moving down in limits

[Chris Daddy Cool]

recent financial situations will be forcing me to move down in limits for the first time ever. i'm not sure i can handle it though. its really a huge blow to me and my ego and if i played i'm not sure i would be able to give it my 100%. sugggestions?

[ericd]

With the proper attitude you will prosper.

After reading SSH for the first time I realized that I had many more holes in my game than I had thought. So. I swallowed my pride and moved from 10-20 to 4-8.


Well for me the gains for me have been outstanding:

1. With a smaller bankroll needed I am a now able to spend some of my winnings.
2. My win rate, both as the number of bb's and % of winning sessions have gone way up.
3. My losing sessions are much smaller.
4. For an ego boost, you will find that you are clearly the best player at the table. As a matter of fact it will be rare that you run into more than 1 good player (at least at Foxwoods).

Good Luck,

Eric

[Rhone]

If it's your financial situatin, and not your poker playing abilities, then your ego shouldn't be involved at all. Just keep reminding yourself of the real reason you're doing what you're doing. If your abilities carried you to 15/30 or wherever you were playing before you had to move down, they can take you there again...

[BluffTHIS!]

You are making a prudent adjustment to preserve your bankroll and thus your long-term ability to play poker. This is a good time to evaluate your game and plug any leaks. The most important thing is not to play less than your best game just because the limits are lower than you are used to. Rebuilding isn't fun but it beats watching from the rail. Another thing to work on is game selection, that is only choosing to sit at tables that are not overly tight using the pot averages as a guide, and to play the game (holdem/omaha/limit or no limit) that in your experience you most easily beat. The biggest adjustment of course is that the lower the limit and the looser the game, the more you have to just play ABC poker and not try too many moves that only work in bigger limits against tighter players. I won't wish you good luck but that you play your best game all the time (one of Mike Caro's best admonitions).

[BluffTHIS!]

I want to add one more thing regarding bankroll. You did not actually state that the financial situations that are forcing a move down involve losing. If that is not the case then it is because you are spending part of your bankroll on other matters, presumably that you regard as emergencies. If you rely on poker for any substantial part of your income, then it is critical that you don't do this, although of course I am not in your shoes and don't know what you might be facing. Besides building and preserving a bankroll you also have to build savings from your earnings which take care of life's necessities and emergencies. Mike Caro and others have also warned about spending pieces of your bankroll. If you use part of a bankroll on other things even emergencies, then you just fall into a downward spiral where you can't now earn as much as formerly to provide for life's necessities and emergencies. Again, I don't know your exact situation and this is easy for me to say, but it is true.

[toots]

What does ego have to do with the level you're playing at?

Yeah, I can see that playing at a lower limit can be frustrating in terms of lower $/hour. I can see that it might be less fun if you don't get to play with your usual opponents. But ego?

I would suggest that if your ego is tied to the limit you're playing at, there are bigger psychological fish to fry. Given an equal ability to win at limit X or less, then the only things dictating what limit you're playing at is what your bankroll can accomodate and game selection.

[lil']

Ego has killed many a good player's bankroll.

With your skills, you can easily crush a lower limit game. You will look a like shark to your opponents (which should help the ego), and you will be able to move back up to where you want soon.

[Mayhap]

Same game. Same run of cards. Different opponents.
Just need different reading glasses.

/M

[Emmitt2222]

Get staked. OK everyone is against this but if anyone could do it the right way it would be you because you are such a proven winner... unless of course you went broke playing your current game...

Anyway, I would possibly try to get enough money from somewhere to play at least a modest sized game. I mean are you really starting at 2/4? You will probably be able to move up every 10k hands which will probably only be a weeks time if you play alot but I would try and get enough for 5/10 so you can advance much faster. Aside from getting more money in any way, take this as a great way to learn humility. Hopefully this will encourage you to pound out more hands so you can move up much faster. For you I would move up once you have 300BB because you won't risk losing it all but I dont think you need anymore than that untill you get to 5/10 6max if you are at 2/4. Just remeber, you are playing with donks like me now so it shouldn't be too tough, but remember to adjust to our suckiness and revert to the SSHE days, not HEFAP

[Spicymoose]

I don't know what you mean by "financial situations", but I am assuming you needed to withdraw a lot of money for a one time thing from your poker account. If this is the case, then the only reason you need to move down is because of too small a bankroll. You are a very good player, so you should be able to make enough money at the lower limits (at a higher BB/100) to bring yourself right back to the higher limits.

If you want quicker results, get a stake from someone. I'm sure you could find quite a few people who are confident enough in you to stake you (at a very minimal interest rate /images/graemlins/cool.gif)

[MarkL444]

[ QUOTE ]
With the proper attitude you will prosper.

[/ QUOTE ]

be professional

[Mike Gallo]

Dude,

Just do it.

Think of it as betting units if you need to.

