OP: Start Again and do it properly!

OK

Some of you may have already gathered that I'm a bit on the tilty side and last night I managed to blow my entire BR which took months to build. I really really REALLY need to learn not to tilt so badly (and easily) because I currently believe this is the only thing stopping me from being a consistent winning player at the stakes I have played so far (up to $3/6 limit and $25 NL).

I currently have £36 GBP in neteller and lots of FPPs / party points etc across vaious sites.


My Targets:
1) Use FPPs etc + £36 to increase my BR to $200 ASAP by any means necessary.
2) Upon reaching $200, re-evaluate my "tilt factor" and decide how best to increase my BR to $400. (ie, sngs/mtts/FL/NL)
3) At $400, start playing 0.5/1 FL6max again, get atleast 10,000 hands recorded and re-evaluate.

The overall goal is to get back up to 2/4 FL


Thats it for now, I want to do this one step at a time so I dont "jump the gun" or skip a step. I'm also going to give up on my bonus whoring for now as I feel that this distracted me from the ultimate goal of playing good poker.

Update tomorrow, wish me luck

As someone who has been in your shoes many times, I wish you the best of luck.

Thanks

Its not going to well though. Dropped $11 already playing $2.20 sngs on the pokerroom network. These are easily the softest sngs of the web but my cards just arent holding up.

Thinks I should take a break until the weekend before I continue OP: Start Again

Well, variance is making sure that I cant even beat the retarded opposition on the $2.20 sngs. Down to $57 but at least I'm not tilting, got busted out with Aces AI preflop vs Q5 suited on two consecutive sngs, cold cards and no fold equity when the blinds get big have seen off some of the other games (the blinds get big very quickly and nobody seems to fold).

I'm gonna use up my points this weekend and see where that gets me, maybe play a few $1 MTTs or something too.

Best of luck, I will follow this with interest. With regard to the bonuses. Why not play on the relevant site when they are offered but without fighting to clear them, sometimes you will, sometimes not. But if you play good poker while you're there it shouldn't matter either way..

GL!

Keep your cool m8. I have developed a ritual which I apply when I sense I'm near tilt.
The difficult thing is sensing when I'm near tilt.

Thanks for the support guys.

I'm down to $50 now, still can't seem to win with any of my big hands. On the plus side I've just found out I've got about 7k FPPS on stars which hopefully I'll be able to build up some T$ with, also a VIP $5,000 freeroll at hollywood poker to look forward to tomorrow.

I will allow myself a $200 re-load into neteller if this all goes wrong but I'm determined to get back up and running again using what little I have left.

Update later on today

Woohoo!

Just hit the FT on two micro MTTs, BR now at $95. Wish I was able to double my BR in 3 hours back when I had a roll of $1,600!

I'm gonna do this dammit!

Congrats! I <3 final tables... can't wait to play in a tourney tonight, gotta wait til a bit later though as it's annoying to start one right before dinner time. Anyways, congrats again and best of luck!

thanks! Good luck with the tournies. I didnt really expect this many replies to my op blog considering the tilt-machine donkey first impression I made on this site!


Just another quick update: with my BR now at $95 I thought I would allow myself a single buy-in at 10NL (the lowest available at ongame) as I would still be rolled for the $5 sngs and $1 MTTs if I lost it.

I must have spent at least 25 mins searching for the best table and came across one with 3 superloose-superpassives and 1 maniac. I sat down to the right of the maniac (with the intention of c/r'ing strong flops) - 51 hands later I'd busted the maniac 3 times, lost a few $ back to him and left the table with $24.

Starting BR: ~$60
Starting BR for today: ~$50
Current BR: $108.84

Originally Posted by Jibalob

thanks! Good luck with the tournies. I didnt really expect this many replies to my op blog considering the tilt-machine donkey first impression I made on this site!

LOL everybody is or has been a tilt-machine donk at one point or another

WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE I beleieve is the term.

let me say that again.... WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I came 2nd (should have been 1st) in the VIP freeroll on Hollywood Poker for a healthy $850. Looks like I need to change my goals!

