guess i'll never get this game

txraven · #1 08-01-2007, 06:22 PM

This is a frustration post. How can anyone build a br or win consistently online. Because of br issues I am relegated to the low limit games. I am by no means a great player but dont consider myself a bad one either. Some of the frustration comes from what I consider moronic play. I cant believe the people who call off all their chips with top or mid pr and weak kicker only to get lucky on river or even those who call a reraise allin with a gutshot draw. Is thinking and frustration correct or are those plays good plays? [img]/images/graemlins/confused.gif[/img]

MJBuddy · #2 08-01-2007, 06:37 PM

Why are you made that people are giving you money 89% of the time?

I'm confused.

txraven · #3 08-01-2007, 06:51 PM

I guess I'm the unlucky one then because 9 of 10 times I end up losing the hand. Thats why I'm frustrated. When the money goes in I'm usually ahead. I have been knocked out so many times or crippled by bad beats. I definitely do not win 89% of the time.

Dunkman · #4 08-01-2007, 07:07 PM

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I guess I'm the unlucky one then because 9 of 10 times I end up losing the hand. Thats why I'm frustrated. When the money goes in I'm usually ahead. I have been knocked out so many times or crippled by bad beats. I definitely do not win 89% of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

Poker is a frustrating game. MTTs are probably the most frustrating variety of this frustrating game. The reason is that all of your ROI comes from a few top finishes, but those are few and often too far in between. I've seen a few people post a line that has helped me a lot with my game. "If you're not getting it in bad sometimes, you're not getting it in enough." It used to be the case for me that if I was all-in against someone, barring a real cooler like KK v. AA or something, I had the best hand. However, what I did in the process is pass up a ton of +EV situation to get to that spot. So, when I did end up getting AI, I had a smallish stack, and even if I doubled up it didn't help all that much. So I would get down to 7 BBs, double up, then fold a few orbits and get AI again, and eventually lose and be out before the FT. I saw it as me getting unlucky, whereas really I was lucky to last as long as I did. When I started playing more aggressively and pushing smaller edges, my % of cashes actually went down, but my number of final tables and ROI went up substantially.

Even now, it's a very frustrating game. Bond18 is a great player...read his WSOP trip reports in MTTc if you want to see what it's like for a professional player during a bad swing. Even the best players (and I'm certainly not close to being one) go through long streaks where not much good happens, and it's terribly frustrating. That's why I'm never quitting my dayjob, never going to try to do this for a living...I think I'd go crazy if I had to pay my rent with poker. Keep studying and working on your game and it will turn around, that I can promise, but it may take some time.

edit: just an example, if I take my top win this year out of my database, my ROI goes from 104% to 40%. If I take the top 3 out, it goes negative. That's the fine line that we're walking.

MJBuddy · #5 08-01-2007, 08:00 PM

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Bond18 is a great player...read his WSOP trip reports in MTTc if you want to see what it's like for a professional player during a bad swing.

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To be entirely fair, Bond's swing isn't even THAT bad. Yeah it sucks, but I'm sure even he would commend that having a FT in the midst of it all pretty much shows that he did run well enough once to get a big shot at money.

That said, I had to explain to a bunch of people how I'd never go pro playing poker. I would much rather have a day job, have a steady income and siphon a little of that off into my bankroll in order to play bigger games if I must, but mostly just building my roll slowly.

hamnegger · #6 08-01-2007, 10:08 PM

i actually kept track for a week on all ins i was 57% favorite on average to win when the money went in (either i was all in or my opponent. i won only 42% of those hands. it was a bad first 5 days. the last two days i was 55% but i won sixty something percent (i forget) and i placed in a few tourns. it all evens out in the end .but it was encouraging that i had an edge when All the money went in.

crankalicious · #7 08-02-2007, 02:39 PM

If you get sucked out on a lot, that means you're playing well, especially in MTTs. The only way to get in the money is to be aggressive.

I've personally come to the conclusion that there's no such thing as a bad beat. They're just variances in the game. Any two cards can lose. Therefore, if you can't accept that you're going to suffer those "bad beats", you shouldn't really be playing poker.

BarryLyndon · #8 08-02-2007, 10:13 PM

Tx,

There are several ways to approach this game. After a long time, I'm just starting to realize that the best way (for me, at least) is to just be a student of it and try to enjoy it for the strategic implications. Play within your bankroll and never let BR pressure get to you. If you feel pressure on your bankroll, then move down where you can just get playing and learning. When you make a big score, then move up, where the play will probably be just as [censored] annoying (see my recent "Vaginas of the Poker room" post).

Variegate your game. I dedicate most of my time to MTTs, but I also play NL 6-max and SNGs. Let me tell you, SNGs are a fine way to understand a few things about stack sizes and the art of selective late game aggression. Also, they are just a nice quick 1 hour tourney-like thing where the players are (usually) miserable. It's like one poster said from the psych forum - "if I only played MTTS, I'd [censored] kill myself." Good advice - playing different games WITHIN your bankroll is a great relief.

Poker is a mega-frustrating game. The key to dealing with the frustration is to just try to keep analyzing what you did right or wrong with your hands and play within your BR. That's it.

Fuzzwah · #9 08-02-2007, 10:43 PM

[ QUOTE ]
edit: just an example, if I take my top win this year out of my database, my ROI goes from 104% to 40%. If I take the top 3 out, it goes negative. That's the fine line that we're walking.

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I found this very interesting and my results are basically the same. I'm wondering though how many tournaments you've played total?

Pants Optional · #10 08-01-2007, 07:07 PM

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I guess I'm the unlucky one then because 9 of 10 times I end up losing the hand. Thats why I'm frustrated. When the money goes in I'm usually ahead. I have been knocked out so many times or crippled by bad beats. I definitely do not win 89% of the time.

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these thoughts are normal progression for a poker player, about everyone ive seen goes through it one tim eor another, and some people never get over it (see matusow). the beats arent personal, theyre part of the game, jusy keep playing and improving and youll escape the thoughts. i went through the same thing, and i realize beats are part of the game, and selective memory makes you forget the times you do win as an 89% favorite, since youre "supposed to"