BROKE AGAIN

[treeofwisdom7]

haha i went broke again was in a 2 week slump. some of it is prolly my fault and some of it might be because i hit s slump. maybe i need to hit a lower buy in, or take some time off the game. its just hard to try when the buy in is small... ive been playing for 9 months now and have gone broke alot. i have a full time job so i usually buy back in for 50 or 25 after i get paid.. havent felt like winning since i started this down hill slump.

what do you guys suggest i do? take a break/go to a lower buy in*which would be 1$/ or something else.. ok ok i know i suck but i do put in a effort in and out of the table..

alright thank GL!

[durron597]

Spend the next $50 on Theory of Poker and Hold 'em for Advanced Players.

[treeofwisdom7]

i actually have a lot of poker books including that one. right now im readin Matt Matros the making of a poker player.
i havent fully read Theory of Poker cuz i dont think it would help my sit n go game.

[Slim Pickens]

Man, even Ken Warren's book helped my game. Every book helps your game because it makes you think about poker. Finish TOP.

Slim

[treeofwisdom7]

i spend a lot of time thinking about poker of course the more i think about the more i learn thats theres more to learn. so i have a bunch of books to read and 7-8 i have read with a few re reads. on a week i average 20-30 hours of play. but i think about poker and read prolly about that much if not more. the reason i think about the game so much is because i can do that at work. think about poker theory and how i should play every hand. maybe i just need more time

[Pokerscott]

Post some hands where you weren't sure what to do (or some you THINK you did the right thing).

I guarantee you will learn things /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Pokerscott

[The Yugoslavian]

[ QUOTE ]
even Ken Warren's book helped my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow....you must have been the worst player known to man.

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yugoslav

[stupidsucker]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
even Ken Warren's book helped my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow....you must have been the worst player known to man.

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yugoslav

[/ QUOTE ]

Helped me a little too, but I had to unlearn some things. It was the first poker book I owned, and not terrible for someone who has never played a hand in their lives. otherwise......

[stupidsucker]

How much have you lost total? what buy in do you play? how many games have you played?


If you dont know the answer to all of these questions then there is a good chance that you are just losing player.

I recomend posting some hands/questions first then buying in for 50 and playing as many 5s as you can.

There can really only be 3 feasable reasons for busting out so often.

1) under bankrolled for the limit
2) really really really bad luck
3) You arent a winner


Figure out why first, then act accordingly.

[snap]

I was in the same boat (actually still kinda am broke in comparison to may on here I'm sure /images/graemlins/crazy.gif) but posting here will help. Take the feedback as something positive even if you get ripped into. I very recently came to 2+2 and see my game improving everyday. Also study study study, and try to put what you've learned into every game. GL w/ it.

[Voltron87]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
even Ken Warren's book helped my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow....you must have been the worst player known to man.

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yugoslav

[/ QUOTE ]

Ken Warren's book was the first poker book I ever read. I chose it becuase it had the most money on the cover out of all the books on the shelf. I distinctly remember passing over a couple ugly books with relolvers on the cover or some crap.

[snap]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
even Ken Warren's book helped my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow....you must have been the worst player known to man.

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yugoslav

[/ QUOTE ]

Ken Warren's book was the first poker book I ever read. I chose it becuase it had the most money on the cover out of all the books on the shelf. I distinctly remember passing over a couple ugly books with relolvers on the cover or some crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

LoL...mmmm money.

[Big Limpin']

[ QUOTE ]
i havent fully read Theory of Poker cuz i dont think it would help my sit n go game.

[/ QUOTE ]

/images/graemlins/mad.gif

[treeofwisdom7]

i actually have stats on my play. in the past 50 sit n go game i have played my roi is .06 but i also play other games like tourny buy ins. thats not too many hands but its enuf to make me go broke..

[ripped]

What is your NL game like? Before I started Sng's my NL game was very good already and I jumped in to sng's with immediate results. I am wondering if you are jumping in to sng NL games without much experience or maybe you are playing too loose in rounds 1-3?