If you cannot give your 100% then I suggest you do not play. Its like an NFL offensive lineman playing with his heart not into it, only bad things can happen.

[sfer]

You're either moving down or getting staked and that's life. If you have bad psychological feelings from either you're going to have to find a way to deal with them because aside from getting a summer job and working to build a roll that way I don't see how you're going to have enough to play 15/30 anymore.

[PotatoStew]

Take a magic marker and add an extra zero after all the numbers on your screen.

Just kidding. Seriously though, try to think of it in terms of BBs rather than dollar amounts. Maybe you could add a few tables to your multitabling to make it more challenging.

[TripleH68]

[ QUOTE ]
if i played i'm not sure i would be able to give it my 100%. sugggestions?

[/ QUOTE ]

I have seen a number of horseplayers unable to get a rush/get very interested unless larger sums of money were at risk. Not sure how similar your situation is, but you must remember that(minus the difference the rake makes) risk/return % is the same no matter what stakes you play.

It seems the best gamblers place winning above everything else. My grandfather, who was a real ass-kicker in his day, hated losing so much he played tough as nails in the family game at Christmastime for nickels and dimes. (He used to take a $2,000 roll with him to Vegas in the 70s.)

[steamboatin]

What would your financial picture be like if you didn't have a poker bankroll to fall back on?

Is poker the reason you are broke or did poker pay for outside expenses?

If poker is the cause of the financial problem, then it is only fair that poker pony up the cash.

If poker is not the cause of the problem, I would say, you should be damn glad you had the cash.

I don't want you to answer my questions because it is none of my business why you are broke. I believe how you feel about moving down in limits could depend upon why you needed to spend your bankroll.

I doubt that a farmer is upset about harvesting his crops, his fields are empty but he can grow more.

[PotatoStew]

Another suggestion: learn and master a new game, like stud or omaha. Then it makes sense to be playing at a lower limit, while you're still new at it.

[BluffTHIS!]

[ QUOTE ]
I doubt that a farmer is upset about harvesting his crops, his fields are empty but he can grow more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not if he spent that portion of the proceeds from his harvest reserved for buying next year's seeds, fertilizer, etc.

[sfer]

So what happened dooder?

[bisonbison]

Move down.

Move down and either find a way to play well there or take a break until you can.

That's it, dude. That's the whole shebang.

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
recent financial situations will be forcing me to move down in limits for the first time ever. i'm not sure i can handle it though. its really a huge blow to me and my ego and if i played i'm not sure i would be able to give it my 100%. sugggestions?

[/ QUOTE ]

Situation on a smaller scale. Last November I pissed away a $1100 bankroll in 2-3 nights of drinking and playing MTTs above my means.

I was down to $110 at one point in mid-December, and was playing .05/.10. I added $50 to my account and started whoring and quit playing tournies. I now have a roll of around $5,000 and am playing 5/10.

I am sure you play higher stakes, but the concept is the same. My suggestion is to go back to what you do best, and don't do anything else for a while.

Now that I have a decent roll, I occasionally allow myself to dabble at the micro-limits in things like PLO, Stud, and low buy-in MTTs; but only after I have my hands in for the week and not at levels that could stress my bankroll.

[Sponger15SB]

[ QUOTE ]
Is poker the reason you are broke or did poker pay for outside expenses?

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't be sure, but I have seen a few posts on how bad he has done in the last while.

One (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=holdem&Number=1635791&Foru m=All_Forums&Words=58k&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main= 1631366&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=7821&datera nge=1&newerval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bo dyprev=#Post1635791)

Two (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1942404&page=0&view=c ollapsed&sb=5&o=14&vc=1)

[flair1239]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Is poker the reason you are broke or did poker pay for outside expenses?

[/ QUOTE ]

I can't be sure, but I have seen a few posts on how bad he has done in the last while.

One (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=holdem&Number=1635791&Foru m=All_Forums&Words=58k&Searchpage=0&Limit=25&Main= 1631366&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=7821&datera nge=1&newerval=&newertype=&olderval=&oldertype=&bo dyprev=#Post1635791)

Two (http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=1942404&page=0&view=c ollapsed&sb=5&o=14&vc=1)

[/ QUOTE ]

Just went back and read these posts, plus a few others. At the risk of being flamed, is anyone else going to say that maybe he needs to evaluate his game?

I mean this looks like a very extensive downslide. I know the 15/30 game is swingy, but from his own posts it looks like this is beyond natural variance. Combine that with the posts, where he seems to play a lot of junk and have a loose style; is it not possible that the more astute group of players at 15/30 is punishing his style, where at lower levels his raw aggression was letting him get by cheap?

[bisonbison]

chris has major discipline problems with his game, and most of us who've been friends with him for a while have made it clear that he's making a lot of plays that are at best borderline.

When I say he should move down until he starts playing well, I mean playing well, not running well.