Help me!! lol =)

[Kiriath]

Okay seriously, I need some advise, my poker career is going all around, from heaven to hell and back, I dunno what to do!

Little history:

Startet out with depositing 300$ at ub, loosing 250$ of em in 1on1s thinking I was some kinda demigod. Then playing back up to 100 at 1 dollar sngs. Doing the basic fold for first half hour then play superaggressive three tables at a time. Worked good but not much money in it.

Then startet on the penny tables, quickly realising ppl were playing like complete maniacs so playing there would at best, just give me a wrong impression of what poker was about, and at worst cost me more money than good. So I left em alone and startet doing 5$ sngs.

That worked fine till I made about 250 bucks. Almost same strategy as the 1 dollar ones, but paying abit more attention during first half hour. I ran into a bad streak of 20 games or, during wich I barely broke even, and since it took me almost 15 hours to play those 20 games, I figured there had to be an easier way than that.

So I startet at the 5/10 cent tables, ppl played more civilised than at the penny tables, but, still chased everything so I did make some decent money taking me to bout 300$.

Then I moved up to the 10/25 cent tables. Here ppl played alot better, folding hands to obvious flushes and stuff like that. Times were good though so over a period of a few days ive made a 100$more, goodie ! That brought me to 400$, and since it had been relatively easy money, just playing good math poker, I figured I was about ready too loosen up my play a little and start bluffing and stuff ( haha dont laugh too hard here please =), and so I did, with great success!! During one session of 3 hours I made 180 dollars!! Not bad! I was like wow im the new Gus or something!! Things were rolling. The day after I made about 50 bucks more doing the same stuff, bluffing alot in position when ppl showed weakness, taking down some huge pots sometimes when ppl called me to check my uber cards. Good times! I was over 600 bucks!

Then things changed!! The next day startet fine, but after making about 50 bucks, I startet to get hit by one bad beat after another, getting two pairs wanked by sets and stuff like that, lowest kicker u know it. And boy did it hurt, my playstyle was big pots and huge bets, so theese bad beats really took bites of my bankroll every time they happened. So that night I went to sleep with little less than 550 dollars. What a sad day.

Wich brings us to today!! I startet out thinking, "musta been a bad streak i hit yesterday, but dont give up cause of one bad streak!!, gotta keep cool" ( and again, try not to laugh too hard here, Im in pain! =) So I kept playing my loose aggesive poker, betting in position, exploiting weakness and stealing from defensive players. But oh my god. My arch nemesis joined the table ( I didnt know then ) And from then on everything went wrong. He played about the same poker as I did, but as I found out, on a completely different level ( like 20 lvls above me ). So I startet the day by loosing 2 hours work, 40 bucks on a 25 buck max buying table, in one single pot with 2 pairs versus hes set. Auch!!! Well, no big deal I though, and remembered what I read in some great poker book, something about not changing ur style just cause of one bad beat. So I said to myself, "okay he wanna play? Okay! Daddys up to it! ", and I bought myself a nice new stack with another 25 dollars, 10 minuters later he bustet em with another set, this time against my top pair top kicker. OMG!!! I was like, "I need to laydown some of theese hands or im gonna get ruined!!" Well, no tilt yet ( i thought, lol =), so another 25 dollar buyin. And yea u guessed it, out the window it went to a few bluffs went wrong, and a second best flush. Dum di dum. 75 dollar down for today, not so good. Maybe ill do something else I though.

So I tryed a few 10 dollar sngs. 4 of em actually, all lost. Abit rusty I think.

Then back to the 25$ buyin table this time with a new strategy. This time I wantet to cut my losses, so instead of bluffing with pot bets, id try bluffing with half pot bets, and of course, I had to bet with half pot bets then too. This worked out okay, during 3 hours I made about 30 dollars. Playing relatively safe, folding to most of the reraises and stuff. But sooner or later its gonna come, the fucking set tearing apart two pairs! So from 50 dollars and back down to 10 again, I was so mad I just tossed the remaning 10 at a kqs with an all in bet on the table. The table showed 2 queens, 2 aces, and a rag. The other guy had aces.

Todays total. About 200 dollars lost!!!

And im back at 300.

About today, I didnt ONCE during 10 hours of play, about 500 hands id guess get AA, I get KK once, wich I won 10 bucks on, got QQ 3 times, loosing nice pots on all of em. Not ONE flush did I win, and only won 2 straights, lost one of those to a higher one too!! I lost about 4 two pairs to trips. And finally, the biggest pot I won was about 15 dollar.

