Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

I think I know the answer to this question, but is it common amongst solid, winning players to play 14,000 hands (in a fortnight, in my case) and still be losing? Do other players suffer extended periods feeling that they can't do anything right?!

With money in the bank after leaving my legal career, I've been playing online poker full-time since June.

I played an average of 20,000 hands per month in each of June, July, August and September and averaged around $3,700 in each of those months at primarily $1/2 and $2/4 NLHE. My PT BB/100 averaged around 4-5 for June-September at both limits and my bankroll has grown from $6,000 to $20,000.

I was very happy with that start as I only moved from limit cash games (and NHLE tournaments) to NLHE cash games in April this year.

I'm a tight but reasonably aggressive player who feels very comfortable taking on most players although (as I guess we all do) I'm still finding the most aggressive, thinking opponents tougher to deal with.

After a pretty solid start in my adventure into full time poker, the last couple of weeks have been extremely tough. I've played 14,000 hands and am down around $1,000 (mainly because most of my tough beats have happened at the $2/4 tables). That's not a huge dent to my roll, of course, but it feels like I'm being dealt big, second best hands every hour, failing miserably to get anyone to pay off my monsters, getting outdrawn fairly often and that a number of the tough calls/folds I've made have turned out to be wrong (with the benefit of hindsight).

I've certainly had bad days in the last four months, but not a seemingly endless run like this!

Does this sound like a relatively inexperienced player trying to deal with his first extended period of tough beats or someone who might be better off going back to his tedious office job?!

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

You seem like youve got your head screwed on, I play part time as I work fulltime, but still, downswings hurt like hell. The main thing is to take a break, and roll with it. I know how you feel and it actually feels good to hear somone else on the same kinda problem as me, i can tear up games for 20 or 30k hands then all of a sudden, i cannot win.

Its just the way poker is i guess, you just gotta make sure youve got financial backup to help you get through it without goin busto.

Gluck.

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

14k hands breakeven = extremely standard

just play more hands u nit and it will only be a few days breakeven!

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

14k hands?

sheeeit. thats nothing. i know a guy who was totally a winning player and lost for over a million hands.

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

also if you're going to play for a living, you might want to think about playing >20,000 hands/month, unless you're a super winner, or a high stakes player that can make a ton of money off 20,000 hands

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

fgators: "lol, you call that a bad run? page me in 1598600 hands, n00b!"

http://i157.photobucket.com/albums/t...fit/gators.jpg

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

[ QUOTE ]
also if you're going to play for a living, you might want to think about playing >20,000 hands/month, unless you're a super winner, or a high stakes player that can make a ton of money off 20,000 hands

[/ QUOTE ]

Understood. I've started to get closer to 30,000 hands per month now that I feel comfortable with NHLE and 4-5 tabling. What's a realistic target for a full-time player?

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

You might want to read "The Poker Mindset", I thought it had some excellent stuff on "downswings". In fact, if your playing for a living you'd be silly not to pick up a copy.

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

30k hands min bro. Grind thru the variences. Personally I would stick with 1-2nl till I had 35-40k. BR-NIT-FTW.

Re: Wanted: Sympathy and Reassurance After Two Weeks of Hell!
 

[ QUOTE ]
You might want to read "The Poker Mindset", I thought it had some excellent stuff on "downswings". In fact, if your playing for a living you'd be silly not to pick up a copy.

[/ QUOTE ]

My friend swares by this book, I'm buying a copy today.