[treeofwisdom7]

yah i started off only about 9 months ago playing nl ring games and sit n gos. but i decided that i liked sit n gos better. just recently i started tracking my result which arent that great. but my ring games arent too good ive played all the low limits from 10c-2$NL prolly only have made out in the 25c and lower games. maybe i just had a bad run. i dont get too much time to play poker. but the next games i play i will post my hands to see if im playing them good.. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

[Slim Pickens]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
even Ken Warren's book helped my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow....you must have been the worst player known to man.

/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Yugoslav

[/ QUOTE ]

Warren's book got me thinking about poker, rather than just playing robotically, because it was so bad that i needed to justify why what he said was wrong. Three things he said got me thinking.

1) something like "I'd rather play AK than AA because I lose less with it." Yeah, you know, I need to not go broke every single time I get a good starting hand and it totally misses. Although I'd rather play AA than AK because it's a better hand, there's some value in being able to lay it down.

2) "Cards can and do run in cycles. The theory of large numbers proves it." Total BS, but there's value in not being known as a high-card only player, especially in a ring game against the same players for ten hours.

3) His chart "Hand Rankings Based on Earning Power" Realize why this is totally subjective and useless without an extensive discussion on how it was generated, which of course he doesn't give. His explaination would probably be a load of BS anyway, but it made me think that any system that claims to "rank" starting hands is highly subjective and assumes a lot about your opponents.

FWIW I was actually the worst poker player known to man for a month or so after I read that book and that jerk owes me the $400 I lost because of it. Then I burned his book.

Slim

[Misfire]

[ QUOTE ]
ive been playing for 9 months now and have gone broke alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I wouldn't deposit another dollar until I could consistantly beat the play tables.

[Blarg]

There's Dan Harrington's book, too, and Sklansky's Tournament Hold'em book. And that great link collection from the shadow -- have you read that?

Part of why you're losing is the horrible rake at 5+1's. That's going to cut a reasonable ROI down by half or a third. I moved from being a loser at the 5's to a winner at the 10's just from the difference in rake alone.

How many games have you played? It's hard to know what a two-week slump means if we have no idea how many games you play per week. Heck, maybe Raptor plays more per day!

Are you multi-tabling or single tabling?

I think the best thing you could do is post hands and ask for analysis.

[Blarg]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
ive been playing for 9 months now and have gone broke alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

Man, I wouldn't deposit another dollar until I could consistantly beat the play tables.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think even playing for a nickel totally transforms the way poker is played, so free games don't help much besides learning comfort with the rules and timing and things like that. People will play a lot harder and smarter for a penny than they will play for a billion dollars of play money. I've played play money before and won gigantic amounts of money quickly, only to get crushed at the tiniest levels of real money poker.

I think your suggestion is a good effort to helpful, but I don't think you can get around how totally unlike regular play the games are when you're only playing for play money.

[Iamafish]

Listen, I honestly think you should maybe stop playing......SnG's.

It seems to me that you almost don't seem to care if you win or lose.

Also, go get good at limit poker first. Some people say you should start at NL, but I was the other way around and maybe you are too.

Once you get good a limit, play 25NL and SnG's, and you should not have a $50 bankroll, that can effect you mentally in the way you think if you loose $25, which is less than normal.

Play low limit, $200 sounds good, move from there.

[Misfire]

[ QUOTE ]
I've played play money before and won gigantic amounts of money quickly, only to get crushed at the tiniest levels of real money poker.

I think your suggestion is a good effort to helpful, but I don't think you can get around how totally unlike regular play the games are when you're only playing for play money.

[/ QUOTE ]

I see your point, and you're exactly right that the game changes, but if you CAN'T beat the play tables, you most likely don't have a prayer with real money either. Considering OP has gone broke MULTIPLE times, I'd want to make sure I'd at least come that far before I sunk any more of my money back into the game. (Learning a bit more about BR management probably wouldn't hurt either.)

And yes, I'm extremely risk averse and extremely conservative with money (poker and otherwise)--probably more than necessary...but I have also never gone broke.

[dfscott]

[ QUOTE ]
in the past 50 sit n go game i have played my roi is .06 but i also play other games like tourny buy ins. thats not too many hands but its enuf to make me go broke..

