I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

These are my hands since Aug 1. I play a standard 18/13/4 game. I've watched a ton of 2+2 and cr videos of people playing cash, some multiple times. It's really embarrassing that I've spent so much time studying 25nl but my results still suck.

My question is, where should I go from here? Should I keep playing more hands? Maybe try playing without pahud up? I feel like I'm better than a lot of people at the 25nl level but I seem to just not be able to figure it out. I want to get some advice before I just blindly play another 25k hands.

http://img84.imageshack.us/img84/7822/ughaa4.jpg

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

post how much rake you've paid and how much rakeback or fpps .

just curious

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

You probably have a leak, without realising it.

You could post your stats too and hands that trouble you in the micro-stakes forum...

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Total rake is about 450 with 30% rb for $135, but I get about 1 ptbb / 100 hands from my bonus. I mean at this point it's not even about the money.

I've posted my stats by position in the micro forum twice, once in the wrong place but no one responded constructively to either. I can understand why a lot of micro players don't get too much attention since everyone else has the same problem, but I've been a winning player at everything else I've played.

I just got a coach to see if there are crazy things I'm doing that aren't right.

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

[ QUOTE ]
but I've been a winning player at everything else I've played.

[/ QUOTE ]

So why not just play the stuff that makes you money?

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Am I missing something or do you have CRAZY swings for a 18/13.
+14 BI 4K hands
-10BIs in 6K hands
+16BIs in 6K hands
-14BIs in 10K hands.

Wow.. That seems really strange. I haven't played 6 million hands like many people here, but I have never had swings like this and I am 22/17. I am going to guess that your leaks are postflop. The best way to start is to post screen shot/hands in the micro's.

Good Luck
SMS

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but I've been a winning player at everything else I've played.

[/ QUOTE ]

So why not just play the stuff that makes you money?

[/ QUOTE ]

Because I'm sick and I want to learn cash and 25nl shouldn't be this hard. It got pretty bad this last weekend though I played a few hundred hu cash hands just to get my confidence back.

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Which site are you playing at out of interest?

Those swings suggest you are playing a pretty high variance game - happy to get involved in coinflips etc.

Do you push AK preflop very often? QQ?
Do you get it all in on the flop with a flush draw often?

A lot of the advice in the unl/ssnl is turbo aggressive and I think you need to take a lot of what is said with a grain of salt. If you are playing in tighter games then you need to look to making money by raising more preflop and stealing more blinds, 3 betting more etc. If you are playing looser games then IMO doing this is bad because you are investing money to steal pots which you can't really steal. This is just IMO and I may be wrong but I can't imagine playing a 24/20 game when I've got 3 40-50/10-20 type players at the table.

Another thing, do you use much pot control when you have tptk type hands? For example with AJ on a AT4 flop would you bet flop/turn/river or would you sometimes check turn or river?

Do you cbet too much / not enough?

Can you fold AA/KK post flop?

My 30nl graph looked pretty similar to what you posted, up around 5 buyins, back down to even, up a bit, breakeven a bit, down a bit but after about 10k hands it kind of stopped swinging all over the place and took a steady line up.

When I moved to 50nl it looked pretty similar again, swingy breakeven for 5-10k hands, then I'd run hot for 2-3k hands, then breakeven/swingy for a bit then run hot again.

This may sound dumb but it looks like you are good at winning pots, there are lots of lines moving in the right direction. The problem is there are also too many lines in the wrong direction which suggests you are sticking around too long in pots you aren't going to win.

I think the best thing for you to do is go through PT and look at all the hands where you lost more than say 30-40bb and see if you think you played the hands right. You may see a pattern, ie, there are loads of hands where you pushed draws and missed. If this is the case see if you could play the hand any other way that means losing less when your draw doesn't hit. You don't always have to play every draw to the river or super aggressively.
You may find that you have a lot of top pair type hands that run into sets/2 pair. Could you slow down or get away from these hands earlier? If somebody is calling 3 streets then they will usually have something worth showing down.

Hope none of this comes accross as patronising, it sounds like you know your game, positionally aware etc. I'm just throwing ideas around in the hope something will ring true and help you find a problem with your game.

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

I also have the feeling that not I play Poker but the variance plays me [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Please post your stats again, not positional. general PT stats. I was struggling for 2 month myself after having a huge downswing at 100NL. Maybe I can help. 27k hands is a small sample and could be variance. You should be crushing 25NL with 18/13/4, but maybe you have some postflop leaks.

Below is my graph since July. After running bad, I went on tilt and played suboptimal. changing my game, getting nittier, less aggro, giving up to fast postflop, playing predictibel etc ... wich resulted in loosing.

http://img134.imageshack.us/img134/4...ncejulyyv4.jpg

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

You are obviously making tons of mistakes. Play more hands. Hire a coach if you can afford $100/hr.

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

http://img149.imageshack.us/img149/9...ralinfoaa0.gif

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

I havent played these limits since I started playing but I'd imagine you are probably playing too many marginal hands. You may also be making too many bluffs against players who wont lay hands down. I only ever played full ring at these limits, and I sat like a rock, waited for premium hands and doubled up time and time again. You cant do anything fancy or too clever- just play big hands big and small hands small

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Stats actualy look real solid. 27k is a small sample, you could be running bad

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Are you pushing tiny edges vs fishes? Thats what i find my biggest cause of variance(and probably leak), whenever i see some 80/10 monkey i start going nuts with bottom pair or just a high and its just crazy variance...

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

the poker advice in this forum seems generally...not good. don't be so hung up on stats. post some hands.

Re: I feel like I\'m banging my head against a brick wall
 

Ok I debated making a new thread about this, but I think I will post it here. I had one person look over my about 200 hands of mine and comment which helped, but I had another person go over every session I played to make sure I wasn't f'ing up.

So the first 4 days I think I'm down, and the fourth day I'm just getting hammered on a thursday night and I'm like f this, if I'm gonna keep dropping buyins I'm gonna do it my way. If I've lost my mind then the person looking over my hhs will tell me. It was nice to have that safety net feeling. So basically my entire postflop mentality changed from the standard 2+2 nit line to doing whatever I felt like. Ever since then I feel like I've been crushing 25nl, although small sample of maybe 7k+ hands.

Anyways I wanted to ask you guys why you think this mentality works. Sometimes my vpip/pfr/af looks just like it used to when I was a nit, but I'm thinking differently postflop and it seems to work. I just moved up to 50nl and I find myself getting caught in the same nit state, and I have to get in a gambling mood in order to get myself out of it. Usually the difference when I'm playing and able to switch states like that is night and day.

PS I really needed people to look over all of my hands histories, I think that helped a lot too. I'm super super grateful for that.