Near the end of my brief Online career -Whine

[BillsChips]

I've been playing online (Absolute) for about a month. I deposited $95 and was basically able to play break-even (1/2 Limit) to earn my $180 bonus. Had the account up to $285 and now after a brutal week and a half, have only $21 left. During this time I've reread SSHE and started up PokerTracker to see if it's me or just bad luck. According to PT, my two biggest losing hands are AKs and KQs. I can't win with a set, ever. I don't slow-play my big hands because I get outdrawn almost every time. My most costly made hands are sets, including Aces. My monster hands either win me the blinds or cost me a fortune.

Thought I was going to close out last night's session with a nice win to bring me close to cutting my loses in half(for the night). I flopped the nut flush in a raised family pot. Runner-Runner eights gives somebody a boat.

I know...whine, whine, whine, but I just don't see this ever working. I've been playing live for 2 years 10/20 limit and 1/2 NL, and have been successful.

Fold, fold, fold...monster...broke. This is the pattern.

I'll bleed off the rest of my feeble stack tonight and then it's goodbye to Online poker.

Bill

[4_2_it]

A $95 bankroll is no where near adequate to play 1/2. $600 would be the minimum for a winning player. I play NL online and use a 20-30 buy-in rule before I consider moving up levels. I recommend that you look at the FAQs in some of the limit forums to get a better idea of what to do with $95 online. I know in NL, I would say go build a stack in the micros.

[Niediam]

Most 10/20 live games are MUCH easier than Absolute 1/2.

[BillsChips]

I understand that $295 is a relatively small bankroll, but I think it's enough for me to see that this won't work out at all. Even if I was a total fish, I should be able to win once in a while. I think that by playing tightly in these very tight games, I'm getting blinded to death. It also doesn't help that I just can't catch a break.

Fold, Fold, Fold, Big Blind - hit top pair with no kicker, take a stab at the pot by betting, get called or raised by someone on a good draw or same pair, better kicker, lose.

Rinse, repeat.

[AASooted]

[ QUOTE ]
During this time I've reread SSHE and started up PokerTracker to see if it's me or just bad luck. According to PT, my two biggest losing hands are AKs and KQs. I can't win with a set, ever. I don't slow-play my big hands because I get outdrawn almost every time. My most costly made hands are sets, including Aces.

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So it's pretty clearly bad luck, wouldn't you say? In the long run those hands will make a lot of money. In the short term, anything can happen. How many hands are we talking about?

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I know...whine, whine, whine, but I just don't see this ever working. I've been playing live for 2 years 10/20 limit and 1/2 NL, and have been successful.

[/ QUOTE ]

I still suck at poker, and I've managed to net a decent amount of money (most of it bonuses) this year playing a few hours a week at a variety of sites. I'm not saying that to brag, but to point out that it is possible. Absolute is filled with tight bonus whores, though. If you want something more like the casino poker experience, you should try out Party. The players there are pretty bad. Even with bonuses and the unmentionable at Absolute, I'm starting to think playing at Absolute may be less profitable than Party for me.

I can sympathize. I've done much better, far more consistently in B&M games than online. It seems like it goes in streaks, and when in a bad one, nothing will work. I think online seems worse because of the large amount of hands we play in a relatively short period of time. We remember every bad beat and screw job, but not the zillion folds and regular hands that aren't outstanding in our minds. Last week I was in an online tourney with 20 people left. It paid to 12. I'm in approx 10th place. I get pocket 10's OTB. Fold to me. I raise a fair amount, trying to steal the blinds. BB raises me big. He's a LAG and has pulled this stunt with mid pairs a few times over that last 25 or so hands. I put him on a mid-pair or two overs. I go all-in, he calls with 7-7. Looks like I'm gonna be the chip leader !! Flop is 5-6-10. Yee haw! Turn 3, river 4. I'm busted. Dang near threw the monitor out the window. Swore I was gonna quit, for real this time.

I'm still playing. I think they call us masochists.

[SheridanCat]

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I've been playing online (Absolute) for about a month. I deposited $95 and was basically able to play break-even (1/2 Limit) to earn my $180 bonus.


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First off, you got very lucky here. That's not nearly enough to play 1/2 and weather an even modest downturn. So don't go complaining about your luck - you dodged a bullet here.

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Had the account up to $285 and now after a brutal week and a half, have only $21 left.


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Many, many experienced players have gone broke this way. You should have played lower and recognized, as you slid, that you needed to move down to survive.

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During this time I've reread SSHE and started up PokerTracker to see if it's me or just bad luck. According to PT, my two biggest losing hands are AKs and KQs.


[/ QUOTE ]

How many hands? Not many, I reckon. It's just poor luck.

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I can't win with a set, ever. I don't slow-play my big hands because I get outdrawn almost every time. My most costly made hands are sets, including Aces. My monster hands either win me the blinds or cost me a fortune.


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That's weak-tight talk borne of some bad luck smacking you in the head. You need to step back and think about what you just said. If you don't understand what I'm saying, then you need to do more studying.

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I know...whine, whine, whine, but I just don't see this ever working. I've been playing live for 2 years 10/20 limit and 1/2 NL, and have been successful.