Starting BR: ~ $60
Todays Starting BR: ~ $108
Current BR: $941

This thread has also made me realise that perhaps I should be playing MTTs instead of ring games, I seem to do pretty well and seem to keep my tilt under control.

I will play a few "fun" games tonight, no big risks, I will re-evaluate the way forward tomorrow.

THANK YOU FTR FOR TEACHING ME MTT STRATEGY

wheeeeeeeeeeeeeee

And now the big CAUTION!!!

For me at least, this time in your br up movement is the most tempting to "go for shots." You are feeling confident and cocky. Fight the urge!! Continue to play great, but do it within your roll!! Make sure to follow a stop-loss so that if you do hit a downswing it won't kill your newfound riches.

To be honest, I dont really feel confident in any MTT above a $5 buy-in so I should be ok on that score.

I'm staying away from cash games for now until the "wheeeeee factor" has worn off and I have had some time to do a bit more reading of some good ol' slanksy literature.

Now, how much is the sunday million buy-in again?

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Now, how much is the sunday million buy-in again?

Protect your roll.
Play a $10 sat into this. Miss, then try again next week. Hit, then play it.
Protect your roll.
Protect your roll.


And also, remember to Protect your roll.

Originally Posted by Jack Sawyer

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Now, how much is the sunday million buy-in again?

Protect your roll.
Play a $10 sat into this. Miss, then try again next week. Hit, then play it.
Protect your roll.
Protect your roll.


And also, remember to Protect your roll.

The laughing smilie was an indicator that I was joking lol.

I plan on going back to FLHE for a while whilst playing NL mtts at the weekend. I think the two the main reasons I was tilting so bad before were :
a) I had alot of chit going on in my life outside poker
b) 3-tabling 6-max drove me insane.

I'm gonna try to get another 10k hands at 1/2 6max and see where it gets me - hopefully it gets me to 2/4

Awesome dude! Keep the money! why not a 1-2k hands at 0.5-1 first, before heading back to 1-2? You were going to grind up, instead your bankroll monstered with one cash - but maybe it would be better to keep a little of the grind mentality? Regardless, good luck!

I'm in a real tough spot now... I know 6max limit better than any other type of poker but after a few sessions today (I'm down one buy-in of $40) and my previous ~30k hands on 6-max I am convinced that it's just not profitable at lower stakes regardless of how good you are.
'
So... WTF do I do now? Stick it out, switch to full ring, learn NL?

Originally Posted by Jibalob

I'm in a real tough spot now... I know 6max limit better than any other type of poker but after a few sessions today (I'm down one buy-in of $40) and my previous ~30k hands on 6-max I am convinced that it's just not profitable at lower stakes regardless of how good you are.
'
So... WTF do I do now? Stick it out, switch to full ring, learn NL?

OK scratch that, upon reviewing some sessions in great detail I think I have discovered a huge leak in my game - I am calling down with TPTK WAY too often when facing aggression. I'll try a few more sessions today and see how it goes.

BR~$890

Well... today I have been alot more disciplined with laying down unimproved big hands when I'm sure I'm beat, also looking more at pot odds on the river to determine whether or not I am making a good decision to call based on my estimation of the %age of the time I am beat and I can honestly say the difference is hugely noticable.

OK, so this could be due to slightly more +ve variance but my AA and KK winrate today is approximately 40% so I dont really think that variance is a big factor in the improvement.

One thing I'm really pleased about is that I lost an entire buyin to a complete fish running 90/2/0.5.... no you didn't read that wrong 90/2/0.5!!!! The reaon I am pleased is because usually this would throw me off my game entirely but today I just thought to myself - re-load, adjust to the opposition, and start again. Within 60 hands I was back up to -0.5BB on the table, the fish busted out, and I left with a great sense of acheivement.

Most importantly my PT and PO stats are in the green since I started this OP and I feel like I'm really reaping the benefits of taking a more positive and professional approach to my poker.

BR~$940

THANKS AGAIN FTR!

