had a*! handed to me in a 5/10 game...can't figure out if bad luck or

[ilovebadbeats]

...my bad skill/lack of skill.

Basically I lost $691. playing $5/10 Stud yesterday...can a good player with an Edge (however small mind you...) lose this much
playing for say...5 hours in a $5/10 game? Or does losing this much mean I suck?

Many hands (about a dozen) I had 2 pair or a set and bet the hand the whole way, only to get called to the river by 1 guy...then I checked the river usually and called his bet and my opponent showed a straight or flush...
this happened about 10-12 times and frusterated the hell out of me.
Should I just be played rolled-up hands, 3 of the same suit to start, and hidden wired pairs and dump everything else? ('cause it seems 2 pair and set hands NEVER win in multi way pots...) Are big pair hands and 2 pair type hands only for fish?
Should 2 pair hands be looked at as worthless in and of themselves and only thought of as "Full House Draws?"


And on one of the last hands I played, I made Aces full on the river and put in about 15 Big Bets (no cap when Heads-up on the site)
to a guy showing JJ up in his community and the rest rainbow rags...Well, wouldn't you know, he started with JJ in the pocket and made quads. ( I put him on Jacks full at best...I was frustrated and probably should have only put in 5-6 Big Bets, but thats how my day was going...ended the losing session with major chip-splooage).

To the more experienced Stud players: Is it normal to lose, lose, lose on some of your bad days?
Should
I go back to the game to try to make it back or call it quits?
(I am a Hold 'em player and just play Stud once or twice a month...I alluded to above that
perhaps my hand-values are all screwed up when I play Stud due to my being so used to hold 'em... Example, in Hold 'em 2 pair is pretty good and in Stud it never wins...(only against a loose player 'cause (as I am discovering) a good player would only be calling you down with at least a 2 pair of his own! (or a 4 flush/OESD or both!))

Thanks, please help/empart some wisdom on a noob to Stud. Joe

[jon_1van]

Losing 69 BB can happen yes.

Was it varience. I'm sure some of it was. But if you are the type of person that will make As full and go 15!!!!! BB against a non insane person you are probably also prone to other mistakes. I find it hard to believe that you made several delicate laydowns, didn't push TINY edges, and then went insane and put in at least 9 too many BB.

[lstream]

Given that $150 or so of your losses are due to one hand, then losing this amount is not that abnormal. There are times you can do everything right, and still get beat almost every single time.

You mention that pairs never win - not true at 5/10. Against certain players, you may almost never win with a pair, but with others they can hold up a lot. Knowing the opposition is really important.

Big pair and two pair hands are definitely not just for fish. They are the bread and butter of this game, but you have to be aware of their relative strength based upon how the overall hand develops.

You may want to check out some of the reading material mentioned in the FAQ. Also, I'm not sure 5/10 is the best place to be starting if you are just getting your feet wet in stud.

I suspect you hit the perfect storm of some bad beats, which drove you to make some mistakes due to frustration and imbalance. When this happens to me, I review the hand histories where I lost to see if there were obvious mistakes. I usually pick something up. As in other games, it gets real expensive if you play differently when losing. Many stud players get over aggressive when they are losing, in a desperate attempt to get unstuck. Some 5/10 players recognize this and will take advantage of it.

[BeerMoney]

The only person who could control a loss like this is MRBAA.

[frappeboy]

Sometimes I lose 69 BB in under an hour in the 5-10 game. I 4 table but still its very easy when the cards are running against you.

[PoorLawyer]

i got reamed in the 5/10 over the weekend too at a site with no limit on raises HU...probably same site.
Instead of trying to get it back, I took a bunch of money out and booked a trip to copenhagen in the spring before I lose it all. That and a few days off and I'll be ready to go again...I dont recommend the jumping back into it if you are questioning your game. It is too easy to make small mistakes that cost you a lot of money in that game when you are not playing your best.

[7csCB]

[ QUOTE ]
Sometimes I lose 69 BB in under an hour in the 5-10 game. I 4 table but still its very easy when the cards are running against you.