[/ QUOTE ]

Then you should understand the typical swings you will experience. Especially when playing weak-tight on a short bankroll.

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Fold, fold, fold...monster...broke. This is the pattern.


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Funny thing about people. We love to see patterns - WHERE THERE ARE NONE. Know what I mean?

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I'll bleed off the rest of my feeble stack tonight and then it's goodbye to Online poker.


[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps that's for the best. I'm not trying to be facetious or unkind, but it's entirely possible that online poker is not for you. If not, count yourself lucky for recognizing it with only a $95 loss.

Regards,

T

[BillsChips]

Fair comments and I appreciate them. I'm around 10k hands.

Don't understand the Weak-Tight comment though. Were you referring to my not slow-playing sets? Every book I've read says that's a bad play except occasionally in very uncoordinated flops. Not that it mattered, because I lost with most of them anyway, playing them aggressively.

Haven't seen any "Swings" yet, just losses. I started playing .25/.50 but wasn't making progress against the bonus. Moved up to .50/1.00 and then Absolute changed their raked-hand requirements from .25 to .50, which was nearly impossible to clear at that level. Moved to 1/2 to clear the bonus, which I did in about a week. Briefly tried 3/6 and had some success, but knew I didn't have the BR to continue.

As far as the $95 BR, I don't really look at it like that. I played break-even poker and cleared the $190 bonus. So my problems actually started when I had nearly a $300 BR...not optimal for 1/2, but seemed to be adequate.

I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.

I didn't mean this thread to be "Oh, poor me, look at my bad luck". Yes I've had some bad luck, but I'm not sure that with the tightness + rake of these games, that they can be very profitable, even if my luck changes.

[AKQJ10]

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Most 10/20 live games are MUCH easier than Absolute 1/2.

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I don't play live $10/20, but I can imagine this must be true.

[jmillerdls]

Well, clearly you have to adjust your game to the type of players you are against. You can't play the same way at Absolute as you do at Party...it's just not the same game. And saying that 150BB is enough is just ignorant. It is not enough, simple as that. But if you are so set in these ideas, then you were right about one thing...online poker is not for you.

what u got2 understand is that online-poker is getting much harder to beat, as time goes by. I've noticed over the last 6 months(300,000 hands) my win rate has decreased and I've improved quite a bit in that time. Its all the new books and information about.
In 5 years from now low limit poker will be domminated by chinese and indians grinding it out for $5 a day (which will be good money for them)
Best to stick to home games.
Good luck

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
But if you are so set in these ideas, then you were right about one thing...online poker is not for you.

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Well said.

[SheridanCat]

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Don't understand the Weak-Tight comment though. Were you referring to my not slow-playing sets?


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I'm very sorry about this. I wrote my reply in haste and misread that sentence.

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I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.


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It's painful, sure, but it's not terribly uncommon. You will experience these down turns if you keep playing. The trick is to weather them without driving yourself nuts.

Again, sorry for misreading earlier. Stick with it.

Regards,

T

I was in a similiar spot like this at the end of September. I had through June and July deposited a total of 600 bucks and towards the end of Sept I was down to 14 bucks in my account! Since then I changed games, from NL to Limit. In a month of playing that I went up to about 150 or so and then played a couple of 5 buck MTTs and ended up placing 4 and 5 in two of them and now have almost won back what I have deposited.

Moral: even though things look bleak you still can do it. You might want to look into changing what game you are playing and moving down levels.

[BillsChips]

Update:

I dropped down to .10/.20 because that's all my BR can take now. The Poker gods have had a nice joke with me. Last night my luck turned around I had a 50BB profit. The joke is that at .10/.20 that is only 10 bucks! I was hitting almost all of my draws, my big pocket pairs were holding up...everything that wasn't happening at the higher limits. I guess I'll grind out the micro limits until I get back where I started.

Question:
I just started poking around with PokerTracker and found the following to be interesting. Looking at the profit/loss by position report, I'm ahead in every position except the blinds. In the big blind, my forced bet amount is $650 and my total loss for that position is $320. So in the blinds I lose about 50% of the money I'm force to put in. What should this ratio be? Is this a leak or is that typical? The small blind numbers were much lower and the loses were mostly insignificant. If I could only avoid the blinds this game would be easy. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[SheridanCat]

What you're seeing is very typical. You will always be a loser in the blinds. I see the same things in my stats as well over a much larger number of hands. Looking at those numbers along with the rake you paid can be really depressing.

Congrats on the win.

Regards,

T

[aargh57]

It sounds like you've got a pretty good attitude about this despite losing. Dropping down to fit your bankroll is a good step. One question though. If you've been successfull at 10/20 for two years why not have a bigger online bankroll than what you bought in for. Surely you don't sit down at a live 10/20 game with only $100 in your pocket. Also, if you're new to playing online I would've gone to an easier site to start out with than absolute.

[BillsChips]

Regarding the small BR:

This is the way I approach every venture in life. Start small and test the waters, then increase the investment if it shows promise. This may not be the correct approach for Poker.