Well, I ran like absolute dog chit today... post flop wasnt the problem its just been my hole cards. I've had to stone cold bluff with hands like 24s just to stop people walking all over me in the blinds (believe me, bluffing is difficult at a 6max FL table with an average VPIP of around 55%). I even went through a stretch of 17 straight hands in which one of my hole cards was a 2!

But, now for the positive part.... while this has been a rather depressing day in terms of results, the only damage is that my BB/100 has dropped from around 7 to 2.94... not bad in terms of the bigger picture.

BR: I cant be bothered loading up neteller, stars, ongame & absolute to work it out... I'll tell you tomorrow

Well, today is gonna be a bad one... I'm down 3 buy-ins after 20 minutes.

I've had every big pair at least twice in about 150 or less hands and lost every single one to flopped trips - also had 3 set-under-sets.

Not tilting though

Thats it.. I'm calling it a day after 200 hands my BR is down to 700 from 940 in approx 400 hands on 1/2 FL. My won at showdown for the last 200 is about 8%.

I'm playing better than ever but have been on a downswing for what seems like forever wth the occasional winning session.


The problem is... if you are a good player the upswings will never ever ever cancel out the downswings because you dont play badly enough to make the most of the "luck" whilst its there. Edit: on second thoughts that statement is utter crap.

Bankroll now at $600

I've been running insanely bad and am now thinking of giving up limit. Tilt got the better of me today after I had AA, KK (twice) QQ and JJ all busted in the space of 100 hands. My biggest losing hand is KK at -5.8BB/100 with a win rate of under 45%.

I think I'm gonna end this OP because I really dont see the point of grrinding out at .5/1 for another 10k hands just to get back up to 1/2 only to get knocked down again by variance, rake and tilt. The variance is just so bad that I consider a 300 hand winning session an upswing!

The worst thing about it is that I seem to lose so much more when playing against complete fish, the more there are at the tabe the more I lose.

dude. If it's variance, then it will come right. If not... I suggest having a good look through your PT stats and the hand histories for the times you lost the most. See if you can find anything you can improve on.
You started with $60 right? and then had one biggish MTT cash of about$850. Why not pull $500 of that as profit (buy some beer or something) and keep the rest as bankroll (about $200 now?) and stick to the original operation... my 2cents worth anyway (what I plan to do if i cash biggish in any of the free tournaments I'm hitting next week)

Other stuff. For playing crazy loose tables have a quick look at the recent thread about this in the limit forum section - ESPECIALLY the article link that Fnord posted.

And keep the blog-op thread going. Update it every few days, even when you don't want to. It's a good way to force you to look at the truth about your game...
as for KK, dunno dude. But if there are three players to the flop and an ace turns up then you normally shouldn't be seeing the turn. Bet-fold is my line in early position. Raise-fold or fold in late position. And even with no ace, if someone starts going crazy my default is fold or call-down. Call down if there's a queen or jack on the board and i think they are overplaying top-pair. I don't mind winning a slightly smaller pot than I could have, but I hate paying out 12BB when I should have known I was beaten.

anyway, that's enough. most of all... Good luck!

Originally Posted by daven

You started with $60 right? and then had one biggish MTT cash of about$850. Why not pull $500 of that as profit (buy some beer or something) and keep the rest as bankroll (about $200 now?) and stick to the original operation...

Well kinda... I did have a roll of about $1,400 which I completely mega-tilted off in a weekend when I REALLY shouldnt have been playing due to just finding out that my GF was pregnant and one of my mates died in a car accident. So I am definately used to the limits I'm playing at now

Originally Posted by daven

Other stuff. For playing crazy loose tables have a quick look at the recent thread about this in the limit forum section - ESPECIALLY the article link that Fnord posted.

My dumb ass cant find this thread... could you post a link please?

Originally Posted by daven

And keep the blog-op thread going. Update it every few days, even when you don't want to. It's a good way to force you to look at the truth about your game...

Will do, I started to tilt again last nite which is quite evident by my last post... I'm not giving up on this as my previous posts would suggest, that was just uber-donkey-tilt-talk.
I've hit the tables again today but have just concentrated on playing one table (or maybe 2) at a time instead of multi-tabling to see if this helps me calm down a little, I sometimes think clicking rapidly all over the place on 4 tables can make me tilt a little. It seems to be working as I've just finished my last session 20bb up (or 1 buyin if you want to look at it that way).


