i just can't take the swings

i'm a good tourney player at low level buy ins... look me up (jerdood).

i took mcats suggestion and starting playing some cash games... was planning on, thinking about bonus whoring.

i got from 600 to 760 in 5 days.... about 13 hours on FTP... at the .10/.25 level. 600 is just my starting bankroll on FTP.

then this:

villain is 38/18/5

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver Cards)

Button ($25)
SB ($51.75)
BB ($10)
Hero ($44.45)
MP ($58)
CO ($25)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with , .
Hero raises to $1, 3 folds, SB calls $0.90, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($3) , , (3 players)
SB checks, BB checks, Hero bets $2.3, SB folds, BB calls $2.30.

Turn: ($7.60) (2 players)
BB checks, Hero bets $4.95, BB raises to $6.7 (All-In), Hero calls $1.75.

River: ($0) (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $21

Results in white below:
BB has Qh Jd (two pair, queens and jacks).
Hero has Ac Ah (one pair, aces).
Outcome: BB wins $21.


this.... villain is 16/12/2.5

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (6 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

UTG ($23.70)
MP ($47.05)
CO ($48)
Button ($50.30)
Hero ($34.45)
BB ($27.20)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, K.
4 folds, Hero raises to $1.1, BB calls $0.75.

Flop: ($2.10) 6, T, 9 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.55, BB raises to $4.1, Hero raises to $15.85, BB raises to $30.3 (All-In), Hero calls $11.90.

Turn: ($57.60) 6 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($57.60) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $60.15

Results in white below:
Hero has Kc Kd (two pair, kings and sixes).
BB has 9d 9c (full house, nines full of sixes).
Outcome: BB wins $57.60.

this.... villain is 34/26/4


Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (5 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

MP ($25)
Button ($25)
SB ($38.45)
BB ($17.85)
Hero ($28.20)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9, 9.
Hero raises to $1, 1 fold, Button calls $1, 2 folds.

Flop: ($2.35) 3, 8, 2 (2 players)
Hero bets $1.95, Button raises to $8.45, Hero raises to $16.9, Button raises to $32.45 (All-In), Hero calls $9.05.

Turn: ($54.25) 4 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: ($54.25) Q (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $60.75

Results in white below:
Hero has 9c 9s (one pair, nines).
Button has 3d 3h (three of a kind, threes).
Outcome: Button wins $54.25.

and this.... villain is 54/0/1.75

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, $0.25 BB (4 handed) Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Hero ($24.65)
BB ($42.95)
UTG ($25)
Button ($10.50)

Preflop: Hero is SB with K, Q.
1 fold, Button calls $0.25, Hero raises to $1.35, 1 fold, Button calls $1.

Flop: ($2.85) 5, A, Q (2 players)
Hero bets $2.1, Button calls $2.10.

Turn: ($7.05) Q (2 players)
Hero checks, Button bets $0.25, Hero raises to $3.55, Button raises to $7.1, Hero raises to $13.7, Button calls $0.30 (All-In).

River: ($21.85) A (2 players, 1 all-in)

Final Pot: $21.85

Results in white below:
Hero has Kh Qc (full house, queens full of aces).
Button has Ad 9d (full house, aces full of queens).
Outcome:

my net with AK and AQ tonight was -$15.

down $100in in one session.

i apologize ahead of time if this is just a crying post. am i supposed to fold a couple of these hands?... maybe the 99 i guess?

i just don't like ring. i have to finish out of the money in 10-15 tourneys to lose $100. i'd like to be good at them. i guess being good at ring makes you a better player... but i'm pretty happy with my MTT progress.

i dunno.... i just can't take the swings. when i'm playing my bread and butter MTT ($4 180), i'm making a final table almost every night. i can't remember the last time i lost $100 in a night.

Welcome to the real world

oh yeah u can fold the 99 hand but vs an idiot it's fine not folding

the other hands are good

Originally Posted by Genitruc

oh yeah u can fold the 99 hand but vs an idiot it's fine not folding

the other hands are good

this. this is super standard and really should still be less variance than playing tourneys full time.

Can't believe I'm the first person to say this but - bad beat forum?

Hey lets turn this into the post your swongs thread!

^ vomit

Damn Irish! When you move up do you play exclusively 1knl or do you still mix in 400nl?

I usually transition by mixing in half tables and such and such. Might help the swings?

lol I should clarify that that graph is from about a year ago. Also the last like $18k of the downswing was actually 400NL.

