What am I doing wrong?

[Papi Shasho]

Am I playing the wrong games for me or what?

I've been playing for like 5 years, 95% of it online...had some good runs, my best run was turning $22 into over $13,000 with a mix of getting 2nd in an MTT on Full Tilt, then going to the cash games and going into the highest games I can afford until I got to a table with some guy named Barny Boatman (I think it was $25/50 but dont remember), and then bluffing off most of my chips.

I feel like cash games is where I always lose money, and I can play solid poker for a few hours before I get bored. I definitely don't want to be a pro or play for a living, but I love the competitive aspect of tournaments and the bragging rights of winning, which cash games don't provide.

Yet, I started playing live, and I don't feel the urge of playing online anymore. I play live $1/2 NL, and I feel like I constantly get bad luck. I play solid for a good amount of time, then end up flopping a set of kings when another player flops a set of aces. Exciting for like 10 seconds with the chance of hitting the bad beat jackpot, but then when I miss I realize I lost my whole buyin.

It's frustrating because I know I excel at tournament poker, at least live especially, but go broke in cash games, yet I keep going back because of "that one time" where I turned my tournament winnings into a [censored] of money playing cash games.

Does anyone play strictly live tournaments and make a good amount of money that way? I feel like a degenerate addict, which I probably am, because I always win and it's only a matter of time before I lose it all back.

I noticed the most steady money I make is in live sit and go's. I've gone on rushes where I win 10 in a row, and while I might go on a little downswing, I feel like I win a lot of these, and do good in multi's. So why can't I just stick to these sit and go's?

Any live sit and go pros out there?

[Albert Moulton]

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then going to the cash games and going into the highest games I can afford until...

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This is terrible bankroll management and the root cause of going busto with your online roll. There was no need to do this. Play at a level where you are adequately bankrolled - always.


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I feel like cash games is where I always lose money, and I can play solid poker for a few hours before I get bored.

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In most live games, especially at 1/2, loose = lose. Stay tight. Watch your position. Play good hands fast. Bluff the better players, especially those who are weak-tight, but don't bluff the "bad" players or the calling stations (which will be most players). Don't play dominated aces in EP for a raise, or in a raised pot OOP. Etc.

Tournaments with rapid blind increases and/or short starting stacks, especially sit-n-gos, reward loose aggressive play as the blinds increase rapidly. That's probably why you've done so well there. Guys who are too tight tend to get blinded out waiting for a big hand.

My guess is that you think you are "tight" in cash games, but you're really a mediocre LAG by cash game standards.

As for playing live sit-n-go's for a living, I remember reading somewhere that the rake that casinos take makes it very hard to make money at those live games. I'm not sure if that's true. You might do better in daily low-buyin tournaments that have a decent return on investment when you make it into the money.

[Papi Shasho]

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This is terrible bankroll management and the root cause of going busto with your online roll. There was no need to do this. Play at a level where you are adequately bankrolled - always.

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Yeah, I knew I definitely made a mistake there, it was just the adrenaline rush of having so much money on the table at once, knowing full well I can lose it all in one hand, which I did.

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In most live games, especially at 1/2, loose = lose. Stay tight. Watch your position. Play good hands fast. Bluff the better players, especially those who are weak-tight, but don't bluff the "bad" players or the calling stations (which will be most players). Don't play dominated aces in EP for a raise, or in a raised pot OOP. Etc.

Tournaments with rapid blind increases and/or short starting stacks, especially sit-n-gos, reward loose aggressive play as the blinds increase rapidly. That's probably why you've done so well there. Guys who are too tight tend to get blinded out waiting for a big hand.

My guess is that you think you are "tight" in cash games, but you're really a mediocre LAG by cash game standards.

As for playing live sit-n-go's for a living, I remember reading somewhere that the rake that casinos take makes it very hard to make money at those live games. I'm not sure if that's true. You might do better in daily low-buyin tournaments that have a decent return on investment when you make it into the money.

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I actually am pretty tight in cash games, and I might not be that bad at them, I just have way too small a sample to really say for sure. I've maybe only played like 4 cash games live EVER. I really only stick to tournaments. In cash games, I'll wait for big hands, then start attacking the limpers and calling stations and get paid big.

My problem has come with the coolers (I flop a set of kings on an A5K board and the other guy flops set of aces, can't get away) and stuff like that, but I usually build up my buyin to like 1.5x before I come into one of these hands.