In deep...

[greatmattsby]

Hello all,

I don't know if this is the appropriate forum for this question, but please bear with me...

While I was only recently introduced to 2+2, I have been playing poker seriously for a few years now. Never have a experienced such a terrible run as I have in recent weeks. I won't bore you with the bad beat stories of set over set or miraculous rivered shots to the gut (or my failure to walk away from crazy tables shortly thereafter). I have spent a significant amount of time reading other similar post on this site, and I have tried dropping a few levels to regain some composure. Unfortunately, that just led to more frustration and a lack of concentration. I also took a "poker vacation" for a few days, but ended up getting absolutely hammered on my first day back. My confidence is shot, and I'm starting to wonder how I can start attacking the game again.

Any and all thoughts would be very much appreciated. Any vote of confidence would be welcome at this point...

Thanks...

Matt

[beernutz]

[ QUOTE ]
Hello all,

I don't know if this is the appropriate forum for this question, but please bear with me...

While I was only recently introduced to 2+2, I have been playing poker seriously for a few years now. Never have a experienced such a terrible run as I have in recent weeks. I won't bore you with the bad beat stories of set over set or miraculous rivered shots to the gut (or my failure to walk away from crazy tables shortly thereafter). I have spent a significant amount of time reading other similar post on this site, and I have tried dropping a few levels to regain some composure. Unfortunately, that just led to more frustration and a lack of concentration. I also took a "poker vacation" for a few days, but ended up getting absolutely hammered on my first day back. My confidence is shot, and I'm starting to wonder how I can start attacking the game again.

Any and all thoughts would be very much appreciated. Any vote of confidence would be welcome at this point...

Thanks...

Matt

[/ QUOTE ]

I like to find some random living thing and kill it. Call it a sacrifice if you must label it. Somehow the exhilerating feeling I get transfers to success at the tables. YMMV.

[Nagoo81]

[ QUOTE ]

I like to find some random living thing and kill it. Call it a sacrifice if you must label it. Somehow the exhilerating feeling I get transfers to success at the tables. YMMV.

[/ QUOTE ]

*Backs away slowly*

[Felix_Nietsche]

You need to look at a couple of things. I assume your game is Hold'em....

First: Do you TRULY understand poker odds? For example lets say you have call a raiser w/ 88 and the raiser has AA. The flop is 8xx. You get outdrawn on the river. What were your odds of getting outdrawn? If you said 22:1, you are wrong. 2nd example, you have KK and get called by Ax-s. The flop is xff where Ax-s has a flush draw. Are you a big favorite? If you said yes, you are wrong....

2nd: Are you going on tilt and throwing away lots of extra dollars?

3rd: Bad streaks can happen, one day I had three sets get beat by higher sets on the river. The day ended when I had KK and lost my stack to someone going for an INSD. I call that day "Black Saturday".

I can empathize because currently, I'm 1.5 months into bad streak myself. In December I had $8000 worth of pots which were coin flips. On average I would have won $4000 and lost $4000. But I won zero and lost $8000. Add a few thousand "tilt" dollars and bad beats and I have a massive downswing. I lost my stack last night to a 2-outer on the river and I had to quit playing for the night. I have heard bad streaks can last 2/3 months. I did not believe this at first but I'm becoming a believer now....

Of course you could be making tactical errors that your opponents are exploiting... I obviously can not comment since I have never seen you play........

[greatmattsby]

Thanks for the help... and the jokes. All is welcome.

Felix- I understand and agree with your point about leaks in my game and being realistic about the odds. I would counter with two points.

1#- Say you get lucky and flop top set to your opponent's QQ. The odds of his or her hand improving is almost exactly eight percent, and you can cut that in half after the turn. I will concede the luck on the flop, but with that considered, you should win with top set no less than 96% of the time. I have had bigger sets rivered at least three times in the past three weeks. If I think I'm a dog with a middle PP and I don't flop a set, I get out of the hand. However, I don't think you can realistically say that it is an improper assessment of the odds when one thinks that a flopped set should be good against a bigger PP. As far as your KK vs. Ax with four to a flush, what troubles me is that recently it seems that it's not Ax with a four flush that beats my KK, it's 96 gutshot that makes me question the game. I know these things work over time (that's the beauty of odds and probability), but I just can't help but feel like I'm catching more than my share of the short end of things here.

#2- I am reasonably good at self-assesment, and I do think that I have lost a chunk of my bankroll unnecessarily. However, I don't think tilt accounts for even 25% of my total losses over the past month. Three cracked sets are much more expenive than tilt...

As far as your rough spot is concerned, are you still just grinding it out? Have you found that you feel more confident in tournaments or cash games? I have been told that it might be beneficial to down levels even further and either a) play every hand for a raise for a few rounds, or b) only play AA-TT and AK/Qs for a session--- do either of these options sound more appealing to you?

