50NL: (Long) Looking for advice about what to do now

[Specialwon]

So I have now closed out September a few days late, as I wanted to complete a bonus. This was my first full month at NL50.

This has been my first ever month of losing at the tables since I started to play poker earlier this year. I am down just over 4 BI's ($214) on the month. Set against that, I've made around 500 from bonuses and 60 or so from tourneys, but I had to cash out some money, and so my roll is now only about 16 BI's.

I play Ongame and I can't find any variance software to see how much of this is my fault. So, I've done a quick manual analysis, from which I get:

Total hands - 17,500.
Total pots where I committed 50BB or more: 64. Won 30, lost 34

Set over sets: won 3, lost 6 (177 variance)
Top 2 vs set: won 1 lost 2 (30 variance).
AA vs KK: Won 2 lost 4 (although I am probably stacking off to easy with KK in this spot)

Success rate with 3 of a kind and full house is almost identical at 65%.

AA wins 82%, KK wins 78%.

The only other big variance item I could find was 5 100BB hands where we had got it all either pre or on the flop and villain had sucked out with a 4 outer or less (240 bucks). Mostly this was flipaments where donkey had been going all in every hand. I lost twice with KK against T8 and A2, villain made a straight both times. The others are miracle rivers or whatever.

Now I understand that these kinds of suckouts happen, but I mention them because I so rarely get it all in pre or on the flop. For normal variance to prevail I'd expect 20 winners or more to balance the losers, but I can only find 2 or 3 similar where I have actually won.

Position stats show that VPIP by seat goes from 9 to 22 in a a neat gradient. (PFR 9-15 on the same curve) Cold call goes from 0 to 2.5% on the button.

MP1 MP2 and MP3 all show big net losses (apart from the blinds which seem pretty acceptable). MP3 is the worst offender. All other seats have turned a profit, HJ CO and Button being the big moneymakers in that order. I find it really weird that my best and worst seat are right next to eachother.

It's hard to know what to make of this in isolation because the bulk of the losses are from premium hands (KK etc) that I would have played regardless of seat.

Big losing hands are in general:
22, 99, 77, AJs, KQs, A8s, AKs, A5o(!) small suited aces generally, QQ, JJ. Obviuosly its for me to try to tighten up each of these hands, but is there some pattern here? I would raise QQ, JJ, AKS, KQs, AJs and the pairs in all positions. A9o I would raise from MP3 onward, suited aces I would either limp behind or maybe raise from HJ onward.

My session reviews haven't really shown much up, and I am at a bit of a loss as to what to do. Judging my big hand play on the cold light of retrospect, I think I donked off about 3 BI's through bad play or tilt. I just don't know how that compares to others who go back and review their month.

So, the question is, what to do now. With a short roll, am I better off dropping back to NL25 and rebuilding for a while? Or is there enough evidence of bad variance to think that I am actually a winning player at this level but just had an unusually bad month and can ride it out?

Also, any suggestions as to what I should be looking at in order to tighten up? I usually play about 15/11 with a total AF of 2.2, although sessions vary between 18/15 and 12/7. I am already aware that I don't 3 bet enough and I have been working this into my game recently with good but fairly small ball results so far.

Only other thing I can see is that I seem to lose big to two types of players: ultra tight passive types and big flop smashing gamblers. 4 players of these types alone account for about 400 bucks of losses.

I'd appreciate any help you guys can give me. Please let me know if you want me to post any stats or anything. I haven't got my head around posting PT screenshots, can anyone advise (if needed)?

Thanks in advance

[KurtSF]

Drop down to 25NL until you have 20 BIs for 50NL. Do this not because you have to, but simply to practice good discipline.

Tighten up in MP since you're losing there. A9o in MP3, just say no.

Start thinking of QQ and JJ as more like TT/99 than AA/KK and you will lose less money with them.

Don't worry that you lost money in an arbitrary span of time (the cards don't know September was bad). If there is one thing I've learned its that variance is sick SICK SICK in all forms of poker. Overall you sound fine. Try to find another bonus to pad your bankroll, and keep on playing.

Good luck.

[AlexB182]

That's a very long post, special, so I'll just take one your questions out and comment on it, ok?

[ QUOTE ]

Big losing hands are in general:
22, 99, 77, AJs, KQs, A8s, AKs, A5o(!) small suited aces generally, QQ, JJ. Obviuosly its for me to try to tighten up each of these hands, but is there some pattern here? I would raise QQ, JJ, AKS, KQs, AJs and the pairs in all positions. A9o I would raise from MP3 onward, suited aces I would either limp behind or maybe raise from HJ onward.


[/ QUOTE ]

I just filtered my PT DB for the hands you mentionend are your biggest losing hands. I guess it would help for more comments if you'd make a screenshot with your biggest losing hands and post it here. I'll write you a PM if you like and tell you how to do it when I'm finished with this post.

