Playing well with horrible results..?

I'm a fairly new but very dedicated player - so far mostly limit poker at 0.5/1 - 2/4. Started up in June with 100 bucks, which with a combination of wins and promotions is currently about 900 - having suffered a slight setback after maxing out around 1100. Since my goal for the time being is learning to be a good poker player without losing my initial 100 dollar "investment", I am currently at a comfortable place.

My limit play is based on "Small Stakes Hold'em. Winning big..." (an excellent book), which I have studied thoroughly, but I've also read "Super System", "Tournament Poker", "Harrington on Hold'em I and II" and "Internet Texas Hold'em: Winning Strategies from an Internet Pro" (good one too).

I use PokerTracker and GameTime+, most often playing two tables at the lower end of my limits, and one table at 2/4.

Now the case at hand: Yesterday I played a session at the Gaming Club which in terms of lost bets per 100 was my worst ever: Minus 32 BB/100 counted over 97 hands where I participated in approximately 20%, raising with 4%. This is at the lower end of my normal percentages, indicating that my cards were somewhat below average.

The players were mostly tight, with the very notable exception of a maniac three places to the left of me. He played 85% of his hands, raising with 13%. Of course, his stack was very volatile, increasing from about 40 dollars to 90 and then dropping to 30 while I was at the table.

My own stack decreased from 141 to 87 during this pitiful performance. This led me to review each and every hand from this session thoroughly today, to see where I went wrong. And here's the thing: I didn't!

Not to say I played perfectly (what's that?). In one hand I held AT and flopped the straight, but then slowplayed the maniac, calling the flop and turn, allowing him to draw his 97s to a flush on the river, at which time I raised, got reraised and called. The hand ended up costing me 12 dollars, the biggest loss during this session. However, since he had the flush draw already on the flop (9 outs) and I already had the top straight, it is likely we would have played out the hand no matter what, and if so, slowplaying actually saved me money.

In one other hand i bet into two opponents on the river holding a pair of Queens, which was the high pair before the river ace. I had position and should have checked, saving one big bet, as it turned out one of the others was holding an ace.

Finally, there was one hand where I had five outs to a very likely win, giving me the odds of 1 to 8, but made the mistake of calling since the pot odds were 1 to 7. Not a big mistake, of course, but it ended up costing me a couple of bets.

Every other hand during this hour and a half session was played "correctly", in the sense that pot odds were always better than an reasonable estimation of outs to win the hand. However, even good hands often lost to the maniac, for instance when my two pairs of pocket queens and eights lost to trip T's (he was holding T2 offsuit from under the gun and held out to the T on the river...)

Now to the end of this saga and my two questions:

1)
How often can I expect to play well - as I believe I did during this session, even after a very careful and critical review - and still lose money at such a tremendous pace?

2)
As the maniac was playing 85% of his hands while the rest of us were playing from 10% to 30%, his cards on average must have been pretty bad and he probably didn't hold the best hand very often. Yet at a table of tight and sometimes timid players, he was allowed to bully the table and often win by having the others fold presumably better hands. In the end, of course, he'll be found out and either have to adjust his play or go bust. But in the meantime he was wreaking havoc at our table for an hour. How should this have been handled?

[jakbse]

I've also experienced this problem with mainiacs and is not really comfortable with to handle them.
I usually do better at a normal 1/2 party table with a couple of fish among the tight players.

Any hints on how to rip off the maniac, or at least not getting ripped off by him. In which relative position do we want him? Do we loosen up or play more aggresively pre-flop? Post flop?

That's not a downswing. That's a little hiccup.

You'll go through worse beats in your life, that's for sure.

Also, if 20% VPIP is low for you, you are probably playing slightly too many hands. You are raising about half as much as you should be if 4% is anywhere near your normal range.

Lastly, if most of the table was playing tight, you may need to work on your table selection. Find some LPP opponents.

[adsman]

Question 1. Barry Greenstein in his fantastic book Ace on the River, mentions that when he plays limit he wins about 58% of his sessions. When he plays in the big limit games, ($4000/$8000) his winrate is around 50% of his sessions and 4 months out of the year are losers. This guy is widely considered to be one of the best poker players around. Mason Malmuth in his book, Gambling Theory and other topics, did all the math calculations and came up with a figure of around 52% for winning players. My own percentage is 49% and I'm a winning player thus far. Obviously the key is to have your average win greater than your average loss.

Question 2. I had a maniac at my table today with similar stats. He bought in for 50BB and lost that in an hour. I just waited for nice strong hands and let him bet and raise it up for me. Oh, and I finished 5BB down for the session, (4 hours.)

Here's a nice way to look at it. My winrate per 100 hands is 3.5BB. Yesterday I won 35BB in around 60 hands for a winrate for the session of 56BB/100 hands. If you want to look at this session from a stat point of view I didn't win 35BB. I won around 2.5 The other 32.5BB was just variance. It will all round out to my average of 3.5/100 over time. So I don't think that I'm up 35BB from that session yesterday, nor do I think that I'm down 5BB today. Statistically, today I made about 7BB, (200 hands), even though most players would think that they 'lost' 5BB.

