pros you see playing live poker are the ones enjoying themselves. The ones that struggle to eak out small profits are the ones with bad tempers, can't take bad beats and are generaly grumpy and stressed out even though they are winning players long term. There are many professional gamblers who are very pathetic creatures indeed. You'll never see me in bad form at the poker table but If I ever thought I would be unhappy playing as a full time player I would quit and live in a hut in Thailand. Life is too short to waste time doing something that doesn't make you happy and stress is for cables.

Lafortezza

I think the majority of people that post on this board don't treat poker as their main incomes, the only ones off the top of my head who do are HJ who took a year off from work, and Nicky who's testing playing as a pro playing 40sh hours a week.

What I'm thinking is that this board has plenty of players who *if* they took up playing poker at a 40hr week full time level that they would make a reasonable amount of money playing at their current stakes. Obviously bankroll would be an initial consideration, but I think that there are more players here who are good enough to play as pros than you'd think. The only reason they don't is because they already have jobs, don't have sufficient bankrolls and don't want to have to survive in a game where a bad run puts your financial status in jeopardy.

One thing you have to remember about that oft-quoted figure of "10% of poker players are long term winners" is that those ten percent are the ones who read theory books, post on poker forums, discuss their hands and actively try to read and improve their games. I'd say if people from this boards attempted to play as pros this board would have a long term winner figure of about 25%-30%.
Imho.

Hectorjelly

Making money from poker is a silly business. Whenever Im in a quiet contemplative mood (which isnt often) I sometimes think I can hear laughter. I mean it makes no sense. Every day I play a game with people who literally have no chance to win, because they play so badly. I still dont fully understand why they play. I wouldnt play chess for money if I lost more that I won. That is one facet of poker in which I know almost nothing. What brings losers back to the game. I learnt a little in vegas, there are different types of losers (when I say losers I dont mean that in a prejuduced context, just that in the long run they lose money). Some just enjoy the gamble and the excitement. They are there to win but not upset if they lose. Some are there primarily to lose and somehow seek compainionship with their loss. I think learning to understand why people play would be a huge advantage on a tactical level.

Why do I play? All my life i have loved games. I love the thrilll and pressure of trying to outwit other people, whether its chess, poker, risk, diplomacy whatever. And I always loved maths, so I took to poker very quickly; and understood some concepts right away that many pros still dont seem to get (witness Phil Hellmuth struggling with odds on the WSOP cardplayer broadcast). I finally found a dicispline that had a very low barrier to entry, but were a rigoruos logical approach paid dividents. So as I played more and more and started winning consistantly work became a distraction. I spent a good part of each day replaying key hands in my mind. For most of last year I earned more from poker than my work, this naturally led to stresses. And I didnt have to put in 40 hour weeks at it, or get out of bed at 8am. In the end I never made a conscous decision, it just seemed the natural thing to do.

Now Im 6 months down the line and I still love the game. Ive made huge mistakes and had to learn a lot of things the hard way, but I havent gone broke yet! In some ways its been a little dissapointing, because I havent been able to play the stakes i was last year. Thats because last year my bankroll was literally maybe two buyins. I used to play $2 $4 no limit with a base of $500. Thats because if I lost every penny I owned, I would still get a nice fat pay check at the end of the month. But this year I have to be ultra cautious, and I have been, possibly to the extent of being too cautious. My monthly wage is more than it was this time last year. I hope to at least double it by the end of the year.

I have more to say but I doubt anyone has gotten this far. A few people have gotten in contact with me to ask advice and so on, (noone on this list), and to be honest I dont think any of them stand a chance. Its very difficuly dealing with the natural highs and lows that poker produces, and it can be very testing to go through a sustained bad run of cards, which happens at least once every few months.

Lafortezza

Nice post Hector, Alan Schoonmaker's "Psychology of Poker" is one I'd recommend on why and how (losing) players play poker.

Iago

Interesting as always Hector, I'm curious as to why you feel that noone who has approached you has a chance of making it? What exactly about them do you believe the problem is?

I've been pleasantly surprised at how my game has moved along over the last few months. Last month I broke the $1K profit barrier from STTS for the first time and I really feel that I can start making good money consistently. But the thought of playing poker full time is still a long way away for me, I think I'd need to be up by at least my salary every month for 18-24 months before I would seriously consider it...

I think Marqs point is valid though, when (as in Hectors case) you start to play for a living then the game changes. I mean I only play for pocket change but even I view online poker as "work" and offline as entertainment. It's work I enjoy and want to do as opposed to my 9-5 which I enjoy but do out of necessity but work all the same. You do look at things differently and in a full time situation you'd have to. Instead of playing to win money for a gadget or holiday you're playing to pay the bills, that has to affect you in some way.

