MIA report

[stupidsucker]

Hello friends.

Sorry I havent been around much, but I needed to break the habit of eating, sleeping, and breathing poker.

As most of you know, I took a bad turn about a month ago, and have since disapeared. To fill in those in the dark briefly, I dropped over 30 buy ins at the 30+3 SnG tables. A streak I wasnt exactly prepared for mentaly. Bankroll wise it was a less then perfect situation as well considering poker is my only source of income.

Putting an end to the suspense... Things are better. Today I hit a good benchmark of back to having 30 Buyins in my online bankroll for 30+3 SnGs once again. I was down to $120, and now I am back up to $930.

I urge everyone that has had a recent bad streak, or an up and comming one to take note that getting back on track can be done. It feels HOPELESS at times. When you are on a bad streak everything seems to lose. You look down and see KK only to feel in your gut its gonna lose.

Here is what I did.

1) Looked over every single hand that I went out with or got crippled with. Was it bad luck, or could I have played it better? (Most were bad luck)

2) Stopped 8 tabling (I still feel that this is only a small factor, but a factor is a factor on a bad streak)

3) Stopped starting another table after I get knocked out. Instead I start 4 and play all 4 until they are ALL COMPLETE, then I start up another 4.(I get less in per hour this way, but as I fail at each table The rest get a little more attention paid to them.)

4) Made sure all my finances were in order so that I could play without fear.(The importance of this is often overlooked, even for those that dont play for a living.)

5)Dropped down to the 10s.(I had enough $$ to redeposit for the 30s, but this was a wise choice for mental toughness)

6)Created a plan for how I would move up, and I STUCK TO IT!
-30x buy in is my "base level" So I need $300 to have the 10s be my "base level".
-As soon as I have enough money OVER the Base limit to play 4 tourneys of the next level I play them. (4x 22= 88, so I need $388 to play the 20s. I would need $732 to start the 30s)
-IF after the 4 are played I STILL have enough, I do it again, otherwise I drop back down to the previous level.

7) I also limited myself. This may sound silly, but instead of pounding out poker like my bankroll says I should, I played as much or as little as I wanted to. This made poker seem much less toilsome, but it has made me lazy. A habit I need to break now. It has served its purpose.

Thanks for your support

Aaron

[lacky]

Nice too hear! Just a word of advice. If poker is your income, as it is mine, doubling the required bankroll will add alot of peace of mind. 50 to 60 buyins, or even 100, makes the downturns much less agonizing. If you've been winning for long enough, you KNOW it's impossible to lose 100 buyins. Then, the downturns suck and are depressing, but the stress isn't really there. The threat to the bankroll is what causes the stress, as it is our road to being fired.

Steve

[ZebraAss]

Great post sir.

I would like to thank you for giving this advice to members of this site that are having troubles.

I am relatively new to cards, poker, Texas holdem and internet gaming. I have been a break even player(I was up enough to buy a new laptop...that’s about it) until November if 2004. I took 75.00 up to 1,500.00 in 2 days of poker(~12 hours) and from there I won an extreme amount of money(for me). At about the 2nd week of November I was playing 200/15 tournaments 4 at a time for up to 5 hours a day. Then one day during about the 23rd of November I had 2 straight 30+ buy-in nights. From there I cashed it all out except 12 buy ins. I played the Super and Special MTT's each day breaking even for a week then I went back to play a few SNG's one day and lost the rest of my roll.

In December I played in the Tournament leader board free roll and got 2nd which paid 1,000. I lost at 100/9 within 3 days. I haven’t played since.

I think I forgot how to play poker...for fun. That month was about played as many tournaments as I could in as little time possible (my American blood).


What I have: $100.00 in my party poker account.

