Swing and a miss at 5/10 (low content)

[JrJordan]

Well, I've played about 6k hands so far at 5-10 and I'm down a hefty 220 BB without any sign of it turning around soon. I do believe that I've received some pretty horrific luck lately, however I feel there's a lot more to it. I'm finding that many TPTK hands are taking pots down, however I am just getting killed in the heads up situations. I am becoming very tentative with hands like A2o in the SB and it's folded to me. I know I should be raising this every time, but it feels like I'm just getting beat on post-flop play too often to win. More often than not the BB will call, I'll miss the flop and bet, he'll checkraise, I'll call and then check/fold the missed river. When I do hit an ace, I rarely seem to make the cash back I lost from the previous time. Yes I know variance is a bitch, but right now I just plain need to improve in HU situations.

Fortunately, I didn't make the jump up until I had around 500 BB (this coming from a variety of limit, SNG's and NL play from past). Still, I need to hone my skills at the 1-2 6-max tables before I come back. I've read SSH so far and have THFAV coming for Christmas, so perhaps I'll focus on the 1-2 game, clearing some bonuses, and really trying to hone my heads up play. You guys have been very helpful in my growth as a player and I think eventually I'll be ready to try this level again. I see these players with 75/25 stats and I know that eventually I can correctly play against them to eventually be a winning player. I'll still be around posting my lame 1-2 hands for now, and hopefully will be back up in a month or two. I have a few leftover 5-10 hands to post as well... perhaps I'll save that for tomorrow. Cheers.

[naphand]

[ QUOTE ]
I need to hone my skills at the 1-2 6-max tables before I come back.

[/ QUOTE ]

This has to be a joke, right?

Do you seriously expect to be able to play anything more than better than fish by playing this limit? $1/$2 is the wrong school for learning play at higher limits. "Get out more" and get off Party and play some $2/$4 and $3/$6 at UB and PokerStars, where the players actually tend to have multiple brain cells. Pre-flop can still be quite loose but, the post-flop play is much tighter and trickier. YOu will get plenty of opportunity to "practice" playing in tough spots there. You must adapt. When you can win $2/$4 and/or $3/$6 for 2 BB/100 your are in good shape to take on $5/$10.

How many people are doing this? Maybe you should.

[Jeff W]

There is no shame in stepping down. The Party 5/10 is a lot tougher than advertised.

I also need to improve my play with marginal hands like bottom pair and ace high in heads up/3 handed situations. Anyone have post recommendations?

[tripdad]

i think you are flat wrong if you believe you've lost 200+BB because you are a poor HU player. the situation itself is not common enough to cause any major losses. i'm not saying it isn't a leak, only that it is likely the least of your concerns.

cheers!

[muzungu]

Jordan-

naphand was alluding to this, and i haven't played them, but I have heard that the stars 3/6 6-max games are good. I know others have successfully used this as an intermediate step between the party 1/2 and 5/10.

Best of luck,

-muz

[ctv1116]

I know how you feel; I got hit by the 5/10 6max bug as well. I was stubborn myself in not playing Paradise/UB/Stars 2/4 and 3/6 first, but I think I will play some Stars 2/4 to get my game back in shape (and to clear the $150 Stars bonus).

[kiddo]

I agree, if u are moving up and if u only are a breakeven player first 5K, because u make a lot of misstakes, u can lose a lot more then 200BB if u are on a bad run. Even if u are winning 3BB/100 u can lose 200BB at 5/10. I also agree with naphand that u should try to find a gametexture that is more like 5/10.

[JrJordan]

Hey ctv,
Looks like we're in the same boat once again. I took a couple days off to shake out all the bad luck. Now I'm just doing a little bonus whoring to get my confidence back. $200 at Party 1/2, then $250 at PS (I've been saving up on the bonuses for a rainy day) perhaps playing some 2/4 or 3/6 until I'm confident I have a winning record. I think it'll also let me recover the bankroll a little bit. I'll be back though.

[1800GAMBLER]

Work on your table selection, on one table you had me teaching my dad and two other 2+2ers on it, heh. That was fun.

Table selection probably has nothing to do with the down streak though, that was just a fun table.

[JrJordan]

Hopefully I didn't stay too long after my PlayerView stats told me I was in trouble. I'm usually pretty good about moving around as tables dry up. I basically use a combination of PV stats with the last 5-6 pot sizes to decide if I should be moving on. I think a lot of the time though I end up moving around a little too much and don't have enough time at the table to get very good reads (which I've decided was my biggest leak at my first 5-10 attempt). I need to find an easy medium between the two priorities.

[1800GAMBLER]

FWIW, after you left i told my dad to stay on that one. There will still two other 2+2ers yet the other two were utter clowns of >50% VP$IP.

It was funny how it came about to find out everyone was a 2+2er. We had been playing for about 50 hands and i had everyone pegged as too passive but two were tight. You sit down and i thought i recongized your name so, i asked '2+2er?' another guy said 'who? me? yea' then another guy said 'this brown trout in my closest stinks'.