Finally, could I make a request to the mods to just slap me with the ban-stick if I come on here writing tilty posts again please?

My dumb ass cant find this thread... could you post a link please?

http://www.playwinningpoker.com/articles/00/23.html[/quote]

the thread is here: http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/...oker-59122.htm

Thanks for the link.

I've been running fairly average this weekend but I have found some awesome tables on absolute with tons of dead money being thrown around and I've crammed in alot of hands so I''ve had a pretty good boost to my roll. I'm also due to receive some rakeback of at least $70 in the next week or so.

Current BR: ~ $800 (hopefully $870 after rakeback)

Well, about time for an update I suppose.

Over the past 10 days since my last update I havent had much time to fit in many hands so I have just been playing random games here and there... A couple of rebuy tournies at the weekend and an ever so *slightly* HU game at $5/$10 FL!

Now I know theres gonna be alot of outbursts of how underolled I was blah blah blah but I feel I had good reason to do this. The guy sat at the table was a COMPLETE fish. I had been playing him on a 1/2 table earlier on and had noticed very strange tendencies of his such as limping UTG only to fold to a raise from the BB! Well, he hit quad aces which is like a Jackpot on these tables (hollywood poker) and left the table with his original ~$300 BR + the $100 bonus for quad aces. 5 Mins later I see him sitting at a 5/10 HU table with around $250 in front of him.. sit down, bust him out completely and clear my $200 no deposit bonus at the same time.

I'm now leaving Hollywood to continue playing Absolute for a week or so as I feel I learn more from some of the better players there and because poker office doesnt work it also helps me work on my concentration whilst multitabling. I think after this week of "random games" I need to sharpen up a little. After that its off to Tower Gaing to clear their attractive %100 deposit bonus.

Current BR: $1,341

Nice chase. High risk, but you got lucky. I wouldn't do it again. Stick to your rules dude, imagine the friendly feed-back if you'd got stacked. And how stupid you would feel.

A while ago I chased from $0.25-$0.50 FR limit to $2-$4 limit seriously under-rolled and got lucky. I won't be doing it again...

It wasnt so much "chasing" losses from lower limits really, more a case of a very rare, highly +ev opportunity. I would not have tried this against your average fish, as I said above, this guy limp/folded a few times preflop and on several occasions I saw him just call with the nuts to a donk bet on the river. This guy had no clue.

As a saftey net, I only required an extra $50 in rake to clear my $200 bonus (which would have expired today) so I thought to myself, as long as I can make my $200 buy-in last for 20 mins or so I will be in profit. Without this I think 3/6 would have been about my limit for this opportunity.

Originally Posted by Jibalob

It wasnt so much "chasing" losses from lower limits

I figured that, I meant "nice chase" as in "nice hunt" or "nice fishing trip".
Also, the expiring bonus factor is huge, as well as the fact that you have played these limits before.
All good. So you got the fish-stack AND $200 in extra bonus for a brief piece of work. Nice one!

Well, only played about 300 hands today but I'm already calling it quits for a couple of days as I have had some bad beats that could sent you on tilt for weeks, I'm not listing any though because I want to try and remain positive.

The positive factor is that I've only lost $70 and I really could have lost an awful lot more If I hadnt been discliplined enough to fold tough spots.

The 1 hand that just made me realise I need to quit before I go on mega-tilt and donk my roll wasnt actually a beat... it was a 3 way capped pot both preflop and flop which I folded.

I had QQ UTG and raised, UTG+1 who was a touch on the maniac side of TAG 3-bet and then the SB who is around 60/0/0.2 over 320 hands caps. Flop came down A2Q with a flush draw. SB bets, I raise thinking is he 3-bets me here I 100% know I'm done, UTG+1 3-bets, SB caps and I fold safe in the knowledge that I have 1 out. Now here's the bit that really pissed me off - Turn and river are both capped with blanks, UTG+1 flips over AK and SB shows a missed flush draw with 9h8h. I couldnt believe it. The idiot hasn't raised even ONCE in 320 hands and then caps 9h8h all of a sudden? ARRGGGHH! thats my rant over.