My Goal starting tomorrow:

- 10/1 tournaments until I hit 220 - 20 buy ins for the 20/2 tournaments.
- 20/2 tournaments until I hit 660 - 20 buy ins.
- 30/3 tournaments until I hit 1,100.00
- 50/5 tournaments until I hit 2,180.00
- 100/9 tournaments until I hit 4,300.00
- 200/15 tournaments

[Gramps]

[ QUOTE ]
3) Stopped starting another table after I get knocked out. Instead I start 4 and play all 4 until they are ALL COMPLETE, then I start up another 4.(I get less in per hour this way, but as I fail at each table The rest get a little more attention paid to them.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't be surprised if #3 above alone will get you back to where you were. There's some super-multitablers out there, but I still have a bit of trouble when it gets down to shorthanded with 3-4 tables going. 8-tabling makes it very hard to track/think about all the variables that are constantly shifiting. I've also found that if I restart right after getting knocked out, I tend to make more -EV$ "coinflip plays" rather than fold a good hand early (even if I know it's not that strong relatively) b/c subconsciously I know I'll get to just restart another if I lose.

[stupidsucker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
3) Stopped starting another table after I get knocked out. Instead I start 4 and play all 4 until they are ALL COMPLETE, then I start up another 4.(I get less in per hour this way, but as I fail at each table The rest get a little more attention paid to them.)

[/ QUOTE ]

I wouldn't be surprised if #3 above alone will get you back to where you were. There's some super-multitablers out there, but I still have a bit of trouble when it gets down to shorthanded with 3-4 tables going. 8-tabling makes it very hard to track/think about all the variables that are constantly shifiting. I've also found that if I restart right after getting knocked out, I tend to make more -EV$ "coinflip plays" rather than fold a good hand early (even if I know it's not that strong relatively) b/c subconsciously I know I'll get to just restart another if I lose.

[/ QUOTE ]

And to think... my normal route was to start 8 all at once(as fast as I could anyways) then the moment I lost at 1 I started another(as fast as I could) I did this for 2.5 hour stretches.....

My losing streak happened in only about 60 games. This was working fine before.

[ QUOTE ]
Nice too hear! Just a word of advice. If poker is your income, as it is mine, doubling the required bankroll will add alot of peace of mind. 50 to 60 buyins, or even 100, makes the downturns much less agonizing. If you've been winning for long enough, you KNOW it's impossible to lose 100 buyins. Then, the downturns suck and are depressing, but the stress isn't really there. The threat to the bankroll is what causes the stress, as it is our road to being fired.

Steve



[/ QUOTE ]

Always good advice. I have 2 bankrolls. My living expenses and my poker. I try to keep a minimum of 3 months worth of living expenses always on hand, and a 1k BR for poker. This was basically exactly what I had before the streak began. Not wanting to dive into the second BR, I decided to climb up the ladder instead. Had I lost the last $120 I had, I would have taken out 300 from living expenses and then got a job. /SHIVER @ Job. I am one lazy bastage.

Its tough because although I climbed out of the hole, I still havent made any money so the living expense BR has been declining rapidly. If I get to within a months worth of living expenses then I will suck it up and get that..J.J.J ahhhh Beh.

[stupidsucker]

[ QUOTE ]
My Goal starting tomorrow:

- 10/1 tournaments until I hit 220 - 20 buy ins for the 20/2 tournaments.
- 20/2 tournaments until I hit 660 - 20 buy ins.
- 30/3 tournaments until I hit 1,100.00
- 50/5 tournaments until I hit 2,180.00
- 100/9 tournaments until I hit 4,300.00
- 200/15 tournaments



[/ QUOTE ]

I would recomend moving up a little slower then this. The method I used works rather well if you KNOW you are a winning player at each level you go to.

If you do use your method, make sure to drop down a level at ANY time you drop below 25buy ins for the level before it. And 440 would be 20 buy ins for the 20s ... not 220. I just forget the vig for easy math and use 30 buys for my mark. It's nearly fool-proof.(for a winning player)

Also... when you hit the 50s I recomend using a higher BR then 30. When you hit the 100s I deffenatly recomend a 50buyin or more BR... at the 200s... well your on your own and a better man then me... I feel 100 buy ins is a decent BR for the 200s. I can emphaticaly say that 4.3k is not nearly the BR you want for the 200s... not even close.

