Can someone please help me explain why I lose all the time?

[Carolina Pirate]

play pokerstars, they have .01/.02 NL & PL tables and far more limit tables. I've switched over to H/L games b/c of the action and so many horrible players there. Doing much better now and when I tilt it doesn't crush my roll. Only had to make 4 redeposits this week...that's down from the 7 I usually make....lol

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

So I decided to deposit $300 this past weekend.

This is a bankroll for 5c/10c NL. If you insist on putting 20% of your bankroll you are just asking to go broke. You learn by playing and adapting, and understanding that it is possible to play perfectly and lose in the short run. The only way to learn to win is to only play those stakes that fit your bankroll.

[iplayscared]

daniel what is your FTP/stars screen name?

[FoxInTheHenHouse]

Another option is to switch over to S'n'G's or MTT's. This way you only lose your initial buy-in and can gain tons of experience with no fear of losing your roll.

A $200 deposit will pay for a ton of $2 to $5 buy-ins, especially once you begin cashing!!

Then take your winnings to the ring tables, never risking your entire bankroll...

Lose the winnings, move back to the tournies for a while...

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Learn bankroll management and understand variance is all I can say.

[/ QUOTE ]
Although many people have said bankroll management is one of the main problems, I have to disagree. I've written hundreds of posts on bankroll management, but it just doesn't apply here.

Your bankroll represents all of the money you are willing to lose at poker. Losing it is supposed to be a disaster, not an inconvenience. Your bankroll is not your balance.

If you have to withdraw tomorrow to pay bills, your bankroll may be less than your balance. If you can redeposit later, or have your money split between many sites, your bankroll is more than your balance. The OP he has been able to redeposit dozens of times. That strongly suggests that his balance is not his bankroll.

It is not irresponsible to play NL $200 with only $400 on a site. I've done it, and made a deposit during a hand because I thought there was a decent chance that I would want to reload afterwards and I didn't want to miss a hand. I had over a hundred buy-ins elsewhere, just not in the site with that lucky maniac, and it was definitely the right decision to play.

Bankroll management is for winning players. The OP needs to learn to win. Until then, he needs to set a budget, and play within that budget. If that means moving down to a level where an expert would have a 99% chance of not having to redeposit, it's just a coincidence. It could be that the right choice would give an expert an 80% chance, or 99.99% chance, but the OP is not an expert and can redeposit. Someone who deposits 50 times and has lost it all should not be assumed to be a winning player who can't redeposit. Bankroll management theory is mostly irrelevant.

[Nairb]

Pzhon I agree and disagree, is that possible? I agree that is not irresponsible to play nl200 with 400 on the site IF you are in the same mindset you would be walking into Commerce with 400 and play, win or lose, and leave. But if you are trying to make a deposit and build a roll from that, practice good BR management, and move up sitting with half your roll is not a good idea.

I would imagine a lot of us built our roll from meager beginnings and many of us did not practice good management of those funds and we are still ok. But over time we have learned how to do this.

Although I agree that your bankroll is not necessarily your "on hand funds" at any given site, I believe OPs is and a beginner without a sound fundamental understanding of the gameshould not be playing 2-4 unless he just has money to burn and it is an expense. Those of us that play as primary or supplemental income have at some point had to use sound bankroll management to keep up with variance.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]

Here's the deal. About a year ago I would deposit $100 into my FT account about once a week, and lose it immediately, only to deposit more. So I quit. Then a couple weeks ago I bought 2 books, "Getting Started in Hold'em" and Small Stakes Hold'em.


[/ QUOTE ]
SSHE is a book on limit. While it says that it is a book on limit, many people use its ideas out of context in NL. Some of the ideas can be adapted, but some require substantial revisions, or simply don't apply.

GSIH talks about both limit and NL. It does have a short stack strategy which might win in a live game with a $2 big blind. An online game with a $2 big blind will tend to be much tougher. Live games with a $2 big blind are similar to online games with a big blind of $0.05-$0.25. While a good short stack strategy can win in an online NL $200 game, and much higher, that's not what the simple short stack strategy in GSIH was designed to do.

When you increase your stack size to be over 30 BB instead of only 20-25BB, you have changed the risk versus reward ratio of using your whole stack to try to steal the blinds, and quite a few other decisions. Attacking the blinds is still worth it, but you need to use different methods. If you don't know how to adjust your game, you should either leave when you go over 30 big blinds, or accept that you are paying for a learning experience.

[ QUOTE ]

I just about lost my head over this one, tilted instantly, how could someone call a preflop 3x raise with 10 friggin 6 offsuit?

[/ QUOTE ]
It was a bad play, but perhaps not as bad as it looks to you at this point. Note that he got most of his money in after he hit hit two pair. However, I don't think a detailed discussion of this particular hand would help much.

Even if you have $10k to burn, if you want to be a winning player, I recommend moving down to much lower stakes games, NL $25 at highest. Crush these games and know why you win, then move up slowly while preserving the feeling of winning.

[ QUOTE ]

So I stayed on after that and continued to lose my entire bankroll.


[/ QUOTE ]
Don't do that. If a hand upsets you, quit for the day, and come back composed the next day. Someone with the skills to win can easily be a big loser if he goes berserk when he loses a pot.

[pzhon]

[ QUOTE ]
Pzhon I agree and disagree, is that possible?

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course! This situation has many aspects.

[ QUOTE ]
if you are trying to make a deposit and build a roll from that, practice good BR management, and move up sitting with half your roll is not a good idea.

I would imagine a lot of us built our roll from meager beginnings and many of us did not practice good management of those funds and we are still ok. But over time we have learned how to do this.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yes, but the OP just isn't at the point where he can start building a bankroll. You can't practice bankroll management while playing a -EV game like roulette, at least, not in the sense that advantage gamblers use the term. You have to find an advantage first.

I took $5 from a royal flush jackpot on a play money table and ground it into about $600 in 6 weeks, and $10k in a few months while learning to play poker. This didn't take a huge amount of luck. It took playing people who were worse than I was. Casual penny-ante players are terrible, and I moved up when I had learned enough to beat the next level, then the next, etc.

While I excercised sound but aggressive bankroll management along the way, the probability of going from $5 to $10,000 without being a winning player is less than 1/2000 regardless of the bankroll guidelines you follow. Becoming a winning player is the first and most important step toward building a bankroll.

The OP asked why he loses all of the time. The answer is not bankroll mismanagement. Although I don't recommend playing with half of your bankroll at risk in NL, the risk of ruin is not as high as many people expect. If you deposit 2 buy-ins in a game where you win 8 big blinds/100 with a standard deviation of 80 big blinds/100, then your risk of ruin is about 61%. If you deposit the same amount while losing, your risk of ruin is 100%. After the OP has lost this gamble a few dozen times, did he miss that 39% dozens of times in a row, or is he a losing player? The right way to bet is that he is not yet a winning player.

By the way, while big pots lost are memorable, many players lose due to poor play in the much more common small pots, and studying the big pots like the one the OP mentioned won't fix this problem.

[notreallymyname]

Risk of ruin calculations assume that you don't move up or down. If you move up constantly like the OP (and never down), your risk of ruin is much higher than the calculation says.

The point is good but don't overestimate the chance of a winning player's bankroll surviving such lunacy.

[Xanthro]

You are losing because you are playing at a level where the other players are better than you are.

$1/2 and $2/4 online is TOUGH.

If you can't beat micro limits, you are not going to beat these limits. Move down, prove you can beat the micros, then work your way up once you've proved you can beat a certain limit.

Yes, micro stake players will suck out and play weird hands, but their poor play is to your advantage.