Current BR: ~$1260

-30BB/100 and counting since moving to tower gaming.

I feel like I havent won a hand since I got there, I just got smashed for 3 buyins by a complete retard who was raising every hand on every street and only slowing down after a 3-bet or cap.

I really am at a loss for what to do.. I dont think I'm playing any differently and I copied across all my player notes from Hollywood Poker so I still have all the reads I had before.

Current BR - I daren't look (definately still rolled for 1/2 though)

lol if you folded QQ on an AQx board you are out of your mind and should seriously reconsider what you are doing. That's flat out horrible.

have a nice day

only 1 PFR in 320 hands I could only put him on AA. Theres no point calling every capped street to showdown just because I have a set of queens if my read is 99.9% certain AA

Originally Posted by Jibalob

only 1 PFR in 320 hands I could only put him on AA. Theres no point calling every capped street to showdown just because I have a set of queens if my read is 99.9% certain AA

yea, nice read....

People don't understand, 320 hands is nowhere near enough hands to know anyone's tendencies. You are just forfeiting so much equity here, it's crazy, maybe he hasn't had AK yet, maybe he goes sick crazy with KK here, maybe he has AQs. Who knows? but you cannot fold.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Originally Posted by Jibalob

only 1 PFR in 320 hands I could only put him on AA. Theres no point calling every capped street to showdown just because I have a set of queens if my read is 99.9% certain AA

yea, nice read....

People don't understand, 320 hands is nowhere near enough hands to know anyone's tendencies. You are just forfeiting so much equity here, it's crazy, maybe he hasn't had AK yet, maybe he goes sick crazy with KK here, maybe he has AQs. Who knows? but you cannot fold.

I see what you mean but come on... If I just posted the HH without my cards and provided villains stats I'm pretty sure most people on here would say he's 90+% to have AA here??

What would your response have been if folded 22 here? Still call down?

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Originally Posted by Jibalob

only 1 PFR in 320 hands I could only put him on AA. Theres no point calling every capped street to showdown just because I have a set of queens if my read is 99.9% certain AA

yea, nice read....

People don't understand, 320 hands is nowhere near enough hands to know anyone's tendencies. You are just forfeiting so much equity here, it's crazy, maybe he hasn't had AK yet, maybe he goes sick crazy with KK here, maybe he has AQs. Who knows? but you cannot fold.

I see what you mean but come on... If I just posted the HH without my cards and provided villains stats I'm pretty sure most people on here would say he's 90+% to have AA here??

What would your response have been if folded 22 here? Still call down?

lol, no, don't fold sets in limit!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Got ya..

Just to try an redeem myself a bit here I would NEVER have folded QQ here to any other opp, this is not a usual play for me , it was just the 0% preflop raiser all of a sudden capping pre and post flop that got me.

Update:

The downswing continues... Cant win chit and to make matters worse, ongame keep wagering my funds without my consent in the form of dead-blinds.

BR approx $1,100

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Update:

The downswing continues... Cant win chit and to make matters worse, ongame keep wagering my funds without my consent in the form of dead-blinds.

BR approx $1,100

Since writing this post I have run so hot you would not believe.

BR approx $1,300

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Update:

The downswing continues... Cant win chit and to make matters worse, ongame keep wagering my funds without my consent in the form of dead-blinds.

BR approx $1,100

Since writing this post I have run so hot you would not believe.

BR approx $1,300

Wheeee! I'm on a heater.... $1,500

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Wheeee! I'm on a heater.... $1,500

followed by another -30bb/100 downswing and I'm back to 800

I fucking hate this game

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Wheeee! I'm on a heater.... $1,500

followed by another -30bb/100 downswing and I'm back to 800

I fucking hate this game

Followed by another upswing and I at around $1,200.

This variance is absolutely mental

About time for another update methinks....

