One terrible run of cards

[Johnny_Cash_Advance]

This past Friday I was playing a 2-4 Hold 'Em game in Atlantic City. I sat down at 11pm and played until 5am without winning a single pot. I was consistently catching rags, and on the rare occasion that I actually caught something worth playing (pocket pair, AK, etc) the flop was no help. The best I got was top pair probably 3 times at most in those 6 hours of play, and I was beaten by two pair or a set every time. Has anyone else caught a run this bad before? Any schmuck off of the street would pick up a pot in six hours, and I'm not a bad player.

[astroglide]

that's like 200 hands. i've had downswings or breakeven runs for 10,000 hands several times.

[sthief09]

If you played for 6 hours at 35 hands/hr, that's like 200 hands. if you have a 93% chance of losing each hand (winning 7% of hands at a 2/4 live game is probably pretty normal for a tight player), the chances of that happening are 2,000,000-1

[Arnie]

heres some advice, not really pertaining to your cold cards, but to your AC trip, get far far away from the 2/4 games in AC, if you are a decent player like you say, sit 3/6, 5/10, or 6/12 depending on where you go

[turnipmonster]

I've been 5 hours without winning a pot in B&M and thought nothing of it. it's not a bad run at all.

--turnipmonster

[MrGo]

be glad you were only playing 2-4. try 10-20 or 15-30

[andyfox]

It doesn't matter that you didn't win a pot. What matters is how you did relative to the cards you held. If you played well, and lost, say, $200, when, had you played poorly you would have lost $400, then you won $200 just as surely as had you left the casino with $200 more than you walked in with.

[lefty rosen]

That's a normal day at the office if you play live poker seriously. It's one of the reasons I don't play live anymore....

[tolbiny]

hey,
its not so uncommone. My worst single session i split one pot over 6.5 hours at 5-10, ended up down 700+. not a fun day and over the next 10-15 hours i won around 8 pots. It sucks, but it happens.

[lefty rosen]

Damn I must be a total rock because I would lose about 3 or 4 hundred at those stakes..........

[Gunsmoke]

Good players win pots without the cards. Get some balls and bluff.

[ QUOTE ]
This past Friday I was playing a 2-4 Hold 'Em game in Atlantic City. I sat down at 11pm and played until 5am without winning a single pot. I was consistently catching rags, and on the rare occasion that I actually caught something worth playing (pocket pair, AK, etc) the flop was no help. The best I got was top pair probably 3 times at most in those 6 hours of play, and I was beaten by two pair or a set every time. Has anyone else caught a run this bad before? Any schmuck off of the street would pick up a pot in six hours, and I'm not a bad player.

[/ QUOTE ]

[tubbyspencer]

I've only played in AC once, and at a slightly higher limit than that, but I doubt you can bluff many 2/4 players at that game.

[tolbiny]

last hand of the night- i post the bb, and get AQs- 4 limpers and the sb completes. i raise, all call.
flop comes AQ4 2 tone.
i bet, three callers, raised by the button, i three bet, he caps, we lose all except the sb.
turn K, i check raise he just calls.
river k. i check call he turns over KT.
with more hands like that during the session its no wonder i lost 700+.

[Boopotts]

I played 4 1/2 hrs yesterday before I dragged my first pot. And about three years ago I had a nine hour 10-20 session where I lost $720, and only voluntarily entered a pot four times; once with aces, twice with tens, and once with AJs. I didn't win any of them.

In other words, this kind of thing happens. One other thing-- if your playing 2-4 in a brick and mortar room you probably aren't going to win much, if anything, over the long haul. The rake is just too high. When you play live I'd recommend at least 5-10, where you have a chance of gaining an edge.

[Blarg]

Yeah, it's almost impossible to beat the rake, much less the tips expected.

As to dry spells, I've gone over five hours before without starting with a pair, and same thing without seeing a single ace. And that's in 7-stud, where you get three cards instead of two to start with.

[Nottom]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, it's almost impossible to beat the rake, much less the tips expected.


[/ QUOTE ]

In my limited experience with the 2/4 games at the borgata, they are very beatable. I'm not claiming you can make a living there, but the play is on a level of badness that I can hardly begin to describe. I'm confident a player following the advice in SSHE could beat the game for a BB/hour or more even after rake and tip.

[Blarg]

Never been there; I'm just meaning the California casinos I've played poker in. There isn't a rake, but an ante, and the ante drop plus the jackpot drop sometimes clears all the antes off the table leaving nothing in the middle, unless the customers start objecting. At any rate, the ante is basically swallowed by the house, and works out to be much higher than a rake per hour. Add in a tip for the dealer, and those levels are very hard to beat. You go through a good bit of money just to get in a single round of hands.

Not that I haven't done it -- I did, and moved up, but found the ante/seat rental payment structures in Southern California casinos very brutal, and the lower you went, the worse it got.

I've only played with a rake online, and a reasonable rake is much cheaper than the ante structures I was used to at lower limits.