**** SEPTEMBER LOW CONTENT THREAD *****

[xSCWx]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, you have Omaha, Stud..., everything you want, man. It won't hurt if you play something other than Hold'em for a week or so. Maybe you can even change sites. I am not saying FTP is rigged, but a different software might change things.

[/ QUOTE ]

I do this. PLO8, PLO, HU$, HU Tourn... I switch every couple of weeks.

[Indiana]

funny story(sort of):

so this morning as i'm driving down the highway i decide to call my cousin, who has a funny area code from Austin, TX. So I don't really remember the exact number but i remember I called her friday so i just look at my outgoing calls and dial up the one i figure must be hers....

funny thing though, this guy answers the phone with a very cracky voice like he's still asleep? Now, I dont know my cousin's husband, but he wouldn't be sleeping at like 1030-1130 whatever (im on west coast time)....his voice was kinda strangely familiar though....ZOMFG [censored] me this isn't my cousin's number, its cwar's number. I paused for a minute, and realized that I had just woken up a sleeping poker player on the east coast. He tried hard not to let his voice show disappointment that my dumb ass had woken him up, but i knew he wasn't happy about it.

It wasn't funny at the time, and completely unintentional, but we can laugh at this now....and for the record, for all you late sleeping poker players who have given me yur cell #s, its probably not a bad idea to turn them off till u get up just in case the highway 101 traffic in San Francisco causes me to err and dial u up

Indy

[TNixon]

MasterLJ:

I've been on a pretty similar evil nasty bad run for the past 2 weeks, to the point that my confidence is at an all-time low. Even when I just barely started playing I had more confidence that I could win than I do right now.

I've dropped from a bankroll of $3000, playing $100s and the occasional $220, to a new low of $140 last night. I've bounced back from 150-200 a couple times to 6 or 700, but every time I think things are starting to turn around, I get a long series of nasty beats and coolers, followed by a few tiltish bad plays. (I think I'm getting better at recognizing when I'm being a complete retard and quitting for the night though)

I'm still up overall (having cashed out about $2k from an original starting bankroll of $100), and I don't pay my bills with poker, so at least I've got that going for me, and I'm sure my play is quite a bit worse overall than yours, but a lot of the spots I'm finding myself losing a lot of chips are *very* much like the list of hands you just posted, where people are likely to call out some bad plays, but where there aren't any totally donkish moves or calls.

Unfortunately, my confidence is so rock-bottom low that I'm not actually convinced that I'm still playing well. Any suggestions on how to figure that out?

For the next 2 weeks, I'm going to try to make it a habit of reviewing every hand history in detail after a session, even if it means I only have time for 5 or 6 games a day (I'm playing SNGs, not cash), and I'm also going to very aggressively review sessions from the past 2 weeks (which is a monumental task all on it's own, because this downswing has literally been about 600 games long), to try to figure out how much has been bad play, and how much has been running bad. I honestly feel like it's been at least 75% running bad (and that a big chunk of the bad play has been tilt/frustration when I'm running *so* bad), but maybe I'm wrong.

Thanks for posting that big list of hands though. So much of that looked so disgustingly familiar (and there are so many, over and over and over, which is exactly what I feel like right now) that you've given me some small amount of hope that maybe it really is possible to just run *that* badly, and that maybe things will turn around.

[ChicagoRy]

When you run bad it's so easy to compound the damage with one or two bad decisions. It's easy enough already to completely change your night +/- when you play 100s/200s because of the lesser edge you enjoy, but it's something that you really need to focus hard on in these games.

It's not a huge deal to tilt a bit if you have a 65% winrate in the 22/33s compared to a 57% winrate in the 110s or 220s. The latter can turn you into a losing player, or prevent you for any growth for an extended period of time.

[hra146]

I found a way to graph your HUsng success "in bbs" as opposed to $.

Because in the past I played all levels from the 77s at party to the 2s at stars my graph looks super swingy. Here it is in "chips won".







Hello Sir, my name is Variance... I dont think we have met.


(these are 220 stars sngs being an exactly 10% winner (for this filter))

[Indiana]

if it makes you guys feel any better, i lost 1700 yesterday...1400 of it from playing the 220s and 2 tabling the 115s...im a huge winner at poker, but even good players have horrific days.

That's poker,

Indy

[Scansion]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Take a break or try to learn some other game in the meantime if you are addicted to poker like I am.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, cwar made a good suggestion about hopping into 6max, I might just do that.

I've been playing really well in tournies, but they haven't been all that kind either.