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

lol I should clarify that that graph is from about a year ago. Also the last like $18k of the downswing was actually 400NL.

haha yah i was wondering. I was like "hmmm I thought Irish was playing higher" ... well that gives hope to those in the midst of a downswing!

I really think that it is -EV to think that youre on a downswing so all my loses are ok because i run like shit and its all a cooler. I think you end al your "downswings" and cold decks once you stop thinking that way and start looking for spots to improve. I know all my downswings that started because of a few "bad varience" hands got quickly out of control due to tilt and turned into a +20bi drop extremely quickly. As long as I blamed the variance I kept going down. As soon as I started reevaluating- I found out that it was all my fault in the first place.

I think op is in the mtt state of mind. Something like: I have aces or kings=im stacking off. That does not mean that you played above hands poorly but that means that you should be putting your opponent on a hand and think what he will stack off with. More often then not he will not stack off with a hand you beat, and without a read pot control is your safest option.

Remember that technically there is no such thing as a downswing-its all in your head. By that I mean that you really can't define the downswing, you can't say that it is aout to start or end, cant tell how long it will last. Its all in your head and it all depends on you. Most of the huge losses are usually due to irrational play weather you realize it or don't.

So next time you get stacked- don't just blame variance.If you stacked off with aces on a lower semi dry flop- oh well, it's a cooler, but when you stack off on the river by calling villain's 2xpot shove on a drawy board just because you had aces- you've got something to think about.

Originally Posted by BigBadBull

I think you end al your "downswings" and cold decks once you stop thinking that way and start looking for spots to improve.

well wouldn't that be nice if it were true

Originally Posted by martindcx1e

Originally Posted by BigBadBull

I think you end al your "downswings" and cold decks once you stop thinking that way and start looking for spots to improve.

well wouldn't that be nice if it were true

Im talking about the overall acceptance of a downswing without being results oriented. I might still be down, but I won't be blaming it on a downswing.

Good-bye red line, I hope we shall meet again one day...

Originally Posted by BigBadBull

I think op is in the mtt state of mind. Something like: I have aces or kings=im stacking off. That does not mean that you played above hands poorly but that means that you should be putting your opponent on a hand and think what he will stack off with. More often then not he will not stack off with a hand you beat, and without a read pot control is your safest option.

I was going to, but decided not to, say this. I don't know if any of the above examples are that awful in isolation but it does illustrate a general tendency of the OP's to jam the pot with any overpair and not show a lot of fear in the face of vigorous raising and re-raising from the villains. This might be something worth examining and considering. Even if you don't want to fold all these hands, sometimes it might be best to slow the hand down and try to get a cheaper showdown, rather than hitting the "stack or get stacked" button just because your pair is bigger than the board.

Some of those hands posted were ok:

hand 1: AA hand, he's too short to ever fold

hand 2: KK hand, board is too drawy to fold, so played well

hand 3: 99 should be foldable here, you're UTG and he's still playing at you. Best case you're flipping against an over card + FD

hand 4: just bet turn, I don't really get the c/r

If you had a read, and some history with villain from the 99 hand, I can get behind it, everything else you played great.

But man, $100? You lost $100 playing 25NL? That's nothing. Really. Imagine playing 4 sng's and getting your aces cracked twice, being coolee'd with KKvAA, and the loosing a flip with QQvsAK. There, you just lost 4 buyins. 4 buyins is really very standard. I can go up down 4 buyins several times a day and not worry too much (if that was happening every single day for a couple of weeks I might start to wonder). My rule of thumb for swings is as follows: Down 1 buyin? Don't even notice. Down 1-5 buyins? Shrug, and move on. Down 5-10 buyins? Crank out Poker Tracker, post hands, spend all day looking for every possible leak you might have. Run pokerev, and then realize that you're just running bad (like 90% of the time that's the answer to why you lost up 10 buyins). Any more than 10 buyins down and there's a fair chance that it's your own fault, but it can still just as easily be variance, and probably is.

This is by no means scientific, obviously. A lot of people say you should only check your account balance once a day or something, to stop yourself thinking this way. I take the point, but you do also need to notice if your pissing money, and playing like a shit head.

But man, 4 buyins is really nothing. If the above is how you play poker, then you're making lots of money long term.

With that said, if you're new to ring, or just loosing confidence, play lower than 25NL, and work up.

thanks for the comments. obviously, my head was spinning a bit when i posted last night.

the 99 villain was 36/24/4. that was my only read.

granted i'm whining a bit. i only play the 180 man sit-n-go's on stars. so mostly the $4's... but it the last 3 weeks i been also workin in the $10's and $20's... finished 1st in both of them. i used to play the 1-2 table sng's but i just didn't like those and wanted to get experience in longer MTTs. so if i play 6 $4's a $10 and a $20 in one night... thats $60.

so i need to be more careful of who is wanting to stack off... my reads on them... the board.... etc. i dunno... that feels like a slippery -EV slope down folding big overpairs cuz they must have a set. i dunno... all i can do is keep at it and post hands and try to improve my play. as much as i fucking hate to lose... i like a challenge.

