What have I done ? 2/3 of my Bankroll gone

[chesspain]

Since you have two kids to feed, why don't you try to find an real job, rather than playing low limit NL poker or waiting for lawsuit money that may never come?

[solucky]

look for sites with good rb or bonus, if you are able to play 5k hands daily you make a lot with NL/PL 25 only from break even play and bonus/rb.

[Flip-Flop]

Playing so many hands a day in a middle of so many life problems screams burnout.
You need to slow down and tackle one problem at the time.
Hate to say it but if you continue stressing with the same tempo a major meltdown is inevitable.

Some people can handle stress much better then others but everyone has a "snap" point and I think you know all this very well, I just wanted to remind you. [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

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Since you have two kids to feed, why don't you try to find an real job, rather than playing low limit NL poker or waiting for lawsuit money that may never come?

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Usualy getting the job would be the right thing to do. However, salaries are really low where I live. I have made an avg. of about 1200$/month for the last 5 months, playing poker. Even in a very good Job I would make no more then 400$/month. I really messed up by loosing so much of my roll. My idea is to become robusto at 100NL or 200NL. Once I can put 10000$ aside I can start a small bussiness here and keep on playing. I basicaly started playing for cash online, because the money I make from a salary wasn`t enought to play for expenses. I know I`m a winning player at 50NL (played 150K hands) and probably will be at 100NL once I have the Bankroll.

I do appreciate the suggestion tho. I hope I will never fall into this kind of tilting again. I think that usualy my stronger parts of my game where not tilting to much and good bankroll mngt. I just messed up this time ...

chesspain, to add to my last comment. I feel kind of unresponsible choosing to play poker as an income. However, I feel it`s the best way I could make a good amount of money (for local standarts) and give my family a better live. Both my kids go to private schools, since the normal schools are very bad. Also my son needs therapy 3 times a week wich has increased expenses a lot. for an example, I used to work as a shipping agent for oil tankers for the last 10years. I would work about 80hrs a week, spending more time at work then at home. I would only make about 350$ including overtime etc...

[iggymcfly]

It's always going to be easier to tilt when you have expenses to deal with. I got myself in personal debt for a while and I'd often think "I really need to cash out $2000 in a couple days to make a payment" and it would definitely affect my game and BR management lately. After getting that paid off, my tilt control went up significantly.

Really, the best advice I can give you is to try to go into your own world when you're playing poker. Put headphones on, tell your friends and family not to disturb you while you're playing, and whatever you do, try not to think about the money at all. Just focus on the individual hands and if possible, don't even look at your balance until you've already decided to get up for the session. Trying to win money quicker and quicker will only make things worse and lead to disastrous consequences like the ones you mentioned.

Finally, don't listen to the naysayers in the thread telling you to "get a real job" and don't apologize for your choices in playing poker for a living. Most of these people are only speaking from their own limited experience where they have solid well-paying jobs at their disposal and don't have many responsibilities anyway. Just try to relax, don't pressure yourself and play the best poker you can. Remember, ignoring the money and relaxing is the only way the money will come to you anyway.

[PrimogenitoX]

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logging between 5k to 10k hands daily

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seriously, this will make you tilt like crazy if you go too long, the human brain can only handle so much attention switching and stress. I mean everything will be fine, then suddenly like a switch or something your brain will just overload and you will start thinking stuff like putting 5% of your bankroll on a single hand of blackjack is a totally acceptable risk.

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very true

[PrimogenitoX]

cleaner,

I empathize with your situation and am rooting for you. Nobody can control tilt..it is impossible. But you can certainly take steps to reduce it. The fact that you were able to move down to 25NL after such a huge loss shows me that you have the mentality of a solid winning player and will come out ahead in the long run.

Another thing which is almost never mentioned is a more abstract concept. Whenever you have a giant loss during a tilt session, you have to realize that a big portion of your loss was variance. So, while you did lose a ton of EV during your tilted session, you certainly didn't lose enough EV to warrant the entire loss. I know this sounds abstract, but a $2000 loss on tilt really is a lot less in terms of the total EV of the loss. So, in the long run, the variance will even out and you will recover a significant portion of the money as long as you get back on the horse and keep grinding profitably as you have for the majority of your poker life.

Finally, I won't be so arrogant as to assume to know the details of the hardships over there, but my entire dad's half of my family lives in Caracas and from what I hear constantly, I can only imagine how bad things are. The fact that you are able to make such a significant amount of money relative to the economy there is a really a huge blessing. I wouldn't label your grinding online poker as 'irresponsible'; in fact, I would think it would be irresponsible not to play in your situation. Don't let anyone convince you otherwise.

Keep up the grind, keep up the good work, and I am rooting for you.

Thx Primo, I got my Bankroll back to 50NL and grinding...

[JackAll]

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So I cashed out about 2000$ to solve the problems mentioned above.

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Dude, didn't you have any money saved out outside of poker? How can you not have savings to fall back on when you have a family? Like wtf?

Your poker roll should be seperate from the rest of your life completely. What would you do in this situation if you didn't have your poker bankroll?

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I had to drop down to 50NL due to the cashouts. But since I need money fast to visit my Parents, I was really pushing myself

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This is what gets me into trouble - thinking about winnings as money that I need. I am unable to play correctly in this situation. My thinking changes, I don't value bet big enough because I can't afford to lose, and I don't fold when I should because I can't lose the money already in the pot. Obviosly this leads to a far lower win rate.

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IMO the main reason for this tilt was for pushing myself to much and trying desperately to recover the money lost.

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Absolutely.

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My family was depending on the 1500$

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Jesus man. You will come across this problem endlessly until you don't have it in your mind that you NEED to win money.


Find a way to support your family outside of poker and keep poker a hobby until you have a solid 30 buy-in bankroll and are a winning player at 200nl. Only then should you really be cashing out. Even then, with a family maybe more.