[AleoMagus]

I will definitely second the suggestions in this post.

the whole 20-30X buy in bankroll suggestion gives a 30% ROI player about a 1% ROR

not every good player is getting 30% ROI (most aren't I'll wager) and as you move up in stakes, you are going to get even less return and will want even smaller ROR (as those bankrolls are not easy to replace).

Just to give an example of what I mean, consider these numbers which give a 1% ROR (approximating a SD of 1.7 buy-ins in the calculations)

ROI | Buy-ins
5% | 133.1
10% | 66.5
15% | 44.4
20% | 33.3
25% | 26.6
30% | 22.2
35% | 19.0
40% | 16.6
45% | 14.8
50% | 13.3

Now, before any players out there say to themselves "hey, I've got a 50% ROI over 28 SNGs now, I think I'll move up becuase I have 13.3 Buy-ins at the 50+5" let me also state that I do not think any player should ever assume they are even getting a 30% ROI unless they have played over... well, a lot of SNGs. I just included those higher ROI numbers for interest sake.

Also, I think it pays to not think of your bankroll as it's actual value, but rather as the value of which you will play till a drop point.

In other words, if I'm playing 30+3 SNGs with a bankroll of $1500, to me this is really a bankroll with only 25 buy-ins, because I know that if I hit $660 I will drop to 20+2.

In this way, you can figure separate ROR figures for each buy-in and multiply those values together.

For example, the $1500 bankroll I describe would give 25 Buy-ins for $33, followed by 15 Buy-ins at $22, followed by 30 buy-ins at $11.

For me, this would be about a multitabling ROR of about 3% at $33 followed by about 10% at $22, followed by about 2% at $11. Multiplied together, this would be a ROR of only 0.006%. In other words, I'd bust completely only once in about every 16000 times from this roll.

Obviously then, your ROR is greatly reduced if you can drop in limits and effectively 'restart' from a semi-new roll this way.

Regards
Brad S

[triplc]

[ QUOTE ]

2) Stopped 8 tabling (I still feel that this is only a small factor, but a factor is a factor on a bad streak)

3) Stopped starting another table after I get knocked out. Instead I start 4 and play all 4 until they are ALL COMPLETE, then I start up another 4.(I get less in per hour this way, but as I fail at each table The rest get a little more attention paid to them.)


[/ QUOTE ]
I, too, have not posted in quite some time, but read this post and felt perhaps it's time to reenter the fray...

I started playing 25+2 Turbos at Pokerstars as a second source of income (I play about 10-12 hours a week...about 40-50 SnGs) and would enter 4 at once (I call it a 4-bagger...can't even imagine 8-tabling, sucker...or should I call you stupid???). I'd play all four until finished and then stop or start another 4-bagger. Well, I can honestly say I didn't play very well (and had some bad luck) and had one win in my first 65 tourneys played.

My bankroll dropped to less than 10 buyins, but I decided I'd play until I hit $100, and if it got that low I'd work my way back up with 5+.50s if I had to.

Well, my bankroll is back up and one adjustment I've made is that I will play one regular SnG (20+2 or 30+3) along with 3 turbos. Usually, I can play 5-7 turbos while I'm playing the "slower" SnG (unless I get knocked out early, of course). Usually, I'll just play monsters in the slow SnG and don't really have to start playing there until I'm in the money in the others. This seems to have helped.

Well, my bankroll hit $1000 recently (dipped to $950 over the weekend...oh well), and this despite an overall ROI that I'm not really happy with (a little under 6%) after 250 SnGs. But after 150 SnGs I was down...the last 100 have been much better.

So, to echo Aaron's sentiments, I was very despondent after the first 65 SnGs...losing to two-outers, never winning a race when shortstacked, pushing with KK early to find AA lurking, and all the other scenarios that lead to out of the money finishes...but this led to a few adjustments (in turbos I was getting too impatient, feeling I had to be stupidly aggressive...toning it down has helped a lot) and better play.

Good post, Aaron...sounds hauntingly familiar...

Play well,

CCC