Yeah the overpair vs. set situation sucks. I came from a SnG background before playing cash, and it took me a little while to get used to not fist-pumping when someone shoved the flop against my aces. Having made that adjustment, I then I had to readjust to realizing they don't have a set every time, they often have TPGK/a semi-bluff.

Try having PokerStove open while you play. You raise preflop with aces, someone calls, flop is Q72r, you cbet, he raises. Can he have Q7? Can he have 77, can he have 72, can he have 22? Can he have AQ/KQ? Etc, etc. If you input this kind of stuff every time you have a decision you're unsure about, you'll soon be able to make the right decision instinctively.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

thanks for the comments. obviously, my head was spinning a bit when i posted last night.

the 99 villain was 36/24/4. that was my only read.

granted i'm whining a bit. i only play the 180 man sit-n-go's on stars. so mostly the $4's... but it the last 3 weeks i been also workin in the $10's and $20's... finished 1st in both of them. i used to play the 1-2 table sng's but i just didn't like those and wanted to get experience in longer MTTs. so if i play 6 $4's a $10 and a $20 in one night... thats $60.

so i need to be more careful of who is wanting to stack off... my reads on them... the board.... etc. i dunno... that feels like a slippery -EV slope down folding big overpairs cuz they must have a set. i dunno... all i can do is keep at it and post hands and try to improve my play. as much as i fucking hate to lose... i like a challenge.

Yeah keep posting hands. But there's nothing really wrong with these hands. The 99 one isn't even bad considering the kind of player it was against. Marginal, but not bad by any means.

nope... i'm done.

flopped a flush... lost to quads.

turned a set... lost to quads.

flop a set... lost to runner runner straight.

QQ vs KK

JJ vs AT.... lost to runner runner flush.

down $125.

i'm happy with the progress of my tourney game... i'll keep working on that.

i don't need this stress.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

i don't need this stress.

None of us do, but we just keep coming back. BTW, that is one shitty run of coolers.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

so i need to be more careful of who is wanting to stack off... my reads on them... the board.... etc. i dunno... that feels like a slippery -EV slope down folding big overpairs cuz they must have a set.

Set is really not something you will be worried about with big PPs. Just hand reading in general is though.

There have been a lot of posts from people who got coolered with AA/KK and they all ask same question: how do I spot a set. Answer is you dont have to sorry about him coolering you as long as you played your hand right.
Instead of explaining it, ill copy/paste my post from another forum on same topic:

BigBadBull
Member


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

KillsAids wrote:


My general question is what signs should I be looking for to put my opponent on a likely set or 2 pair kind of hand (2 pair is obviously not applicable here)? Small cards on the flop definitely increases the likelihood he has a set, but for me it's not enough to make me fold my over-pair.

Generally you do not worry about him flopping a set on a dry board. The only thing you are worried about here is getting as much money in as fast as possible, and in case he is calling with a draw your job is to make it -ev for him to chase that draw. If you have aces and he flops 2pair or a set- more power to him, but your job it not to let him flop and catch his draw on later streets.


Remember that every time your opponent makes a misake- you gain, thus by not making it profitable for him to call- you gain every time he makes that call. Like if he has spades on that flop and you know it, you would bet more such amount that it is unprofitable or your opponent to call you. He will roughly hit his flush draw one out of three times, thus you should never give him better then 3to1 odds to call:
-if you bet 1/2 pot=he is getting 3to1 and it is +ev(or neutral) for him to call= you lose because he didnt make a mistake
-if you bet 2/3= he is getting 2.5to1=it is -ev for him to call=you win even if he calls and makes the draw.

Some of the above is really basic and the math is at best "rough" but it gets the main point across.
Hope this is in any shape or form helpful. Don't give up, but don't keep playing while youre on tilt either. Id say if you really wanted to give 6max cash a try, come back in a week or so when you cool down.

I know $125 is a lot of cash to loose, but in buy in terms it's still not that much. This is why you need to start out at 2NL to get your feet wet.

You're getting cold-decked, and drawn out on. Good players get drawn out on, bad ones draw out, so you're doing something right. Just wait till you run good, it's a hell of a buzz making a couple hundred dollars in an hour.