[/ QUOTE ]

Hi Frappe,

By 4-tabling, do you lose information? I find I often miss a few of the villains' 3rd st cards if I am concentrating on another table. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[Gelford]

Yep ... how do you manage to 4 table stud ?? /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[highlife]

[ QUOTE ]
Example, in Hold 'em 2 pair is pretty good and in Stud it never wins

[/ QUOTE ]

i am pretty sure the average winning hand in 8 handed stud is jacks up (2 pair). that is pretty basic stuff.

also you prob shouldn't go 15 bets on the river with only a full house, especially if the other guy has a pair on board.

you definately caught more than your share of bad beats it seems, and that might make you an even weaker stud player than you already are based on some of your comments. go back and study (7CSFAP, SS, read hand discussions here, post some hands here, talk about hands with other players, etc).

[frappeboy]

[ QUOTE ]
By 4-tabling, do you lose information? I find I often miss a few of the villains' 3rd st cards if I am concentrating on another table. Any tips would be greatly appreciated.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do miss some cards here and there, but very rarely am I actually playing more than 1 hand at a time so it's not very important. I have 4 monitors setup in a half circle so I can see all the tables at the same time. I tried increasing the resolution and playing on 1 monitor but then you have trouble seeing the cards which is a lot more important in stud than holdem. So i prefer the 4 monitor approach.

If I'm playing an important hand, which looks like it might be going to the river, then I will deal myself out on the other tables. I usually only do this when I have a big pair. When I have a 3 flush I usually don't deal myself out on the other tables for 2 reasons, #1 you're folding a lot of the time on 4th/5th, #2 they are very easy and straightforward to play and not as important to remember every single card.

I can remember about 2 tables worth of cards at a time too, so that helps quite a bit. There is no doubt that I am costing myself some money per table with each table I add, but I believe overall its more profitable.

Also, I try to avoid marginal situations. Not only does this decrease by standard deviation, but it makes it a lot easier to play 4 tables. Once again, I'm probably costing myself a little bit by doing this but if I was to play all my marginal situations while 4-tabling it would be difficult.

If there are any spelling mistakes please forgive me I am playing 4 tables while i type this /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[dandy_don]

This is a good post and somewhat comforting responses, but my mind says otherwise that this is a minor loss--I can symphathize.

I've been plastered (not in the sense that Beer_Money got plastered /images/graemlins/grin.gif) over the holidays on the $2/$4 tables at Party to the tune of 54BB (a 20% drop in bankroll), a streak that I have never experienced at this or in previous levels. It actually sent me back down to the $1/$2 to build up my confidence; a level I have not played in a couple of months.

I guess I have a similar question to that of the OP, at what level of loss do you consider it an education? a variance? or a lack of skill for that level?

dandy

[BeerMoney]

Frappeboy, u should be aware that the actions you describe are online tells..

I was playing with one of Emery's five, and noticed this player sat out at another table, and I was therefore confident they had the goods.

[BeerMoney]

Don, I think its always better to accept it as both, bad luck and bad play.. If you always blame your bad streaks on bad luck, you'll never improve, Its easy to blame things on bad luck too. For example, anyone who loses with aces full, is probably gonna have a losing session.

Recently I was playing some cash games and start out losing, get frustrated, experience a little tilt, battle back to say up 5-10 big bets, and looking back at the session, I realized, those bets that I pissed away, where I went off my game, are the difference between being mildly successful, and largely successful.

On the other hand, you also have to accept that you won't win everyday, and the deck is going to be stacked against us...

The aces full is really a good example of all of this, OP should have lost a lot of $$, but perhaps not as much as he did.. Its always hard to just call with aces full tho.

[frappeboy]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess I have a similar question to that of the OP, at what level of loss do you consider it an education? a variance? or a lack of skill for that level?

[/ QUOTE ]

At any point in your poker career you must be prepared for a 300BB downswing. If you can't handle this, you probably shouldn't play seriously. I know even I have trouble handling swings 100-150BB, so 300BB is really tough. My max swing on the 5-10 stud was right around 200BB.

As beer said, you should probably blame some of it on luck, and some on skill. The fact that you are even posting on here means you are probably an above average player, who if no luck was involved, should never lose that much in 1 session. So there is no doubt you were running bad, the question is how bad were you actually running. I think if you've never experienced a downswing like this before, you shouldn't be too worried about it. If it continues for another 100BB then you should start to re-evaluate your play.