I've been in serious pain due to a trapped nerve in my neck and an infected nerve in my tooth which lead to me being awake for 60 something hours solid due to the pain (and I've been signed off work of course) which has led to me playing ALOT of hands, even if I was only semi-concious for half of them

My BR hasnt really changed much, a slight increase but nothing major as I've donked off alot of my winnings playing MTTS at night time when the cash tables get tough, but I feel like my game (both mtt and FLHE) has improved dramatically, mainly due to having more time to spend surfing FTR if nothing else.

I'm really looking forward to the next month or so playing FL ring games because until the past couple of days I had kind of reached a platau in my learning curve and didnt really feel like I was progressing like I should be. Now its like someone has just flipped a switch in my brain and my thought processes during a game are suddenly working on an entirely different level, I'm also suddenly finding it ten times easier to 4-table (I was only really comfortable with 2 maybe 3 before).

Once again, thank you FTR - especially spenda for his 1/2 SHFL video and everyone in the FLHE forum for having the time to debate hands with me.


Edit: I've also decided to bonus whore casinos at off-peak times instead of donking anywhere between 2.5 and 10BBs for every MTT I play when the cash games get tough.

Well, I've kind of completed this OP:

- I've learnt to beat tilt, or atleast get away from the computer when I sense tilt is imminent.

- My BR is now well past my target of $1,600, I (stupidly) took some shots at 5/10 LHE when I saw the fishies there on bonus days and have acheived a 5.69BB/100 win rate over 700 hands. My 1/2 stats have levelled out after the major downswing and are just about in the green after 15k hands or so but my shots at 2/4 have proven to be unprofitable (very small sampled size), and I've whored a few casinos.

Current BR: ~ $3,000 (yes, I've nearly trebled my BR in 4 days)



The question is WTF do I do now? I now have 37.5 buy-ins for 2/4 limit so it wont be long until I'm rolled for 3/6 assuming I can get my stats in the green. What would you do here? I'm tempted to just withdraw 7.5 buyins and buy something nice to put all this money into perspective and start at 2/4 with 30 buy-ins.

Originally Posted by Jibalob

- I've learnt to beat tilt, or atleast get away from the computer when I sense tilt is imminent.

if you're not playing when tilt is imminent then you've beaten it. Nice one!

Originally Posted by Jibalob

Current BR: ~ $3,000 (yes, I've nearly trebled my BR in 4 days)

and it's 50x your starting roll a month ago!!!

Originally Posted by Jibalob

The question is WTF do I do now?

pull 7.5 buyins and spend it all on beer, unless you can think of something cooler to spend it on...

I'm impressed, although I've got an idea for your next op - "beat playing out of your bankroll", although without that you'd be nowhere near 3k... that's stupid conservative me speaking, I'm still playing $10NL even after getting my initial $200 up to an $800 roll. hmm..

Oh dear, it looks like my BR may now be closer to $500 after a few online casinos are refusing to pay out my winnings / bonuses.

Hopefully I'll get it all sorted out but I would expect once I've got my money back minus a couple of bonuses my BR will be ~ $2,500.

There's a lesson to be learnt from this.. never have your entire BR caught up in pending cashouts all at the same time

I'm sure it will turn out fine in the end and $2,500 is plenty to start hitting the 2/4 tables so meh

Still not sure where to go from here, I'm starting to find grinding out ring games 3-tabling extremely boring / tiresome, I log on start playing and after 20 mins just cant be bothered any more (unless there is an uber-spewtard at the table). Unfortunately adding a 4th table doesnt make things any more exciting it just seems to put me on auto-tilt, odd how just one more table can do that.. Conversley, I actually enjoy playing 1 single table and really getting to know my opponents well, developing strong reads on them and trying to get inside their heads (assuming they are not complete donks). Unfortunately I just dont have the time to get any decent amount of hands in single tabling.

Is the point at which you take a break for a week or two, do some reading up on all your slansky / harrington books and just enjoy life outside poker for a while? I've hardly played at all the past two days anyway due to all this crap I'm getting with my withdrawals at the online casinos.


Anyone been here before?