Feeling lost at the $24s

[SayGN]

I've spent my poker career jumping from STTs to low stakes NL, to mid stakes Limit, and now back to STTs. I've been around for about 3 years, don't post too often, I read a bit. I've been playing between 6 and 12 tables of the $24sngs on FT for the last month and a half with about 850sngs played.

I started out very happy with my results, feeling that I wasn't running hot but definitely not running poorly. Right now I am definitely running poorly and I think it is beginning to affect my play. While I know 850sngs is nowhere near enough to gauge my true win rate, I believe it is enough to tell me that I have some huge flaws in my game. Looking at my graph, between sng #325 and #525 I had a 30 buy-in down swing, and between #650 and #824(present) I am currently enduring a 28 buy-in swing. I know it is results oriented, but it is beginning to change the way I think about the game.

I had believed that one of my flaws was that I was pushing a bit too liberally considering the fact that alot of players will call my all-in for a good chunk of their stack with Ax in positions where it is probably not profitable to do so. Obviously, their bad call is more harmful to me than it is to them because it puts me into the hand as an underdog for all my chips when I'm sliding with K5 from the sb with a stack of 1200 when blinds are 80/160. Considering this, I stopped sliding those hands. I am now finding myself becoming very cautious in other situations and so many tournaments I'm hanging on for dear life wtih 4 left. That is one of the issues I'm having right now.

The other issue is when I am a chip leader with 4 or 5 left and I know it is my opportunity to use some bubble power to my advantage. I have the mentality that people should be calling my raises only with very strong hands especially if there are a couple short stacks. I throw my stack around at these points and I find that I usually end up losing alot of my stack and often times I bubble. People get tired of my blind stealing and they'll call my A2 slide with KQ or whatever. The 40% that I do lose there I am crippling myself and am struggling to survive again.

I am sure that alot of this information is too general to merit specific responses, but how do I begin to move past this? I am aware that I can expect 30buy-in downswings even if I am playing very well, but to experience two of them in 850 tournaments at a level where the skill is nowhere near fantastic leads me to believe that there are a tremendous amount of errors in my play.

[Mingdu]

In the stock market if you are losing sleep about your investments you should "sell down to the sleeping" level

I would imagine dropping to a lower level game and/or lowering the number of tables would have the same effect and get you back on track

[SayGN]

I am not necessarily concerned about the money. I am beating the game by a little bit, and I am rolled for the $36s if not the $55s. I am concerned with the fact that I don't know what to do in alot of those situations and even if I move down I am going to face the same situation just with slightly lesser calibur players. If I am a slight winner at these stakes thus far, I believe I should continue playing at them considering my goal is to give myself the best opportunity at making money, which, in this case, means learning how to beat the $24s for more.

[Mike MacIntosh]

Work with SNGPT, SNGwix, and/or bubble trainer.

Post problem hands here.

[Sparta45]

[ QUOTE ]
I am not necessarily concerned about the money. I am beating the game by a little bit, and I am rolled for the $36s if not the $55s. I am concerned with the fact that I don't know what to do in alot of those situations and even if I move down I am going to face the same situation just with slightly lesser calibur players. If I am a slight winner at these stakes thus far, I believe I should continue playing at them considering my goal is to give myself the best opportunity at making money, which, in this case, means learning how to beat the $24s for more.

[/ QUOTE ]

You just need to study more.....post more hands, read more, etc.