Quickly losing your first buy-in.

[Pouch Pick]

Sometimes, more frequnetly than I care to admit, I sit down for a game and within 15 hands, I have second best enough to cause the whole buy-in to be lost. How do you counter this run of immediate short erm bad luck?

[pudley4]

How big is your buy-in? If it's the minimum (5 big bets), you'll frequently lose the entire amount within a short time. Solution - buy in for more.

If your buy-in is much larger (25 or 50 BB) and you're still losing it quickly, then play tighter.

[Pouch Pick]

Normally my buy-in is 15-20 BB. Playing tightly, just getting great second best hands.

[Homer]

I would recommend buying in for 40-50 BB's (even though some people might give you strange looks). If you do this, you'll worry less about the money involved and won't panic on the infrequent occasion that you lose 15-20 BB's. You'll still have a nice stack in front of you and will be able to continue playing your best.

As far as counteracting actually losing the bets, there is nothing you can do as long as you think you are playing well. Just keep playing and eventually those second best hands will hold up. The long run in poker is really, really long. Just play your best and things will turn around.

-- Homer

[pudley4]

If you are "frequently" losing 15-20 BB within your first 15 hands, there are only a few possibilities:

1 - You are playing too loosely (playing easily dominated hands like A4o, or KTo after a raise)
2 - You are playing too aggressively (betting/raising/reraising with obviously inferior hands)
3 - You are merely in a bad run of cards (if this were the case I'd imagine it's not happening as frequently as you think).

Post the hands you had and how they played out. Post them in the Small Stakes forum. Put the results in a separate post. Look through the current posts to get an idea of what information you should put in, and what format you should use.

[bernie]

15 hands your losing your whole buy in?

1st question...how big is your buy in, in relation to the limit? are you shortstacking yourself?

2nd...what type of games are you playing in? are they cap happy games?

if youre not shortstacking on your initial buy in, id say your playing too many hands if this is a common problem. with a decent buy in, it wouldnt be that common to bust out in 15 hands.

one way to counter, depending on your answers above, learn preflop play. but more info is needed to more isolate your problem.

b

[bernie]

"Normally my buy-in is 15-20 BB. Playing tightly, just getting great second best hands"

id really question your tightness if this is your initial buy in. id also question you going too far with hands. remember you said your blowing it in 15 hands. usually you wont be involved in that many hands that quickly.

sounds like you got some leaks. and some may be big.

b

[bernie]

homer,

my total buy in for a session is 25BBs. if i was repeatedly blowing that off in '15' hands, id be seriously analyzing my play. this isnt a normal swing unless youre in a very aggressive, cap happy game. this isnt even 2 orbits. in a typical game he should be lasting much much longer, dont you agree?

again, if this was once in awhile, id buy it. but he indicated differently.

b

[ElSapo]

I've noticed something kind of similar with myself, though not 10-15-20 BB worth, on a consistent basis. Almost inevitably, I sit down and get good looking cards, they don't connect, or maybe connect a little, and I go down some. I've come to the (perhaps flawed) conclusion that the problem is me -- I'm sitting down, anxious and excited to play, and for the first round or so the cards simple look better than they are. I limp in a little to often, take one off more than I should for just a SB. And then I settle down and play... Maybe it's something similar to this if it is consistent...

[wdbaker]

I buy in for 25 big bets and can't even imagine how you could blow through that much in so few hands, as far as that goes, I rarely ever run out in a 2 or 3 hr stretch playing on line at 2/4 or 3/6. I would be checking starting hands and position, then over aggressiveness after the flop when reraised on any street.
Some times you just have to fold or check/call.

I'm fairly new though so don't take me to serious /forums/images/icons/grin.gif

[Pouch Pick]

Thank you for your courteous replies. I didn't mean to imply that this sort of thing happens all the time. I would say that it happens about two percent of my buy-ins. I normally buy in with less than most of the other players. A large buy-in for me would be 20 BB. I may be a bit short-stacked to begin, but the games are not cap-happy. I would say they are regular 7-stud games.

[Pouch Pick]

Yeah, that's it. That's what I'm writing about. It sdeosn't happen that often, but when it does, it feels like it's happening all the time.

[bernie]

if it's only 2%, i wouldnt be to worried.

however, since you mentioned it was stud, i will defer to the stud players as i avoid that game and really dont have a background in it. especially for session buy ins and swings.

sorry, im only a holdem addict with a good background in blackjack. /forums/images/icons/wink.gif

b

[Ed Miller]