Cool down, and give it another bash.

Wow I dont even know what to say. If you can't handle a super minor swing at micro stakes i'm not sure NL cash is for you. I play full time and thing like this are just pretty standard. I've had +15bi days and -15 bi days and its part of the game and you need to adjust or find something different.

This may sound retarded, but how are guys viewing these graphs? Is it a function of PT? I have it, but really am unaware of all of its useful functions. I mainly use it with HUD and thats about it.

Google PokerEV.

lame words of encouragement :

i started my dokament/donk n go to cash transition with a 22 buyin downswing.

since then I've made enough to be pretty comfortable while supporting somewhat lavish spending habits for someone paying my way through school. some of the highlights include a 42k hand sample running at 14 ptbb/100. i've been hovering at low-midstakes for a long time now and think that overall I've underachieved.

but that's besides the point.

point is : after my 1st 2 weeks of playing cashgames I had almost decided to give it up for good and, here I am almost 3 years later, happy that I persisted.

If you have persistance and dedication u can do quite a lot.

patience and open mindedness etc

good luck

oh yeah also this is how my session, exclusively at 1-2, went the other day. Swongs ftw :

Genitruc, man that graph is the worst, haha! "I'm good at poker, I'm good at poker, OMFG I'M SO GOOD AT.... waaaaaaaaaaaah!!".

Originally Posted by Genitruc

oh yeah also this is how my session, exclusively at 1-2, went the other day. Swongs ftw :

Hand 1275: Genitruc's aces are cracked by 94 offsuit when villain hits running fours, after calling the flop with just a one card gutshot draw.

Hand 1276 - end: Genitruc goes all in pre-flop eighteen times, three barrel bluffs a player running 70/45/15, refuses to fold any hand where he has 5% or better equity, and finally explodes in a puff of smoke while screaming "FUCK YOU POKER! FUCK YOU!"

Sounds like a pretty boring session by genitruc standards imo.

i was actually trying to post a brag about the steadiness of the first 1.3k hands wtf

edit : i m pretty sure i posted this beauty somewhere else and gave background ; amazingly, it didn't involve me disrespecting money. instead, i stacked somebody in a reraised pot with a dbl gutter and a flushdraw and he decided to open shove 14 or 15 times in a row. i called 5 times with pretty good hands and didn't do so hot.

variaaaaaaaance

edit 2 : dale that description of tilt is A fking +

I've posted this before in another thread in the Beginner forum but it helps to see it is how it goes.

[ ]long term

If it means anything to you I'm on an 11 buy in downswing and want to kill myself too.

k let s make this the random daily graph thread

1 day of 100nl FR

yawn

won $ at showdown was not optimal

Originally Posted by Genitruc

oh yeah also this is how my session, exclusively at 1-2, went the other day. Swongs ftw :

wow wtf, did you get it in pre on 5 tables at once and lose every one?

move down, get better; notice swings are more shallow and less frequent as winrate improves

this probably cant step to some of the high stakes players swings, but this was over a 3 day period last week.

Every time I have a stretch like that (unfortunately I'm in the valley of one right now) I can't help but think, "If I could just cut out the losing parts I'd be doing so well!" Yep - it's retard logic, I know. Then I start picking back over hands and thinking if just this hand and that one had panned out differently, I'd be way ahead instead of way behind. e.g. my AK vs. 99 all in pre-flop the other day - a coin flip for a 2 buy-in swing in my fortunes. And Mr. 99 played it like a moron to boot. Curse you, poker! *shakes fist*

The point of my post was that if you don't learn to beat 25NL then you'll never be that good of a tourney player anyway. Just keep working on it.

Originally Posted by mcatdog

The point of my post was that if you don't learn to beat 25NL then you'll never be that good of a tourney player anyway. Just keep working on it.

Strongly agree with this. Cash has vastly improved my tournament game.

Today's short session produced some fun swongs

These were the first 2 big pots of the day

Seat 1: missdixie (£150.67 in chips)
Seat 2: who_the_h (£220.42 in chips)
Seat 3: HERO (£208.30 in chips)
Seat 4: Dan201229 (£357.89 in chips)
Seat 5: shahzad (£207.50 in chips)
Seat 6: NumptyD (£73 in chips)
Seat 7: LAVA (£198.80 in chips)
Seat 8: basket114 (£195.80 in chips)
Seat 9: h2theizzo (£196.35 in chips)
h2theizzo: posts small blind £1
missdixie: posts big blind £2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to HERO
who_the_h: folds
HERO: raises to £7
Dan201229: folds
shahzad: calls £7
NumptyD: folds
LAVA: folds
basket114: folds
h2theizzo: folds
missdixie: folds
----- FLOP -----
HERO: checks
shahzad: checks
----- TURN -----
HERO: bets £14
shahzad: raises to £28
HERO: calls £14
----- RIVER ----- :Jd:
HERO: bets £173.30 and is all-in
shahzad: is all-in £172.50
Returned uncalled bets £0.80 to HERO
----- SHOW DOWN -----
HERO: shows (A Flush, Ace high)
shahzad: shows (Straight Flush, Queen high)
shahzad collected £415 from Main pot