So I need some help, was today just the definition of bad luck ??? Or do I suck so hard at poker that the best thing to do would be to cash out and go fuck a hooker ?? I dont get it, how can I one day win 150 and the next loose 200, that cant be just bad luck, unless u get lucky and unlucky days or some stuff like that ?? Im not religios, and I dont belive in santaclaus, I would really hate to beging believing firdays and saturdays are stay in bed days, thursdays are POKER days !!

Anyone got some advice ??

Oh and last but not least. When I look at my stats, I won money on both ring games and sngs. I do decently at both games, should I continue playing alittle bit of both ? Or should I just suck it out and grind one type of game only ?? Keep in mind its just 2 months ago I learned the rules, so im still kinda new to the game in general. Even though ive prolly played a good 20k hands or so.

Oh and sorry for the long post! Just really needed to tell somebody about my day, and im not sure my girlfriend would appreciate it if I woke her and told her "honey, sugardaddy just wastet 200 dollars on gambling!! Are u proud of me now ?? " lol

haha

Kiriath

[Kiriath]

How do I spot sets ?? Ppl always seem to slowplay them, and theyr not betting preflop with a low-medium pair either. I dunno!!!

Help!

[Sed]

Man, I don't know where to start. Maybe break it down into specific questions...

Spotting sets are hard but just remember that "2 pair is not a license to print money". TPTK harldy is either

- sed

[Kiriath]

thanks for ur answer!

hehe good one about two pairs and tptk! hehe, funny.

I think I was mostly frustratet about NOTHING working out. I think ill give my agressive play another shot tomorrow. I need sleep =)

hehe good one about two pairs and tptk! hehe, funny.

Just to make sure you aren't confused, sed76 wasn't joking, 2 pair and TPTK are an easy fold in some situations.

[Kiriath]

how about this situation,

I got dealt AQ on button. Two limpers, I raise 3xBB, blinds folds, one limer calls. Flop Q 8 2 Rainbow. limper checks, I bet half pot, limper calls. Turn 7, limper checks, I bet half pot, limper calls. River A, Limper bets pot. I call.

Now what ?? This thing happened two times yesterday. Both times they flipped over pocket pairs having made theyr set. Am I gonna fold having made my second pair or ??

Sets just seem so awfully powerfull.

Maybe I should stop betting halfpots, after he calls the first time ? But then again, TPTK is pretty vulnerable to draws. I dunno.

Advice ?

[AllinLife]

check/minraise usually signify strength

hard to spot sets...that's why they are the most profitable hand. In that AQ hand, you gotta call that every time as he could have made lower 2 pair with with that A.

If you don't think you shoudl be betting your TPTK, just try bluffing for awhile and see what people call you down with .

[Kiriath]

thanks for the advices.

I guess ur right, sets are the moneyponys. So maybe I should tone down my bidding against checkers when im holding hands beatable by sets... Ya. Sounds like I plan, hehe maybe tptk aint the nuts after all!

haha

[Sed]

I would have played it the same way... it's hard to know when you are beat when they only come alive on a river A with no completed draws. A8 or A2 are just or even more likely as a set.

- sed

[Waggho]

Hello. First, your post was very funny and I enjoyed reading it.

Now to the point: Swings. The reason this game is so popular is that the worst player in the world with a portion of luck can take money from the best player in the world at any given occasion. "Not in the long run", people claim. True, but the long run we´re talking about is a really long run.

Poker is like a drug, let´s say LSD. They say that your LSD trip is widely affected by the mood you´re in when you take it. If you´re in a great mood, you´ll see wonderful colors, flowers, love and such. If you´re in a bad mood, you´ll see monsters eating your feet. One can guess that if you see monsters the first time, you won´t do it a second time, but if you see flowers, normal life seems incredibly dull and you just want to go try again.

Poker is the same, except for one thing: you can be good at it. Therefore, if you start your poker carreer losing, you´ll just say "hey I´m a beginner right?" and keep on playing. Sooner or later, if you don´t go broke, you will see the flowers in a nice winning streak with cards falling your way, and by that time you actually think you´re totally crushing the competition! Like you said, "I´m the new Gus Hansen" or something similar. You start planning how much money you will be earning in the future based on how much you won in today´s session. You have become addicted! And then when you see your first really bad losing streak, you can´t simply understand what happened. "Hey, I´ve proven myself great at this game!" This is the stage when people start making up conspiracy theories. "The god damn poker room fooled me to play by letting me win in the beginning".

This is the mantra you need to bang into your head: "I can play good and lose a lot. I can play bad and win a lot". This means you have to learn to recognize when you´re playing good versus when you´re playing poor, without looking at profits/losses. This is not very easy. Logic tells you that a good player earns money, while a bad one loses money. Just remember this is in the long run - the very long run. The best player in the world probably isn´t the one who has earned the most money.

