Bad day... not looking for sympathy, just advice

[skaboomizzy]

I had a nice long detailed story ready to post, but thought it would look too melodramatic. Keeping it quick...

What do you suggest for a starting player who just had a pretty rough day following a three or four day run of success? I'm pretty sure I'm gonna cut back on playing for at least the next two days and do some more re-reading to patch some holes in my game. Is it worthwhile for me to just sit in on some tables online and observe play? Should I take one or two days off, or longer? I'd imagine this has happened to posters here before, and I was curious as to how you dealt with it to come back "new and improved".

[Tosh]

Its happened to everyone many times. Just try to stay cool and continue to play correctly. Some days you can't help losing money.

[Joe Tall]

Maybe you should try posting some trouble hands in the Small Stakes forum. It is what helped me the most and I'm sure our new friend Tosh could abide.

Stay cool,
Larry Joe

[skaboomizzy]

I had a few queued up in Notepad to post, but I took a minute to look at them and figured I would save everyone some time. After stepping away a few minutes, watching a couple Simpsons eps and cooking a nice frozen pizza (dinner of champions!), I re-read the histories and instantly saw where my mistakes were.

In short, I'm playing much more selectively pre-flop and paying consideration to position, but still have a very bad tendency to bet out and/or call down with the 2nd best hand after it.

I suppose it's only a small step from playing obliviously to seeing my own mistakes in hindsight, but at least it's progress. The next step is probably to stop making the mistakes in the first place. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Dynasty]

[ QUOTE ]
I re-read the histories and instantly saw where my mistakes were.

[/ QUOTE ]

I seriously doubt you could identify the mistakes in your own play considering how inexperienced you are. It is much more likely that you have drawn some incorrect conclusions with your analysis.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
Maybe you should try posting some trouble hands in the Small Stakes forum. It is what helped me the most and I'm sure our new friend Tosh could abide.

Stay cool,
Larry Joe

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? Its late and I don't understand what you're saying about me. /images/graemlins/confused.gif

[Joe Tall]

[ QUOTE ]
Huh? Its late and I don't understand what you're saying about me.

[/ QUOTE ]

For real? What I was implying is that I've seen you (Tosh)improve your play via your posts in Small Stakes that's all.

That's it. Keep posting. No shame posting, that's the best way to improve.

[skaboomizzy]

[ QUOTE ]
I seriously doubt you could identify the mistakes in your own play considering how inexperienced you are. It is much more likely that you have drawn some incorrect conclusions with your analysis.

[/ QUOTE ]

yeah, I am inexperienced, but I did catch a few fatal flaws in my hold-em game today.

1) I tried too hard to set an "aggressive" table persona. It won me that big bank a few days ago, why shouldn't it have worked today? (answer follows) /images/graemlins/grin.gif

2) This led me to too many loose calls/raises.

3) I often charged in with a "second best" hand in hopes of bluffing out an opponent who turned out to have the nuts.

An expensive learning experience, but learning nonetheless. I happened to win back my UB.com stake just now with a few fortunate hands of limit Omaha 8/b so the day wasn't a total write-off. But I will take to heart the plays that busted me out in limit hold-em and try to learn from them.

[jasonHoldEm]

When you have a losing session (and you will), assuming you didn't go on crazy tilt or something (i.e. you were playing correctly but getting sucked out on)...try to take solace in the fact that someone with less discipline would have lost more.

Other than that, get back in the saddle and keep riding. There are lots of ups and downs, but if you keep playing well you'll have more ups than downs.

(And they're right, small stakes rules...I just started getting into it and I've been here for six months almost).

jHE

[skaboomizzy]

[ QUOTE ]
When you have a losing session (and you will), assuming you didn't go on crazy tilt or something (i.e. you were playing correctly but getting sucked out on)...try to take solace in the fact that someone with less discipline would have lost more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Too true. The temptation was to take the rest of my bankroll and go to a NL cash table and show 'em all who was boss... but I didn't. I kinda re-read some hands and found that the people who supposedly "sucked out" actually had decent odds to draw, and then hit it on the river. It's all education, and it may come at a price sometimes... but in the long run, I hope it'll pay off for me. I just need to keep studying and playing and hopefully I can get enough through my thick skull to figure it all out.

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
For real? What I was implying is that I've seen you (Tosh)improve your play via your posts in Small Stakes that's all.

That's it. Keep posting. No shame posting, that's the best way to improve.

[/ QUOTE ]

Oh right, thanks.

I did post that reply at 3.00am my time so thats my excuse !

[oddjob]

i don't get it. you had one losing session out of 5 or 6, and you're complaining?

[skaboomizzy]

Well, I was until I went to bad last night having recouped most of my losses at UB. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Stupid newbie over-reaction on my part. I usually overthink things and take any losses personally as a result of bad play on my part. Having stepped away and gotten some perspective and a decent night's sleep, I realize how whiny this whole thread sounds.

Oops.