Please help

[ChrisEuph]

I am getting so frustrated!!! I am playing 1/2 at party and clearing bonuses that they keep giving me. But while playing I have lost about $40 in about 3500 hands. I know this might not be that bad, but I hear people say how "fishy" PP is. I have read SSHE and many other books. I feel as if I understand the concepts, but there is only so many times I can watch my raise worthy hands get crushed by something else. I feel like I deserve to win simply b/c I follow Ed Millers starting req. to the letter. Maybe I just don't get it or maybe it is bad luck. I wish somebody could look over all the hands that I have lost that were sizable to let me know it isn't me. When I played at paradise I seemed to do much better. I can't wait to clear this bonus and get out of party. But then again aren't I supposed to plavy at party b/c the players suck? Am I the succer at the table? Please offer some advice...mainly if this is just standard or should I be crushing their 1/2 games consistently? Thanks very much.

[4_2_it]

Don't panic over 3,500 hands. Plus it's only 20 bb total. You haven't played enough hands to know what your true win rate is. I am not a limit player, but I think that downswings can easily pass 100bbs and some very good players have seen 300bb downswings.

[ChrisEuph]

Thnaks

drop to .5/1?

40 dollars in 3500 at 1/2 is no big deal. I was in your same boat a while ago. Start posting or "grunching" around here, because it is obvious you have not been, and I can almost guarantee your play will get better. You have to do more than read in order to play well, although you need to read to get you foundation.

[pzhon]

The 95% confidence interval on your win rate after 3500 hands is about -0.6 +- 5.0 BB/100. So, you can be fairly confident that your win rate is between -5.6 and +4.4 BB/100 from your results alone. That's not much information. You have too few hands to be worried about losing 0.6 BB/100.

[ QUOTE ]
I feel like I deserve to win simply b/c I follow Ed Millers starting req. to the letter.

[/ QUOTE ]
No, you don't deserve to win just because you follow his guidelines. Playing decently preflop does not mean you are playing properly postflop, and that is a huge part of the game. You must outplay your opponents postflop to maintain a high win rate.

By the way, thinking that "you deserve to win, so you should win 100% of the time" is a common cause of tilt.

[OrianasDaad]

This is going to look harsh, but it needs to be said.

You aren't a good poker player. A good poker player understands some fundamentals that you don't, considering your post.

You are getting frustrated about a short-term event which is ruled almost entirely by luck. Good poker players realize that anything can happen in the short-term, and the long-term is where money lies.

You feel as if you understand the concepts, but admit that you can't stand seeing your good hands get outdrawn by lesser hands. This is where the money comes from in poker. Learn to love players who suck out on you, since they are providing your income.

You don't deserve to win. I don't deserve to win. Nobody deserves to win. In fact, I'm against the word "deserve" altogether. Use the word "earn" instead. Making money in poker requires skill, and with this skill you "earn" the pots you win.

Playing tightly pre-flop doesn't make you a good player. It eliminates one major mistake (playing too many hands) that many players make, but it doesn't fix the other one (going too far with them).

There are people on these forums who will go over your games (for a nominal fee), but the best person to go over these games is YOU. Do it from a purely mathematical point of view. Use the fundamental theorem of poker, and calculate EV for each hand. A few hours of this exercise, with some daily practice, and you'll see not only the mistakes you make post-flop, but the mistakes that others' make as well.

The site you play at only matters when regarding the level of the opposition. "Getting out of Party" is your brain associating a streak of bad luck with a particular site. Good poker players don't let their brains, which are adept at forming patterns, fool them.

[ QUOTE ]
Am I the succer at the table?

[/ QUOTE ]
You know how it goes. If you can't spot the sucker at the table, then you are it.

Again, the majority of these statements sound harsh, but my intention is not to flame or put anyone down. You need to seriously evaluate the skills that you do have, and those that you don't. Self-honesty is a characteristic that all long-term winners possess.

Immediately after reading SSHE, my first 1500 hands I was winning about 14bb/100 hands. I thought that was awsome that reading one book could make me such a huge winner. Over the next 2500 hands, I gave most of that back, but still had a winning rate of about 1.5bb/100 hands. When I first started visiting this site, I thought it was crazy for poeple to say you can have a run bad or good luck for several thousands of hands. I always thought that surely after a few hundred hands that luck would even out. Boy was I wrong! I look back at my stats for those first 1500 hands and I was getting great cards. I think winning so much early held me back a little, as when the cards went cold, I still thought I was going to win no matter what the odds. It took some time for me to realize when I was winning, I had a lot of good luck. During my downswing, I wanted to win so bad, I'm sure I gave away at least 4bb/100 hands. But, as a beginner to serious poker, I'm learning from every experience, and have been fortunate not to have lost my bankroll, thanks to my hot start.

[ QUOTE ]
I feel like I deserve to win simply b/c I follow Ed Millers starting req. to the letter.

[/ QUOTE ]

There's the problem. No one deserves to win or lose as far as the cards are concerned.

You feeling that you "deserve" to win will effect your play- normally a -EV effect!

Regards,
Ian

[ChrisEuph]

Thank you to everyone that has posted. I know I don't deserve to win and was steaming at the time I wrote that post. But I will take a good look at my postflop play to figure out where my leaks are. Thanks again.

[Pov]

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you to everyone that has posted. I know I don't deserve to win and was steaming at the time I wrote that post. But I will take a good look at my postflop play to figure out where my leaks are. Thanks again.

[/ QUOTE ]

Congratulations. Coldly analyzing your mistakes is an important step in becoming a strong player. Understanding just how big of a factor luck really is in poker takes a long time for most people. After 10,000 hands you'll think you understand. But you won't. After 50,000 maybe you'll be able to go back and graph (at least mentally) your results over time and see just how jagged the line really is. Once you truly grok this it really helps to melt away the short term tilt.