The most important tool you have to handle all this is your bankroll management. It seems alright right now, try not to be tempted to move up in level before your bankroll is sufficient.

Having two pairs against sets is not a very common situation. You had a bad streak. But remember, when you won, you had a lucky streak. Are you a winning player in the long run? Nobody knows. But you probably (hopefully) will become better and better as you play, and after x thousand hands, you can say to yourself: "I´m a winning poker player".

/W.

PS. Try some bonus whoring too!

[Kiriath]

thanks for the great responce Waggho, im glad u enjoyed reading my post too!

Ya ive been tellming myself, "loosing with two pairs against a set aint wery common" all night in my dreams now. And even though it did happen a couple of times yesterday it must have been because I simply just played ALOT. So like in everything else, we remembers the disasters and forgets about the joys ( just too bad there wasnt any yesterday =).

Besides that ive figured out, after two hours of play and loosing two big hands, one with tptk to a set, and the other with pocket queens to a rag flop. That maybe I need to start respecting ppls reraises some more. So for the rest of the evening im gonna try do that, when I sit with top pair, top kicker, or an over pair, ill do one pot bet, and if ppl call, just check it down to river then fold/call small raise. Gonna be interesting to see how that works out.

Besides that ive been a little bad myself. Won 3 semilarge pots with sets haha, against ppl with relative good cards. So for today im about even so far, maybe my new pair stragegy will work! To make me some money!

Heres an excample of me loosing pocket aces just 10 mins ago:

Dunno if I shoulda respectet the board more... =(


Hand #4372708-15452 at Abiquiu (No Limit Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 27/Feb/05 14:52:42

Impleader is at seat 0 with $13.35.
jimmyh55 is at seat 1 with $10.70.
CCRIPhtoGy is at seat 2 with $24.65.
mozambique is at seat 3 with $23.85.
worf21 is at seat 4 with $22.
PocketBrains is at seat 5 with $23.30.
MarkoSharko is at seat 6 with $12.55.
Kiriath is at seat 7 with $51.40.
pfloyd1 is at seat 8 with $28.65.
bigblueslick is at seat 9 with $23.30.
The button is at seat 4.

PocketBrains posts the small blind of $.10.
MarkoSharko posts the big blind of $.25.

Impleader: -- --
jimmyh55: -- --
CCRIPhtoGy: -- --
mozambique: -- --
worf21: -- --
PocketBrains: -- --
MarkoSharko: -- --
Kiriath: Ah As
pfloyd1: -- --
bigblueslick: -- --

Pre-flop:

Kiriath raises to $.85. pfloyd1 calls. bigblueslick
folds. Impleader folds. jimmyh55 folds.
CCRIPhtoGy folds. mozambique calls. worf21 folds.
PocketBrains folds. MarkoSharko calls.

Flop (board: 4h 6c 2h):

MarkoSharko checks. Kiriath bets $1.25. pfloyd1
calls. mozambique folds. MarkoSharko folds.

Turn (board: 4h 6c 2h 7c):

Kiriath bets $3.25. pfloyd1 calls.

River (board: 4h 6c 2h 7c 9c):

Kiriath bets $3. pfloyd1 raises to $8.50. Kiriath
calls.



Showdown:

pfloyd1 shows 5c 3c.
pfloyd1 has 5c 3c 6c 7c 9c: flush, nine high.
Kiriath mucks cards.
(Kiriath has Ah As.)


Hand #4372708-15452 Summary:

$1.45 is raked from a pot of $29.50.
pfloyd1 wins $28.05 with flush, nine high.
----------------------------------------------------------------

[Kiriath]

Hand #4372708-15478 at Abiquiu (No Limit Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 27/Feb/05 15:20:34

Impleader is at seat 0 with $22.30.
TheNature is at seat 1 with $16.45.
CCRIPhtoGy is at seat 2 with $24.65.
pnuswrinkle is at seat 3 with $15.20.
worf21 is at seat 4 with $19.40.
PocketBrains is at seat 5 with $9.40.
owls is at seat 6 with $24.95.
Kiriath is at seat 7 with $34.40.
pfloyd1 is at seat 8 with $62.60.
bigblueslick is at seat 9 with $20.60.
The button is at seat 0.

TheNature posts the small blind of $.10.
CCRIPhtoGy posts the big blind of $.25.