Another reason is that my BR for live play is in cash, so my wife doesn't need to be intimately involved in the details of how much money is involved. The deposit mechanism for Online play however, shows up on the credit card statement and thusly is more overt. Not that she would mind, but that would give her license to spend even more than she does now.

My plan was to withdraw $200 from Absolute and take a stab at other sites, but I played a few too many sessions and now that's on hold.

I'll be heading up to Foxwoods next week. If I do well, I might throw some more money at online poker and give Party a try.

Bill

[aargh57]

I see your reasoning for the small BR and I also started with a much too small BR for my limits. Luckily I never had a big downswing in the beginning and was able to make a go of it. Stick with it, if you do well at foxwoods, throw some more in it and play to whatever BR you have. Good luck.

Interesting, I was recently commenting about a similar problem lately at Absolute.

Did you happen to notice that there was a huge influx of European players displaying their skills as manics in your game? That is what I noticed and now I am fairly convinced that is why my stack crumbled.

I know how to play a tight game against a manic but the tables I was at had 6 manics, 2 rocks and one normal player.

With that many very loose agressive players in the game the schooling effect was slowly knocking out every decent hand I had. I was playing limit at nano stakes since I never made a deposit on Absolute and had a little cash from them for helping with a registration issue. That was and is all I need to play there but I am going to be smart and wait those guys out a little before I return to the site.

I know it is not my game, I recently racked up a win deep into the money at BODOG during the Industry Partners Private freeroll tournament while testing the new BODOG beta software. Made a nice chunk of change there for 3 hours play and waded through some decent players along the way.

Don't give up be patient. Stay away from absolute for a while and then come back after this bunch of persistent fish thin out a little. They will not be there forever playing like they do.

Monty

[BillsChips]

I have noticed the Europeans, and Asians but haven't yet run into the maniacs you describe. I found that at the .10/.20 tables the players are a lot more loose/passive, so you can collect on your good hands, though you do have to put up with a lot of bad beats. A re-raise on the river by one of these players usually means that your beaten, but I always call anyway because sometimes they just don't read the board well enough to see your straight or flush.

I ran into a few maniacs and some people who are just rude, so I change tables when I'm not enjoying myself. After all, this is supposed to be fun.

I discovered that you can use your Absolute points for entries into special tourneys. I tried my very first tournament today and finished 11th out of 94. Not bad for a beginner.

So with my $10 tournament win and a couple of winning micro ring sessions, my BR is now just over $50.

Now I'm on a mission to try to get it back up to $300.

Bill

[masse75]

[ QUOTE ]
. Absolute is filled with tight bonus whores, though. If you want something more like the casino poker experience, you should try out Party. The players there are pretty bad. Even with bonuses and the unmentionable at Absolute, I'm starting to think playing at Absolute may be less profitable than Party for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm leaving Absolute for this reason...I ran up my $200 bonus, and pretty much figured out it's a bonus-whore TAGfest. Plus being 9-max, that's essentially another 1.5BB/100 you've gotta cough up.

a problem ive seen with my online record even with pokertracker is i never let go of monster hole cards such as AK or KQs even after the flop , being able to make laydowns to obvious greater hands is a hard part of playing ... and a part even i am learning the hard way

everything good comes in time , and i think as long as you play consistent and make the right laydowns youll be fine

and if you have been following SSHE and various other poker books youd notice to start at lower limit tables , even having something like 200-300 for 1-2 wont cover a losing streak.
start small and build confidence , move up when you have more to cover yourself and play to survive

[BillsChips]

3CardMonty,

I ran into those European maniacs today and boy were you right. I have AA UTG and bet out. The button caps the preflop action with A2 offsuit. Do you know how I know what he had? The bastard won the showdown when he hit runner-runner deuces on the end, beating my pocket Aces and another guys pocket Kings.

Moved to another table. A guy cold-calls 3 bets preflop with Q3o, and of course beats my AKs and my flopped Aces with draw to the nut flush, when the turn brings a 3 and the river a Q.

I know this should be good for us in the long run, but boy is it frustrating in the short run.

Bill

[ QUOTE ]
As far as the $95 BR, I don't really look at it like that. I played break-even poker and cleared the $190 bonus. So my problems actually started when I had nearly a $300 BR...not optimal for 1/2, but seemed to be adequate.

I think a 150 BB downturn is significant.


[/ QUOTE ]

A 150 BB downturn IS significant.

The problem is that as soon as you cleared the bonus, you should have dropped back down to .5/1 because that is the highest level your bankroll can afford.

Then, if you had hit a 150BB downturn, you would still have $150 - at which point you would then drop again down to .25/.5.

But because you did not properly manage your bankroll, you now find yourself forced to play .10/.20.

I started with $150 playing at .25/.5 - I got up to $300 and then took out my original $150 and stayed at .25/.5 - then got up to about $400 and went up to .5/1 - now I am back down to about $200 after cashing out another $80 (so about a 120BB downturn) and I am dropping back down to .25/.5.

The thing to keep in mind is that poker is a life-long endeavour - its not like you have to retire at 35. So play it that way.

Bankroll dictates level - this is the best way to play because it forces you to WIN your way to higher levels - and as such, you will tend to find yourself at the level that approximates your level of skill.