Session Variance?

[You're No Daisy]

I'm playing at the micro limits on Absolute Poker and I have found I'll put down $5 at the LO8 table or $10 at the PLO8 table. I have noticed a pattern since I have started playing online about a year and a half ago where I will either double up or get up to 1.5 times my original buy-in and then begin to lose. This happened to me last night at a 6-max PLO8 .05/.10 table where I built my stack from $10 to $17 in about an hour. It only took about 20 minutes for everything to fall apart. Hands like AA24, A2KK, A23K, A235 just didn't hit, or I'd get quartered. I left the table with $7.50 (down $2.50). This is getting extremely frustrating and I have to believe this is a MAJOR LEAK in my game. The demoralizing part for me is that my VP$IP is 21% and the VP$IP of my opponents ranged from 60% to 89%. It seems like they are the ones who end up on top the vast majority of the time.

I really need some help here. It may not seem like a big deal to many here who play at the 5/10, 10/20, 15/30 or above limits, but I'm doing my best to stick to my bankroll management standard so I can work my way up. Is there anything I can look at in PokerTracker Omaha to possibly identify what the leak might might be. I can't imagine leaving a juicy table is +EV just because I'm up $5-10.

Any help will be much appreciated. Thanks in advance.

AC

[Sphere99991]

A big thing that happens when you get up on a table is you get cocky, even subconsciously. And you start making stupid calls thinking that you deserve to hit even if you're getting crap odds. AA24 is a really great hand, but if the board comes 8TQ, you still have to fold it to any bet. I think against guys like that you can just play tight, try to see more flops maybe, and don't put money in bad.

[You're No Daisy]

[ QUOTE ]
A big thing that happens when you get up on a table is you get cocky, even subconsciously. And you start making stupid calls thinking that you deserve to hit even if you're getting crap odds. AA24 is a really great hand, but if the board comes 8TQ, you still have to fold it to any bet. I think against guys like that you can just play tight, try to see more flops maybe, and don't put money in bad.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't start getting cocky, however, I do know the opponents are really bad. Most of the time I can't believe they call raises with the hands they play and then luck out by flopping a boat, etc. And yes...When I had great starting hands like I mentioned in the OP either the flop didn't fit, or I'd have a draw to the nut low with the nut flush and I'd either get pushed out of the pot when a bad card hit on the turn, or (during the last hand I played) I got counterfeited on the river when a deuce hit and the donk held A3. All these little things add up to lost money and it's frustrating.

AC

[rando]

Maybe the first thing to do when you do the first step, doubling up or going way over max buyin, is to start thinking ahead one extra street. If you have AA24 suited or not, and the flop is 1 low card with some other backdoor high potential, and you're thinking about calling that flop, are you often thinking about what you'll do if a good-bad-neutral card turns? If not then you should look at this. Otherwise just tighten up with premium hands when you don't hit your flops against the super loose preflop callers. Your edge against random hands with AA24 isn't often that huge preflop, and it's just as likely they will hit their hands. Set them up to leverage your advantage gained in selective play. Encourage their bad play, then hit them hard on a few choice hands.

[RobNottsUk]

Perhaps stack size effects come into play. When you're one of the shorter stacks, then loose opponents are denied the implied odds they need to draw out. When your stack becomes deeper, the leverage of future betting means your odds are worse on the flop than they appear, particularly if these players have gained a reasonable idea of the kind of hands you play, and now due to respect of deeper money pay off less.

Perhaps you should try buying in for less than the maximum for a bit, and leave the table once you've doubled up. The odds are, that eventually you lose a large pot, so if several players cover you several times over, the luckiest out of a pool of poor players, you become a favourite to loose your winnings at some point.

So perhaps it's not just fatigue, and tending to leave the table when you're fed up and become stuck, but actually not adapting your play to changing stack sizes (pf raise sizing, and money remaining on the flop).

The PLO book by Slotboom, has nice discussion of varying play to stack sizes, though I'm not a PLO8 regular player, much strategy of PL play must be common to both games.

[sfgiants]

[ QUOTE ]

I don't start getting cocky, however, I do know the opponents are really bad. Most of the time I can't believe they call raises with the hands they play and then luck out by flopping a boat, etc. And yes...When I had great starting hands like I mentioned in the OP either the flop didn't fit, or I'd have a draw to the nut low with the nut flush and I'd either get pushed out of the pot when a bad card hit on the turn, or (during the last hand I played) I got counterfeited on the river when a deuce hit and the donk held A3. All these little things add up to lost money and it's frustrating.

AC

[/ QUOTE ]

I've been through a similar run recently - getting counterfeited, boat over boat, getting chased down by backdoor flush draws, etc. I find it helps if I go over my session in Pokertracker using the hand history replayer. Almost always, I find a mistake that I made somewhere in the session, and it brings something positive out of a frustrating situation. It's also quite humurous sometimes, such as when I review a donk raise pre-flop into a multi-way pot with 8999 (actually happened!). [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[napolewan]

I've played a fair amount of LO8 & PLO8 at AP (at the micro-stakes) and I have trouble beating them consistently.

It's difficult to win a fair share of pots when 7 people see the flop and nobody with any sort of draw is willing to fold, even in the face of re-raise upon re-raise (I'm exaggerating but only slightly). I think the stakes are so low at that point that most people who are confused are just gonna call anyway. And in the process, my nut-nut turn card has turned into nothing on the river too many times to count. It's one thing to let 1-3 players draw with you, but more than that and your odds aren't so good.

Don't get me wrong, I have beaten a lot of these games, but I have also had runs suffering suckout after miserable suckout. After a certain point I concluded that playing these games is pretty much a waste of my time. The stakes are too low to provide any meaningful profit, and it takes a lot of time to grind it out since a lot of the pots are split/quartered.

On the other hand, when there is more money on the line, confused players are at least slightly more apt to fold their marginal draw. So you generally get fewer terrible 2-outer or runner-runner suckouts. So, I tend to fare much better at a brick & mortar casino playing $4/8 than I do on AP playing $0.10/$0.20. (I'm not willing to put enough money online to play higher stakes online -- & from what I hear, those games would be pretty tough anyway).

The live tables are often (not always) softer, and people will often lay down a hand that you would probably see them raise with at micro stakes. Usually you get at least a couple of players at the table who don't play Omaha very well. Or a couple who are drunk or tired, thus making very poor decisions whether they know how to play or not. This is not always the case -- I've played at some more difficult LO8 tables. But it's usually pretty obvious when someone doesn't know what they are doing, and when they do.

Your adherence to bankroll management standards is admirable. But, my advice to you would be to save up enough for a couple of decent-sized buy-ins, and go play some live LO8 someplace if you can. And just accept it if you get crushed. If you get there and you don't feel like you can beat the game, just leave. But as I've said personally I find low-stakes b&m LO8 much easier than AP micro. And obviously the winnings are much more significant.

[You're No Daisy]

Good idea...I think I'll do that tomorrow. Tonight is the last class in my MBA program. I will never have to go to school again after tonight! [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

AC