Analysis of a downswing

[BalugaWhale]

So, as many of you know, I went busto. I went there pretty hard. Seeing as (hopefully) I will be unbusto very soon, I have been looking through PT and identifying what factors contributed to me losing what ended up amounting to 28 buyins in total for 25nl--although not all were lost at 25nl.

I am going to group the two biggest problems (within my control)together that ravaged my bankroll. Hopefully this will help some of you identify some of your problems and help us all get better.

TWO ISSUES: Tilt and a Top Pair Problem

As in any downswing, I got sucked out on for my stack more than a couple times. Sometimes, I got sucked out on more than once in a session. Now, I prided myself on keeping composure and not tilting. I never did things like pushing All-In preflop with garbage, or calling raises with trash hands.

I did find, however, that after losing a big pot... I overvalued marginal hands. This was most important part of getting better and understanding why I lost money.

A typical progression was as follows:
Following my standard guidelines for play, I raise a good hand, flop a good hand/draw, and lose my stack in what would be considered an acceptable way.
Then, I pick up a top pair type hand. After flopping the top pair, I became FAR, FAR too willing to go to the felt with it.

caveat- When someone raises your top pair on the turn, it's not good

This became a subtle form of tilt. It isn't as though I simply played bad cards or made outrageous bets. I didn't. I made marginal to poor calls with marginal to poor made hands on the flop and turn.

Another Problem: I never thought it could happen to me.

As soon as you think your bankroll is completely safe, think again. As soon as you think you're a consistent winning player, think again. It's been said here many times that humility is the key to successful poker, and it's true. Playing online casually is roughly the same as playing online badly, in my opinion.

Be Careful moving up limits!!
I followed Fimbulwinter's guidelines for moving up, and tried 50NL both times I reached 500 dollars. Both times it was a mistake. I moved up, lost my stack with undersets twice and got outflushed once. This decimated both my roll and my confidence. Simply put, if your bankroll can't stand getting unlucky for as many as four buyins, you shouldn't play at that limit. Maybe its just my style, but I think moving up to 50NL shouldn't really take place until you have between 750 and 1000 in your roll.

A few notes on preflop looseness:
I played a lot of hands... definitely too many for full ring. Switching to 6-max was a great idea, I just wish I would've had more of a roll when I did. The truth is, marginal holdings and LAGish play at Small Stakes Full Ring is a losing preposition. It can be done, I am sure, but it would be damn, damn, damn difficult. My FR VPIP was around 28, my pfr at about 13. Those numbers are simply bad for full ring.

This next comment is something I'd really like some discussion on:
The key to solving the problem of being too loose is to emphasize position. Somebody once posted on here that folding AQ UTG in 6-max wouldn't really be leaving much money on the table, if any. I think they're right (I still raise AQ UTG 6max, but I certainly think twice about AJ now., and, after all... AQ is just a trumped up AJ [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )
So, I plan on tightening up SIGNIFICANTLY utg... and continuing to play my loose, raising style from LP.

This forum has helped me become far, far better than I was when I started, and I'm definitely still getting better. There's a long way to go. Hopefully I'll be back at the table soon.

BTW, if anybody has a link to that thread, "Sooner or later you'll run worse than you ever thought was possible", I'd appreciate if you posted it. That thread sums up a lot of the way I felt about the last few months of poker.

Variance is a bitch, but if you look closely enough, you'll see that we make bad plays all the time. Identifying the things you do poorly is the key to making yourself a better player. Hopefully I'm on the way.

Sorry this was so long.

PS: this is what a part of the alphabet would look like if Q and R were removed.

PPS: If anybody has questions about the types of hands I ran into... i posted a lot of the ones that I felt might've been unavoidable situations. I didn't post that many of the ones where I horribly overvalued my hand, because I generally knew what I did wrong. If this will help you guys learn, I can post these too.