[ QUOTE ]
I've also experienced this problem with mainiacs and is not really comfortable with to handle them.
I usually do better at a normal 1/2 party table with a couple of fish among the tight players.

Any hints on how to rip off the maniac, or at least not getting ripped off by him. In which relative position do we want him? Do we loosen up or play more aggresively pre-flop? Post flop?

[/ QUOTE ]

It's best to have the maniac on your right. That way, when you have a decent hand (Even as weak as ATo), and he open-raises, you can reraise him to get him heads up. Just tread carefully if a normally tight player caps it.

[ QUOTE ]
I've also experienced this problem with
It's best to have the maniac on your right. That way, when you have a decent hand (Even as weak as ATo), and he open-raises, you can reraise him to get him heads up. Just tread carefully if a normally tight player caps it.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks. Interesting approach which I'll certainly give a try when opportunity knocks. A foreseeable problem is that this hinges on the maniac to be on my right (which he'll be half of the time if I enter the table at a random place) and preferably directly to my right in order to isolate him - which he'll be much less often. I assume this approach may still work to a certain degree with a one or a couple of players in between - especially when they fold to his manic raises.

[ QUOTE ]
That's not a downswing. That's a little hiccup.

You'll go through worse beats in your life, that's for sure.

Also, if 20% VPIP is low for you, you are probably playing slightly too many hands. You are raising about half as much as you should be if 4% is anywhere near your normal range.

Lastly, if most of the table was playing tight, you may need to work on your table selection. Find some LPP opponents.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the advice. I certainly wasn't worried about the loss in terms of dollars or in any absolute sense. But being a fairly inexperienced player, I didn't much appreciate the *rate* at which the stack can dwindle, even playing what should at least in theory be "correctly". Especially as I could not attribute it to any particular costly hands or much less bad beats - just a fast, steady outpour while playing my normal, winning (I thought) play... :-)

The numbers were just from this session. In aggregate, my flop percentage is 19% with 6.5% raises, and I'm up 1.3 BB per 100 over my first 5000 hands or so playing poker. Started out breaking even and am doing slightly better now.

I definitely have to work on my table selection, as I mostly just enter and see how it fares. Not a good approach, I understand...

Thank you. Very interesting. Being an economist, I understand the concept of variance/standard deviation and of course that any one session very unlikely to end anywhere near the long term average. As you are so specific on your numbers, do you use and dedicated software for this, or just a spreadsheet?

Thanks also for adding two new books to my reading list. I suspect some of these top players must earn more publishing than playing. Which is OK by me, of course, as long as they help me get better.

[Innocentius]

First of all, playing a maniac is very profitable, but the variance is much higher than at a "normal" table.

Second, as someone already stated above, when you have a maniac at the table, you should be raising more, not less. Of course, you can't help getting bad cards, but rather than being intimidated by the maniac, be prepared to reraise him. For instance, say you have AJo and the maniac raises in front of you. Against a good opponent, this is a fold, at least in my opinion, but against a maniac you should raise. Also, you can raise with pretty suspect hands when only the maniac has limped in front of you.

Third, don't make the mistake of only focusing on the maniac. A maniac tends to dominate the table. Everyone is looking for a spot to pick him off. Study how his play affect the others at the table, and make use of what you find out.

Finally, losing 32BB in less than 100 hand sucks, but it happens. How often? I don't know exactly, but if, as you claim, you play your hands well, it will definitely be more seldom than the times you win 32BB in 100 hands.

Good luck!

[jrz1972]

[ QUOTE ]
1) How often can I expect to play well - as I believe I did during this session, even after a very careful and critical review - and still lose money at such a tremendous pace?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's say your true winrate is 2 BB/100 and your true standard deviation is 18. 95% of the time, if you sit down to play 100 hands, your will win 2 BB plus or minus two standard deviations, so a 34+ BB loss will occur fairly often (about 1 session in 20).

In other words, get used to it.

Hopefully not, but when I do I'll keep your comforting words in mind! :-)

[restless]

[ QUOTE ]
Not to say I played perfectly (what's that?). In one hand I held AT and flopped the straight, but then slowplayed the maniac, calling the flop and turn, allowing him to draw his 97s to a flush on the river, at which time I raised, got reraised and called. The hand ended up costing me 12 dollars, the biggest loss during this session. However, since he had the flush draw already on the flop (9 outs) and I already had the top straight, it is likely we would have played out the hand no matter what, and if so, slowplaying actually saved me money.


[/ QUOTE ]

IMO, this is a dangerous thought. ok short term you saved money, but most likely excessive slowplaying will cost you money.

You slowplay in order to:
* Keep people in that would otherwise fold a hopeless hand.
* Keep people in, that you are quite sure to be drawing to second best hands.

Most maniacs doesn't fit that description. Also, if there's a flushdraw on the board...I just hate to let people draw for free.

Your other examples also hint that you tend to pay too much attention to short term results. Calling a bet or making a bet in a pot you lose really doesn't mean you lose an entire bet. Its the quality of the decision, based on your read of your opponents & their likely holdings that will make or break your winrate.