Seat 1: HERO ($337.70 in chips)
Seat 7: unholy ($37.95 in chips)
Seat 10: Denn11052 ($203.18 in chips)
unholy: posts small blind $1
Denn11052: posts big blind $2
----- HOLE CARDS -----
dealt to HERO
HERO: raises to $7
unholy: folds
Denn11052: calls $5
----- FLOP -----
Denn11052: checks
HERO: bets $14
Denn11052: calls $14
----- TURN -----
Swordf1sh joins the table at seat #6
Denn11052: bets $16
HERO: raises to $51
Denn11052: raises to $86
HERO: raises to $316.70 and is all-in
Denn11052: is all-in $96.18
Returned uncalled bets $134.52 to HERO
----- RIVER -----
----- SHOW DOWN -----
HERO: shows (A Full House, Jacks full of Nines)
Denn11052: shows (Four of a kind, Nines, Jack high)
Denn11052 collected $405.36 from Main pot

Originally Posted by mcatdog

The point of my post was that if you don't learn to beat 25NL then you'll never be that good of a tourney player anyway. Just keep working on it.

i respectfully disagree. you are rarely as deep in tourneys as you are in ring. by deep stacked i mean that you are as deep as your bankroll... you can always rebuy.

you have to deal with short stack shoving ranges when the blinds go up... and if you don't read the situations well... you miss out on value... or screw yourself.

people make "moves" in tourneys that they wouldn't make in cash games... stop and go's, squeezes, utg steals, big stack bulleys. in a tourney, you are frequently making decisions pre flop and on the flop for all your chips... or more than %50 oF them. from my experience, in ring, that kind of decision is made more often on the turn.. and way more often on the river. playing according to stack sizes is diminished in ring as well.

you hear things from pro players frequently about so-in-so making a transition from cash games. or you hear A pro saying they much prefer cash games over tourneys. isn't that because cash games offer one much more time to be patient with no pressure of increasing blinds/antes.
there is no need to make "a move" in ring because there is no pressure of accumulating chips. i would guess the pressure of increasing blinds comes much faster online as compared to higher buy in, large, live tourneys where you start out with 2-5 times as many chips and the levels are longer.

i probably have 10k hands in ring total... in a year and half time. which isn't much. and i have 120k hands in tourneys since i bought poker tracker 5 months ago. obviously a ton more experience in tourneys... the vast majority being micro buyins.

so maybe my experience isn't enough to speak with much authority on the subject. but thats my opinion so far.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

you have to deal with short stack shoving ranges [...] and if you don't read the situations well... you miss out on value... or screw yourself.

Just like ring.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

people make "moves" in tourneys

Just like ring.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

stop and go's, squeezes, utg steals, big stack bulleys.

Yup, those moves.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

in a tourney, you are frequently making decisions pre flop and on the flop for all your chips... or more than %50 oF them. from my experience, in ring, that kind of decision is made more often on the turn.. and way more often on the river. playing according to stack sizes is diminished in ring as well.

You make those decision fairly often in ring as well, but granted not as often.

Perfect push-fold, M factor, first-in vigorish etc. are mechanical sciences. You can make a computer learn them. What differentiates a good profitable tourney player, from a great rich one is the ability to put an opponent on a narrower range, and play a river.

Originally Posted by CorbinDallas

there is no need to make "a move" in ring because there is no pressure of accumulating chips.

It sounds like you might be categorizing plays into "standard play", and "moves". There is no need to make "moves" in ring or tourneys. You just have to get dealt a hand, wait till the action is on you and decide "What are my opponents' ranges, how are they going to play those ranges according to how I play my hand, and how do I optimize EV according to the first two answers?". You then decide to either call, fold, or raise for such-and-such an amount. The common situations may be differ, but the process of dealing with them is identical.

(cisco singing with spiky graphs massaging his back) : let me seeee that swooooo-oo-oooong...



the may graph should be one of the bumpier rides in recent memory for me