[/ QUOTE ]

How did you go broke with a positive ROI? If it's due to the other games, then stop playing the other games so you can focus on getting your SnG game in shape.

[tminus]

i second that, harringtons book is great

i must say though that his straregies are not suited for $5/1 SNG's. For example, blind stealing in small fields will fail when you get lunatics calling with anything. For this reason I play the $10/1 where there is usually a bit more intellignce.

My first bankroll at Partypoker was $50 and I lost it during a down swing. I took some advice here and reloaded at $200. Since then its been at a high of $300 and a low of $150 but never busted despite the dry spells and occasional tilt run.

On that topic, I recently discovered that the biggest leak in my game is winning. Whenever my roll is positive I get foolish. I step up to a $30 table, which Im certainly not ready for, and play like an idiot. Then if my roll is low I play a great game at a lower level and recover. I know this is a glaring defect and Im trying to work on it.

[Fins]

[ QUOTE ]
Part of why you're losing is the horrible rake at 5+1's.

[/ QUOTE ]
I thought TOW7 said he played at UB in another thread... they have $5.50's.

With your BR why not play the $1.10's?

[Blarg]

I guess I forgot where he played and what. For some reason I was thinking of the 5+1's.

I agree with the idea of playing the really tiny real-money SNG's I hear about, the ones you can play for a dollar or a quarter or something. You can play an awful lot of those without affecting your bankroll, yet they're still for money, so people won't play them like quite the idiot drunks they play like in the play money games.

[Blarg]

Yeah, you definitely have to adapt. I have to adapt constantly in the 10's, as sometimes the games are incredibly passive and I can steal everyone blind, and sometimes I'm literally getting people calling off their whole stack with 7-2 offsuit and 5-2 offsuit.

[treeofwisdom7]

hey guys thanks for all the help. i think i lost some money cuz i was on a bad weak and sinse i have been tracking my results for only the past month the past week has really took a hit to my small results. anyway im gonna post hands and get your advice. also i'll try to stop playing over my head which is what i was doing sometimes. e.x. i would win 4 or 5 sit n gos in top 3 then move up to a 20 thinking i could beat it.

[raptor517]

[ QUOTE ]
ive been playing for 9 months now and have gone broke alot.

[/ QUOTE ]

this sounds a lot like me when i first started playing. i tried to play 15-30 on a 500 dollar bankroll, 2 tabling. yea, i ran my account up to lke 3k in a day, but i went broke a lot before that.

[ QUOTE ]
havent felt like winning since i started this down hill slump.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is not a good sign. if you dont feel like winning, you generally dont have a lot of hope to actually win

my advice to you is to put like 300 bucks into yer account, and 2 table the 10+1s until you can adjust. play as often as you can, and really focus on what is happening. analyze your mistakes. post a few hand histories on 2+2. take part in conversations about other's hands, even if you might be wrong. talking about the game is one of the best ways to improve, and this board is great for that. holla

[tminus]

RE: 'two tabling', how do you keep notes on 20 at once?
im usually busy running through the hand history seeing how people are playing...busy enough with 1 table, how do people do it with multiples ?

[Blarg]

They don't. They play more mechanically, and only note exceptions to the norm.

The really good players, however, are often exceptionally observant and experienced, and may note plays and player habits quickly, and understand what they mean and make resolutions and decisions based upon that knowledge quickly, while that lesser players either don't notice anything at all or have to take a while to puzzle out their conclusions.

Multi-tasking can be learned fairly easily, so that's not what's holding people back the most when it comes to making good reads and getting a good feel for the tables when multi-tabling. It's still playing good poker and knowing what to look for in the first place that's the hard part.

[Dan Mezick]

Commit to winning money.
The rest is just heavy lifting.

[networkman]

[ QUOTE ]
Heck, maybe Raptor plays more per day!


[/ QUOTE ]

Bwaaahahahahaha, I think ole raptor plays more per day than all of 2+2 play in a month. Holla (with a capital H) /images/graemlins/tongue.gif