[Felix_Nietsche]

(1) Your set winning% is less than 96%. Assume AA v. 88 and a 8xx flop with no draw possibilities. The probabilty of an Ace not hitting is P(no Ace) = (43/45)*(42/44) = 91%.
So expect to get outdrawn 9% of the time. This is a SIMPLISTIC calculation so please don't nit pick. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

(2) Then you have better self-conrol than me. My tilt dollars to bad beat dollars are about 33/67. Fortunately I have other strengths which compensates for this 'leak' in my game.

(3) I play NLHE cash games. My bankroll drop from 5-figures to 4-figures and the sharks at the higher NL levels were smelling blood so I moved down to weaker competition. Surprisingly, the bad beats (and tilt dollars /images/graemlins/frown.gif continued to plague me.

I like to compare poker to professional baseball. In baseball you have Minor leagues(A, AA, AAA) and the Major Leagues. It is common to move a major leaguer(sp?) down to the minors to work out a few kinks in their game.

I've sent myself to minors........ I want to work out a few leaks, beat up on some poker novices, re-group, and get back into the big leagues....

[dogmeat]

If you are looking at AA against 88 with a board of 8xx and there is a two flush or two straight you could be looking at as little as being a 3-1 favorite by the turn. Remembr that you can also be beaten by a running pair if it is higher than eights and matches a card on the board (8-5-9 board two nines come).

You probably don't have nearly as good odds of winning the pots you mention as you think. Also, getting three sets beaten in this manner in three weeks is nothing. I've had three beaten in an hour. This difference may be because your sample size is tiny. I play 50,000 hands a month.....

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
I can empathize because currently, I'm 1.5 months into bad streak myself. In December I had $8000 worth of pots which were coin flips. On average I would have won $4000 and lost $4000. But I won zero and lost $8000.

[/ QUOTE ]


uhhh...what?

and the rest of your post seemed so genuine.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Would it not be more HONEST of you just to come out and call me a liar?

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
Would it not be more HONEST of you just to come out and call me a liar?

[/ QUOTE ]

Well clearly only one of us understands the concept of honesty. As I clearly implied this could not be correct, my reply was honest. If I had just come out and called you a liar my response would have been more STRAIGHTFORWARD, not honest. As it is, I was asking you to clarify your statement, back it up with some kind of evidence, or correct it to read hypothetically. I would never make a ludicrous claim as a random person in an online forum and expect to be believed without reason/evidence.

[Felix_Nietsche]

No, what is clear is that you and I were raised differently.

I was raised that implying or calling someone a liar was not to be done lightly. If you are ignorant of coin flip plays in NLHE then you have no business commenting on the posts....

As for evidence, seeing my bankroll fluctuations is really none of your business..... Believe me or don't believe me....... Trying to prove something to some random 2+2 poster is not high on my priorities...

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
I was raised that implying or calling someone a liar was not to be done lightly.

[/ QUOTE ]

Welcome to the internet. If you want some advice, taking everything a little more lightly would probably be beneficial for you.

[ QUOTE ]
If you are ignorant of coin flip plays in NLHE then you have no business commenting on the posts....

[/ QUOTE ]

I am not at all ignorant of NLHE cash games, as I played them exclusively for many months. As for coin-flip situations, the times I would find myself all-in preflop on a coinflip were few and far between. So the number of flips that led to this 0 for $8,0000 would be pretty relevant I believe. If you are playing for very high stakes and this is the total of 3 or 4 flips then the stat is completely worthless and overblown. If it is over a large number of trials then I would say either a. you are a liar or b. you dont keep good records and have a selective memory. You are also playing the game rather strangely. So, I would be inclined to believe it was over a very small number of these situations and you simply made it seem to be a bigger deal than it was. However, you can clearly see why I would seek clarification.

[Andy B]

You lost every coin flip you played? How many hands are you talking about? If you selected the $8000 worth of hands you lost, ignoring, say, $5000 worth of coin flips you won, I find that believable. If you played 20 coin flips and lost all of them, I find it less so.

[Felix_Nietsche]

Four big pots in December.....each pot roughly $2000 and all-in on the flop/pre-flop (and heads-up).
Odds were roughly 1/(2^4) to lose all four. So 1/8 chance of losing all four coin flips...

I play about 15,000 hands a month and I only keep track of LARGE pots. Obviously in 15,000 hands there were hundreds of coin flip situations. Most of these situations I will never know for sure since usually these types of matchups rarely go to the river in NLHE....

[Felix_Nietsche]

"If you want some advice, taking everything a little more lightly would probably be beneficial for you."
****No, I really don't want your advice.

"However, you can clearly see why I would seek clarification."
***No, you never seeked clarification. You made a judgement without having all the pertinent facts.

[MrFeelNothin]

[ QUOTE ]
No, you never seeked clarification. You made a judgement without having all the pertinent facts.


[/ QUOTE ]

No, I did ask clarification after you posted an outrageous claim. The fact that this $0 to $8000 was over the course of only four hands was extremely relevant to the discussion as this result was not statistically uncommon.

[GuyOnTilt]

So 1/8 chance of losing all four coin flips...

Since you decided to be all upitty in this thread, I would think you'd know the difference between multiplication and exponents.

GoT