[ilovebadbeats]

Looking back on the session now (after a few days) I know that I was experiencing a "downswing" that a much better player than
I who played the same cards as me would have also experienced.

The "much-better-than-I player" would not have put in 15 Big Bets with the Aces full...only 5 or 6, right?
(so he would have saved 90-100$ right there...).

And he probably would have folded a few hands earlier where I may have put in bets too loosely (only to fold on the next street having wasted an extra bet, I would do)...
(and that's probably another 50-80$ savings there...).

So my ~$691. loss would only have been around $520 or so bucks had a more experienced player played the same cards I was dealt...


It was pretty bad...I would make 2 pair and get all happy, then check-call the river if my opponent had a type of draw showing...just to be safe because I knew I was showing down no matter what ( based on my 2 pair hand strength and the pot size ALONE...is this wrong thinking?... I can't see how folding two pair on the river can be profitable - if you have no reason to believe your opponent has better - if he hit his flush or str8 draw then he gets a big bet from you on the river, right?). I would call and lose to a rivered flush...

Then I would make a set...and I did the same: check-call the river...and my opponent would flip up a rivered straight!

After this happens 6-8 times in a row (and the pots were each 80-90$), you get really frustrated...
and yes, I probably got "rattled" and played too loose after that, but certainly I am a good enough player not to put bets in with
nothing or "hopeless hands..." ( I carry with me the same discipline I have gotten from
hold 'em...I just lack the volume of hands and experience that comes with them w/ stud)

I am pretty sure I made a flush on the river once during the session (might have been another session), but lost to a bigger flush my opponent made...
(we both rivered flushes, and they were both AQ high, but I think he had a higher 3rd flush card...this can't happen too often...right? Do you typically have to consider your 3rd ranking flush card
when your opponent is showing a possible flush and raising (letting you know he has a flush) when you are considering re-raising???

On a positive note, although I haven't played a lot of stud in my poker career thusfar, I HAVE experienced similar upswings while playing stud and I must say that
they are glorious and intoxicating
( b/c they are so big compared to hold 'em). I probably went on "positive-tilt" and gave away small & big bets to the table then too...

Stud is like beefed-up limit hold 'em: larger downswings (and upswings), you have to pay more attention to play and keep track of more cards, it is more complicated/there are more situations that you can get yourself into (so you have to play even more stud hands to get the same level of experience/edge as compared to HE), the hands are independent (no community) (so suck-outs are greater, outs you (and your opponents have) are greater in number, and the 70-30 and 60-40 HE situations turn into 58-42 and 52-48 situations in stud - right? Just spat out numbers,
but my point is that in HE when you are ahead in the hand, you tend to stay ahead moreso than when you are ahead in stud, true?...would another way of saying this be that "the edges you push in stud are typically smaller???"),
the hand strength needed to win is typically greater, there are less hardly any "split pots" like in hold 'em, extra round of betting...
stud is a real-man's game. (a shame there are not as many games and the few that are out there are inhabited by pros...)

In short, luck is a bigger factor in the short-term...(I know this), but is luck LESS of a factor in the long-term???
(i.e., can really skilled players really cream the game for BIG winrates???)
I have not reached the Long-run yet in my stud play, as I only play a couple of times a
month,
but how much can you expect to win? (what I'm getting at is, is a typical "good" stud game more profitable than a typical "good" Hold 'em game...
assuming both type games were of equal availability (which is obviiously not the case)...suppose/say
if you had an equal edge in a HE and a Stud game Vs. your opponents, but could only sit in 1 game (and your only goal was to make as much money as you could during the session), which game would you sit in???


thanks guys, Joe

[vintage_sara]

what site allows unlimited raises heads up....I want that site. I think it is a mistake PP doesn't have it.

[lstream]

[ QUOTE ]
what site allows unlimited raises heads up....I want that site

[/ QUOTE ]
Now you guys are in trouble.

[PoorLawyer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
what site allows unlimited raises heads up....I want that site

[/ QUOTE ]
Now you guys are in trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

uhhhh, it's a fictitious site he dreamt about. Yeah thats it, now go back to sleep.

[vintage_sara]

okay....i will find it...you can either help or hinder me....