NickyOD

I used to have a lot of problems with stress from playing online poker. Over the first year I lost money, and over the next year I was horribly inconsistent. I was already crushing almost every live 5 card draw game around Shannon and Limerick but I didn't take to other games quickly at all. I knew I had the ability but for a long time I was playing at too high stakes and I also wasn't reading or researching enough to improve my game as much as I should have been.

One of the reasons I have doubts sometimes about whether or not I will be good enough to play full time is because I have had to work so hard to get where I am now and I am still not there yet. I know that I am not as naturally gifted a poker player as the likes of HJ but I do have faith in my own intelligence to be able to take my game to the next level. Like Hector I've always loved mathematics and games like chess and even scrabble, and I'm probably the best Monopoly player I know (Tip: always buy the blues )

Since June for the first time my hourly rate from poker has surpassed my hourly rate in my real job but I need to be doing this over a much longer period before I can justify a decision to play poker full time. It may not happen as soon as I would like because I'm not a great tournament player and don't usually take big scores which would get me the bankroll I'm aiming for. I do believe though that it will only be a matter of time before I do. It could be by Christmas this year or it could be be the end of this year, but I have the luxury of being able to take a years leave of absense from my work which makes the decision a lot easier.

ionapaul

Great series of posts, fellas. Food for thought for many here, I'm sure. I am neither good enough or disciplined enough to devote much more of my time to poker. Like Culchie, I've fallen into a bit of a slump recently, partly because I am just not as excited by poker as I was over the first 6 months of the year - have barely played online in months, not when GTA San Andreas and a stack of DVDs are available! Also, I have had trouble internalising the concepts found in Zen and the Art of Poker and the tactics / strategies found in Harrington's first book and others. As a result of not playing the old reliable STTs online, I haven't made any profit from poker for about 3 months, something I would like to address. I am wondering whether reapplying myself to online STTs, rather than diving into Harrington's second book or spending time on 2+2, would help me break through the 'wall'?

Culchie

ionapaul wrote:

Great series of posts, fellas. Food for thought for many here, I'm sure. I am neither good enough or disciplined enough to devote much more of my time to poker. Like Culchie, I've fallen into a bit of a slump recently, partly because I am just not as excited by poker as I was over the first 6 months of the year - have barely played online in months, not when GTA San Andreas and a stack of DVDs are available! Also, I have had trouble internalising the concepts found in Zen and the Art of Poker and the tactics / strategies found in Harrington's first book and others. As a result of not playing the old reliable STTs online, I haven't made any profit from poker for about 3 months, something I would like to address. I am wondering whether reapplying myself to online STTs, rather than diving into Harrington's second book or spending time on 2+2, would help me break through the 'wall'?

The wall has been broken down

I didn't fall into a 'slump' as such, because I'm very focussed on the bankroll management side of things (maybe too much so) however I have felt for the last couple of weeks I wasn't making any progress ... I was wasting time I suppose was the gist of what I was trying to say. It seemed that (as the saying goes about education) "the more you know, the more you realise you don't know" situation, so I was looking at situations very technically I think, rather than gut instinct and feel. This in turn was stagnating my results.
As well as that I think continously playing STT's created boredom, and was also stopping any future learning as such, especially when muppets call down some of the hands they do in my mad $10-$15 STT world.

So I took a little bit of Docs advice, and some of Lafortezzas. Gave it a break for a few nights, played a few cash games and 7 card stud last night and finished very nicely up Omaha is for another life I think.
I also then stepped up to the $20 STT's where the players, whilst still not world beaters, at least there is some semblance of reality, and you can better analyse the table and it's players etc... and showed returns.

I need to play more live poker, it's more enjoyable, and that is important.

Less On-Line Poker, Better Results. Hopefully it will work out that way.

ionapaul

Yep, I also find that continuously playing STTs gets incredibly boring for me. I don't particularly like to play cash games for a variety of reasons, so STTs are the bread and butter of my online poker. We all get sick of bread and butter, though! If I could force myself to play 5 STTs a night, 5 nights a week, going on past results I would turn a nice profit each month...but it is the forcing myself part of that proposition I think I have trouble with. Can I justify spending that amount of time in front of a screen after a full days work, when I'm at an age when I need to be out enjoying myself every chance I get? If I find live poker so much more fun than online poker, should I even bother playing online, despite the ability to turn a profit? Questions I need to answer myself (I probably know the answers already), so I'll stop before I drag the thread too far off-topic

Samba

Grrr, damn cookies, just back from holidays and had a lovely 2 page reply and got asked to log back in, invalid thread error.....

Anyway, cba writing all that again, i'll post up my results at the end of the month.