How do you guys get through the "down swings"

[Tking4unc]

I agree that some people have more luck than others, My question is when do you walk away? If you are honestly taking these beats on a daily basis do you just need to tip your cap to the Gods and walk away? I love poker adn really just love playing, but its just so lame sometimes to take hands like this

[futuredoc85]

[ QUOTE ]
I agree that some people have more luck than others, My question is when do you walk away? If you are honestly taking these beats on a daily basis do you just need to tip your cap to the Gods and walk away? I love poker adn really just love playing, but its just so lame sometimes to take hands like this

[/ QUOTE ]

im going to show you something here that may be painful to look at. this is all 100NL and i am a winning player over a significant sample. during this run my winning % was less than 50% with full houses and three of a kind, and i was down money with flushes in addition to those two. im still running at a decent winrate lifetime at 100NL, but these kinds of runs do happen. also this is 6m so variance is higher but this was still pretty gross and lots of people would probably quit during this kind of run. also note that while a vast majority of it was bad luck, it also did get to my head and i was definitely not playing 100% optimally all the way through.




note that this is 13 days, and was a lot of money to me at the time. i looked through PT, fixed a few minor things, but realized i was still playing well for the most part. here is the next week after that run:



you just gotta have the mental toughness (and the bankroll) to push through it

[raistlinx]

The hard part is dealing with the psychological. I moved to NL (came back rather) because the limit games sucked. I started at NL10 and did OK, yeah I made a few bad stack offs when I started again but considering the much higher rake my win rate was pretty good. But then I move up to NL25 and the "variance" kicks in. Down 8 bi in 3400 hands. All of it was bad beats except for 1/2 a buy in. So I drop back down, win a bit at NL10 and move back up. I get up 4 bi just by winning small pots and then boom... down 6 more buy ins. This time it was partly tilting with stuff like weak flushes that I maybe could have gotten away from if I was a better player, AK in a rr pot with TPTK (K) and the 1/2 stack pushes (he had AA)... etc, etc... but what set me on tilt was yet another flopped top two pair or set (this time it was top two pair) being up against a flopped straight, then getting ai with the best hand and the guy hitting his two outer. Of course the problem now is the psychological part, everytime I am raised I feel I am beat. Everytime I get a hand I wonder how it will go bad.

The big problem I am finding adjusting to these NL games is how bad the players are. It seems that everytime I am out of a hand the donks are going nuts calling down or raising with weak hands then suddenly I get in a hand with them and they show up with the goods having slowplayed some monster hand, or draw out along the way. I haven't been able to adjust to this, especially after "wanting" to win so much after the bad beats. Maybe I'm just unlucky at Full Tilt, I've won on the other two sites I've played but have not been able to win consistently on FT at all. Bad beat after bad beat after... ad nauseum. But I don't really believe any site is rigged, or that they have a "doom switch" so I keep playing and losing. Interestingly it is always when the games are "good" that I lose... not sure why that is.

The problem for me is making a nice salary in the professional world means that playing this NL10 crap is starting to be a waste of my time. Sure I'd like to get better and move up some levels, I've read just about every book there is on poker and analyzed tons of hands, but I'm just not good enough at NL to not let the constant bad luck (and I'm talking statistically very bad) send me on tilt and lose more.

[Tking4unc]

I definately consider myself mentally tough, its been about a year of stone breaking even... and maybe I should take something from that, Im running so bad but losing a very small % of my bankroll before building it back. It just gets old when you start counting your bad beat pots up and think "Damn Id be comfortably near $1k if I could hold a hand"

[effang]

[ QUOTE ]
Lame ass question here, are some people really just not supposed to play poker? I know I probably made a loose call with 2 4s there, im playing down a limit trying to flop hands, I love how I tell the guy in the 2nd hand he has AQ, then he sticks his chips in there. Any suggestions or again do you tip your cap to variance? I mean it goes back to what I said earlier Ive got notes on both players, had him on AQ and puked when the Q rolled off, and had the guy on AA KK there and the Ace rolls off... do you see all 5 before making your move or do you just tip your cap there bc I was in so well

*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Tking4unc [4c 4d]
JELion: folds
slowplay1: folds
Weedh0: calls $0.10
Guillermo68: calls $0.10
Ice Princezz: calls $0.10
chipBolduc: folds
wirewraps: raises $0.40 to $0.50
oriolesfan77: folds
Tking4unc: calls $0.40
Weedh0: folds
Guillermo68: folds
Ice Princezz: calls $0.40
*** FLOP *** [7d 4s 7s]
Tking4unc: checks
Ice Princezz: bets $0.80
wirewraps: raises $1.40 to $2.20
Tking4unc: raises $7.30 to $9.50 and is all-in
Ice Princezz: folds
wirewraps: calls $7.30
*** TURN *** [7d 4s 7s] [3s]
*** RIVER *** [7d 4s 7s 3s] [Ad]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Tking4unc: shows [4c 4d] (a full house, Fours full of Sevens)
wirewraps: shows [As Ah] (a full house, Aces full of Sevens)
wirewraps collected $20.50 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $21.55 | Rake $1.05
Board [7d 4s 7s 3s Ad]


*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Tking4unc [Ah Kd]
2PANCHO2: calls $0.10
$crubby: folds
slowplay1: calls $0.10
solocap: raises $0.30 to $0.40
ajh1037: folds
oriolesfan77: folds
sarto555: calls $0.35
Tking4unc: calls $0.30
2PANCHO2: calls $0.30
slowplay1: folds
*** FLOP *** [Ad 8c 9s]
sarto555: checks
Tking4unc: bets $1
2PANCHO2: folds
solocap: raises $2 to $3
sarto555: folds
Tking4unc: raises $6.45 to $9.45 and is all-in
Tking4unc said, "AQ is no good"
Tking4unc said, "i show"
solocap: calls $6.45
*** TURN *** [Ad 8c 9s] [Qs]
*** RIVER *** [Ad 8c 9s Qs] [Th]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Tking4unc: shows [Ah Kd] (a pair of Aces)
solocap: shows [As Qh] (two pair, Aces and Queens)
solocap collected $19.60 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $20.60 | Rake $1
Board [Ad 8c 9s Qs Th]

[/ QUOTE ]

cry me a river? i just wish i got my money in good when my hand was still best. when you move up, people don't stack off that easily.

[diebitter]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]


One thing is when you sit down at a table always ask yourself if your money is going to come from winning small pots or big pots and adjust your game accordingly.



[/ QUOTE ]

That sounds like incredibly bad advice. You play with adjustments to table conditions not if today you feel like winning small pots or big pots.

[/ QUOTE ]


No it's good advice. You see how the table plays, and decide whether it's longball (you play tighter/for big pots) or shortball (you play looser + aggy, wanting to take small pots off people by aggression).

tight tables = shortball, loose tables = longball, roughly.

it's of course more sophisticated than that at mixed tables (ie most of the time).


And of course you playing the table like that tends to change the dynamic, especially if you're the only loosey on a tight table. It will frequently loosen up for you.

[Tking4unc]

Well I mean obviously the 44 vs AA hand played itself, and I wasnt "crying a river" I just wonder looking back, since I had the guy on AQ or AJ, a really good read based on my notes on the guy, should I consider taking one more card off before I push back? Or do you take satisfaction on making the right read and right play? I really think if I see the Queen roll off... Im gonna check call and maybe save a bet