[/ QUOTE ]

When playing for food, taking a break sometimes isn't an option. I've played more than a million hands and I remember my worst run. The last few weeks for me have also been pretty bad, and while I should be +8k in all-ins, I'm down 7.4k. From the looks of it I don't think I've run as bad as you are right now, but I realize that you really find out who you are during these times.

I find that the next step after realizing when you're tilting and deciding to stop playing, is being able to recover quickly. I feel I have close to mastered my ability to decide when I'm no longer emotionally sound enough to play, and I am working on two things:

-prolonging my emotionally sound state (being able to stay off tilt for longer (without lying to myself of course)

-being able to recover quickly after having to quit due to emotional disengagement.

You're experiencing the worst of it, LJ. If you truly feel you are playing very solid poker, then you're going to start winning again, very very soon. We're only as good as our lowest, worst moments, our times of extreme pain and agony bring out our character. Think of this as a challenge- the poker gods are testing your perseverance. Best of luck.

[Barbara Coast]

I decided to sweat high stakes HU SNG and tried to observe how these pros(?) play. Shahin86 played against Asiandude77 in PokerStars $570 turbo. Shahin's stats are not available in Sharkscope, but Asiandude's av. ROI is -1% with 1871 games played. The tournament lasted only 34 hands so I thought it would be short enough for game history presentation.

PokerStars $550+$20 Hold'em No Limit

Level I (10/20)
1. A sb, folds
2. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
3. A sb, folds
4. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
5. A sb, folds
6. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
7. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S calls; FLOP [2d 3c 3h], S checks, A bets 166, S folds
8. S sb, folds
9. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S calls; FLOP [Qh 3s 8c], S bets 60, A raises 95 to 155, S calls; TURN [2d], check check;
RIVER [Kd], check check; SHOW DOWN, S shows [Jh 9s] (high card King), A shows [8h 9h] (a pair of Eights),
A collected 430 from pot -> A (1760 in chips) S (1240 in chips)
10. S sb, folds
11. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S folds
12. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
13. A sb, calls, S checks; FLOP [Ts Qs 9c], S checks, A bets 20, S folds
14. S sb, folds
15. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S calls; FLOP [8d Qc 4s], check check; TURN [As], S bets 60, A folds
16. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
17. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S calls; FLOP [Th 5h 3d], S bets 60, A calls; TURN [Jc], S checks, A bets 180, S calls;
RIVER [3s], S checks, A bets 333, S calls; SHOW DOWN, A shows [Jh Ks] (two pair, Jacks and Threes),
S mucks hand, A collected 1266 from pot -> A (2353 in chips) S (647in chips)
18. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A calls; FLOP [2d 2c Td], A checks, S bets 80, A folds

Level II (15/30)
19. A sb, calls, S checks; FLOP [Jh 2d 8c], check check; TURN [7c], check check; RIVER [4h], check check;
SHOW DOWN, S shows [Qd 3h] (high card Queen), A shows [5s Kd] (high card King)
20. S sb, raises 2 x bb, A folds
21. A sb, calls, S raises 60 to 90, A folds
22. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
23. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S folds
24. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
25. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S folds
26. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A calls; FLOP [Tc 8c Jh], A checks, S bets 120, A folds
27. A sb, folds
28. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
29. A sb, raises 3 x bb, S folds
30. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A folds
31. A sb, folds
32. S sb, folds
33. A sb, calls, S checks; FLOP [Qs 9d 2c], check check; TURN [As], check check; RIVER [Kh], S checks, A bets 60, S folds
-> A (2158 in chips) S (842 in chips)
34. S sb, raises 3 x bb, A calls; FLOP [Ad Jc 4c], A checks, S bets 130, A raises 230 to 360, S raises 392 to 752 and is all-in,
A calls 392; TURN [9h]; RIVER [9s]; SHOW DOWN, A shows [2h Ah] (two pair, Aces and Nines),
S shows [3c 8c] (a pair of Nines), Asiandude77 collected 1684 from pot and is the winner.

[MasterLJ]

Thanks all for the encouragement.

With the exception of one tournament, today was semi-normal. A few sick hands, but that is to be expected once or twice daily when you play 3k+ hands.

Tournament was sick though... took me losing 3 dominations and then when my M was like 5 my KQ found AA for me to get knocked out. Not too shabby. My tournament game has been off the charts.

Thanks all for your words of encouragement. I messed around a little at 6max, went up 1.5 BIs and won a total of about $1k between 6max and heads up. Played some really good poker.

A friend of Isura's guided me through some errors in my play against nitty/really bad types. I opened up my button A LOT and have definitely been reaping the rewards.

[ChicagoRy]

Lol Barbara, seems like a waste of time to watch a fish play a mediocre lag.