Don't let variance scare you, just keep on playing solid poker.

Good Luck!

[macdaddy991]

[ QUOTE ]

The numbers were just from this session. In aggregate, my flop percentage is 19% with 6.5% raises,

[/ QUOTE ]

You should work in getting your PFR up to about 9-12%. There are numerous posts and many examples in Small Stakes Hold em on where it is very profitable to raise more pre flop.

Thank you. I don't slowplay often, and this way my own example of doing so errounously. However, with the benefit of hindsight, the RESULT of my poor decision was probably a few saved bets.

I'm likely to have a short term focus since I have a short playing history - it's all I have to look at in terms of statistics. But I am aware that my sample size is no where near what I need to get significant statistic results. I'll keep in mind to change my focus once I've got a few thousand more hands under my belt!

[Taxmanrick]

I was in a similar situation this morning. Had a lag 65VIP/18PFR 2 players to my right. He was pretty much scaring everybody off a lot of hands, bluffing a lot, raising a lot post flop. I made a deliberate effort to be patient and isolate him. I got down about 10 BB(1/2 party) and he(the lag) was the one taking it most of the time.(not hitting my draws) But when I finally hit my draws, he was paying off big time, cold calling raises, betting into me when I just raised him the prev round. It was GREAT. My AQ was destroying his A9 and he didn't know what hit him. Anyway left there with +16bb in the end.

What I'm trying to say, when you run into these people, don't get discouraged, use their aggressiveness to your advantage. Be patient, isolate, and let them dig their own hole!

[Guthrie]

This is not uncommon at the lower limits. I also frequently question my own play after a crushing session. The good thing is, big losses force us to examine our own play for leaks. I always find something to fix. But I also frequently find that I am, for the most part, playing well and just suffering a downswing.

Personally, I play better against maniacs and TAGs than calling stations. The same hand that would fold out a TAG, or allow me to bluff out a maniac, is powerless against a calling station who will just keep pushing in chips until he sucks out on the river. But again, it forces me to go back, do the math, and examine my game.

[Wetdog]

Losing sessions are a bitch. Several in a row really bruise the psyche. Of course several winning sessions in a row are easy to get used to, right?

I suggest that you read the Homer section in the work of this (ttp://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Board=micro&Number=2141664&Forum =,,f21,,&Words=Carpal&Searchpage=2&Limit=25&Main=2 141664&Search=true&where=bodysub&Name=&daterange=1 &newerval=&newertype=&olderval=2&oldertype=m&bodyp rev=#Post2141664) great poster. Homer's graphs really hit home as far as showing the variance a winning player will have. As a matter of fact, read the whole collection.

[TeeVeeDude]

[ QUOTE ]
The players were mostly tight, with the very notable exception of a maniac three places to the left of me. He played 85% of his hands, raising with 13%.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not a maniac, that's a fish.

[MrWookie47]

Your link is b0rked. I tried fixing it myself, but I can't seem to get it. You're missing an "h" in front of "ttp://", but I don't think that's the only thing wrong.

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The players were mostly tight, with the very notable exception of a maniac three places to the left of me. He played 85% of his hands, raising with 13%.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not a maniac, that's a fish.

[/ QUOTE ]

Depends on his post flop AF.

[numeri]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The players were mostly tight, with the very notable exception of a maniac three places to the left of me. He played 85% of his hands, raising with 13%.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's not a maniac, that's a fish.

[/ QUOTE ]
Most people use "fish" do describe a loose and passive player.

[Wetdog]

try this

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=2141664&page=&view=&sb=5& o=&fpart=2&vc=1

edit: Start at page 1

[MrWookie47]

Ah, right. I was curious what you were pointing to in that link. Mandatory reading in that, folks, if you haven't seen it before.

[TeeVeeDude]

[ QUOTE ]

Most people use "fish" do describe a loose and passive player.

[/ QUOTE ]

Point taken. I'm sure my opinions will be refined as I move up in limits. At the laughably small limits where I play, maniacs are people who raise every hand. Calling 72% of hands and raising 13% doesn't sound like a maniac, it just sounds stupid.

[illegit]

[ QUOTE ]
Not to say I played perfectly (what's that?). In one hand I held AT and flopped the straight, but then slowplayed the maniac, calling the flop and turn, allowing him to draw his 97s to a flush on the river, at which time I raised, got reraised and called. The hand ended up costing me 12 dollars, the biggest loss during this session. However, since he had the flush draw already on the flop (9 outs) and I already had the top straight, it is likely we would have played out the hand no matter what, and if so, slowplaying actually saved me money.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, this play if made repeatedly is costing you money. Why in the world slowplay the nuts against a maniac who is going to pay you off anyway?!

Downloaded the "compendium". Great stuff. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

[ QUOTE ]
No, this play if made repeatedly is costing you money. Why in the world slowplay the nuts against a maniac who is going to pay you off anyway?!

[/ QUOTE ]

Exactly. Which is why I listed this as a poorly played hand - never mind that the result at this particular time was that I invested less in a losing hand.