Impleader: -- --
TheNature: -- --
CCRIPhtoGy: -- --
pnuswrinkle: -- --
worf21: -- --
PocketBrains: -- --
owls: -- --
Kiriath: Jh Js
pfloyd1: -- --
bigblueslick: -- --

Pre-flop:

pnuswrinkle calls. worf21 folds. PocketBrains
folds. owls folds. Kiriath raises to $1.10.
pfloyd1 folds. bigblueslick folds. Impleader folds.
TheNature folds. CCRIPhtoGy folds. pnuswrinkle
re-raises to $3.65. Kiriath calls.

Flop (board: 4d 7h 9s):

pnuswrinkle bets $3. Kiriath calls.

Turn (board: 4d 7h 9s 2c):

pnuswrinkle goes all-in for $8.55. Kiriath calls.

River (board: 4d 7h 9s 2c 2h):

(no action in this round)




Showdown:

pnuswrinkle shows Ad Ah.
pnuswrinkle has Ad Ah 9s 2c 2h: two pair, aces and deuces.
Kiriath mucks cards.
(Kiriath has Jh Js.)


Hand #4372708-15478 Summary:

$1.50 is raked from a pot of $30.75.
pnuswrinkle wins $29.25 with two pair, aces and deuces.

Id really like some recommendations on what I do wrong here ....

[Kiriath]

Hand #4372708-15483 at Abiquiu (No Limit Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 27/Feb/05 15:25:03

Impleader is at seat 0 with $21.55.
TheNature is at seat 1 with $17.15.
CCRIPhtoGy is at seat 2 with $24.30.
pnuswrinkle is at seat 3 with $30.35.
worf21 is at seat 4 with $18.80.
PocketBrains is at seat 5 with $10.30.
owls is at seat 6 with $23.45.
Kiriath is at seat 7 with $25.
pfloyd1 is at seat 8 with $62.60.
bigblueslick is at seat 9 with $20.60.
The button is at seat 5.

owls posts the small blind of $.10.
Kiriath posts the big blind of $.25.

Impleader: -- --
TheNature: -- --
CCRIPhtoGy: -- --
pnuswrinkle: -- --
worf21: -- --
PocketBrains: -- --
owls: -- --
Kiriath: 2h 9d
pfloyd1: -- --
bigblueslick: -- --

Pre-flop:

pfloyd1 folds. bigblueslick folds. Impleader calls.
TheNature folds. CCRIPhtoGy folds. pnuswrinkle
folds. worf21 folds. PocketBrains folds. owls
calls. Kiriath checks.

Flop (board: 2c 9h 9c):

owls checks. Kiriath checks. Impleader checks.

Turn (board: 2c 9h 9c As):

owls checks. Kiriath checks. Impleader checks.

River (board: 2c 9h 9c As 8h):

owls checks. Kiriath bets $.75. Impleader folds.
owls folds. Kiriath is returned $.75 (uncalled).



Hand #4372708-15483 Summary:

No rake is taken for this hand.
Kiriath wins $.75.

[Kiriath]

I lured some highstakes poker play, and this cheered me up a little!!!


Hand #4372841-8687 at Flushing (No Limit Hold'em)
Powered by UltimateBet
Started at 27/Feb/05 22:33:08

sillyhead28 is at seat 0 with $6919.
croker1 is at seat 3 with $7809.
krapstain is at seat 4 with $3592.50.
freefall304 is at seat 5 with $3935.50.
Tokenizer is at seat 8 with $13790.
chani is at seat 9 with $2204.
The button is at seat 8.

chani posts the small blind of $25.
sillyhead28 posts the big blind of $50.

sillyhead28: -- --
croker1: -- --
krapstain: -- --
freefall304: -- --
Tokenizer: -- --
chani: -- --

Pre-flop:

croker1 folds. krapstain raises to $175.
freefall304 folds. Tokenizer folds. chani folds.
sillyhead28 calls.

Flop (board: As 3s Tc):

sillyhead28 checks. krapstain bets $375.
sillyhead28 raises to $1500. krapstain goes all-in
for $3417.50. sillyhead28 calls.

Turn (board: As 3s Tc 9h):

(no action in this round)


River (board: As 3s Tc 9h 2d):

(no action in this round)




Showdown:

krapstain shows Jd Ah.
krapstain has Jd Ah As Tc 9h: a pair of aces.
sillyhead28 shows Th Td.
sillyhead28 has Th Td As Tc 9h: three tens.


Hand #4372841-8687 Summary:

$3 is raked from a pot of $7210.
sillyhead28 wins $7207 with three tens.
----------------------------------------------------------------

Auch! Now that was one mean set. Looks like even the pros fall for the sets. So im gonna go with the bad luck theory for now, as being the reason for me getting wooped so much by sets lately =)