Now, from the hands you mentionend I have to say that all of those are winning hands for me, except for A5os. Yet that's only like down by 20 $ what should come exclusively from the blinds, my VPIP on A5os is at 5%.
PPs: You wrote that you raise all PPs in all positions. I know that a lot of players here do this but I'm not the biggest fan of it. I often limp with 22 - 77, especially in EP. Do you call big reraises with PPs? If you do this too often with incorrect odds this could be a leak.
I would also be very interested in your WtSD stats for all your losing hands, maybe your going to far with them.
Another thing is that I don't think you should play every Axs, especially not from EP to MP1 or 2. How are your stats there?
Furthermore, take a look at your CB stats. When you raise every PP PF and let's say AJs+, JJ+ you have to CB a LOT.
Regarding KQs, check how often you cold call with it: cold calling too much with KQs can definetely be a leak as this hand is easily dominated vs a PF raise. Same goes for a hand like AJs: I think it's fine raising it, but calling too many raises with AJs might be very costly as your playing pretty much for flush (or maybe straight) value only what rarely is a good idea. Check if you are losing money with AJs when you only hit something like one pair, same for AKs. Maybe you stack off too light with only TPTK.

[ranka]

In the pokerworld there are not right way to play small pocket pairs. Both, preflop limping and raising is correct way to handle them but sometimes is limping better than raising etc.

But I think raising cause more variance than limping and you have to play more hands to get real results and make any waterproof conclusion. 17000 hands are enough if you limp PP-s but isnt enough for raising.

Suited aces... I play them rarely, usually in LP (CO, button) stealing situation or just limp if there are 3 or more limpers. Stronger A8s+ I will raise, if there are 1-2 limpers but weaker aces I usually fold. I dont know, how correct it is but I hate suited junk and I think most suited aces and suited connectors are heavily overrated.

Also QKs is one hand what I am playing in LP and always the pot should be unraised because in raised pots I cant never be sure how good my hand is.

And how you are playing AJs? I am playing it in any position and always raise. But I always would fold it, if the pot is raised. Also I would insta muck to 3bet. AJo I start playing in middle position.

And also, I dont know maybe you are read Pokey post, how to use and analyze your game with poker tracker. But maybe you are not then: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...part=1&vc=1

I printed it and it helped me lot.

[ActionStan]

[ QUOTE ]

Don't worry that you lost money in an arbitrary span of time (the cards don't know September was bad). If there is one thing I've learned its that variance is sick SICK SICK in all forms of poker. Overall you sound fine. Try to find another bonus to pad your bankroll, and keep on playing.


[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

I'm guessing A5o was a big pot with 2 pair vs set or 2 pair vs bigger 2 pair. 17K hands isn't really all that many. I wouldn't be surprised if your big losers were 1 or 2 big pots. Maybe you played them bad, maybe you didn't.

In general, you might benefit from tightening up in the MPs. I read a very persuasive article that treats any position that isn't Button, CO or Hijack as EP. I've adopted this to some extent and am really happy with it. I'd be even happier if I had the discipline to play this way all the time. Being OOP sucks.

I would drop down and rebuild your bankroll. Not because of your results, but because it's really hard to play your best game when you are at the bottom of your BR for the limit. It's especially hard when you are trying to establish yourself at the limit. You really don't want to be thinking, "Will I have to drop down if I bluff/call/raise/fold here?"

[Baja15]

How many tables do you play? If your playing less than 8 then 16BIs should be fine, so long as you can still play your normal game.You seem to be one of the better players at 50NL and don't seem to have any major flaws from what i've seen. Just stay away from tilt and i'm sure the results will come.

Good Luck

[oakrdrzfan]

My advice would be to drop back to NL25 at least for a while to restore your confidence and ensure you are playing good aggressive poker.

I had a similar September after moving up to NL50. I stacked off some marginal hands and then ran scared for a while and lost profit due to it.

Since then, I have ran off 8 straight winning sessions on NL25 at PokerStars. Will move up to NL50 soon. Dropping down was good for me.

[Specialwon]

OK, thanks for the good advice guys. Thanks to Alex I now know how to post stats :




I had forgotten about a drunken flirt with NL100 and also a horrible experiment 9 tabling at Party against a bunch of shortstackers.

Anyhow, further comments about the stats very welcome.

Just writing the OP actually helped me to get clearer in my mind, and so I am going to agree with the majority and drop down for a short while and work on 6 tabling instead of my usual 4.

[five4suited]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

Don't worry that you lost money in an arbitrary span of time (the cards don't know September was bad). If there is one thing I've learned its that variance is sick SICK SICK in all forms of poker. Overall you sound fine. Try to find another bonus to pad your bankroll, and keep on playing.


[/ QUOTE ]

QFT

[/ QUOTE ]

Given the thought you put into your post, I have no doubt that you'll be fine in the long run. I would say, however, not to drop down until you hit 10 BI's for the 50, <u>as long as you are comfortable</u>. You'll still have 20 BI's for the 25.

Since you're asking, maybe you're not... I would lean toward dropping down for a while, especially since you're thinking of adjusting your game, and losing more in absolute value (i.e., 1 BI = 50, not 25) while doing so can skew your assessment of the adjustments.

[doublec]

Drop down to NL25 for a bit to gain some confidence back, and to give you a chance to vary your game a bit without worrying about losing too much of your bankroll. I don't recommend increasing the number of tables though as you suggest you might do.

Be much tighter when deciding to cold call a raise. 3bet instead of call if you want to play the hand.

What's your line with AQ, AK type hands? Do you call raises with pocket pairs, or 3bet? What about a limped pot in LP with pairs?

My biggest leak at NL50 used to be making crying calls on the river when I was beat, or even worse, betting/raising the river with 2nd best hand and facing a push or bigger bet. How's your river play?