2 months losing after 1 yr winning

[tomcain]

Hello

I have been playing for a little over 1yr. I generally play SSH with some slight adjustments. For example, I found through PT after 18k hands, that some of the SSH hands were not profitable and dropped playing them from EP.

I switch between $1/2 and $2/4. When the cards are bad, which they have been lately, I drop back to $1/2. I play on average about 30hrs/month.

I have always been a small winner until the past 2.5 months. I have effectively lost all my winnings from the prior year. The cards have been pretty bad but it is also probably my play.

I am determined to get back to my winning ways. I read quite a lot. I have read SSH several times, plus several other books. I use PT to replay every hand where I lose more than 1.5bb. I use 1.5 as the cutoff because I get many hands that I raise pre-flop and then fold after the flop.

PT labels me as TAP with 18K hands. When I compare my stats to the guidelines here is what I find. Most are in the ranges defined in the micro guidelines except for:

WSD – 32.24 versus 28-32
Att to Steal blinds – 18% versus 30
Raised Pre-flop – 6.7 versus 7-10
Aggression factor – 1.6 post-flop versus 2-3
FRB – 39.92 versus 40-55

Here are the rest of the important numbers:
VPIP – 16.2
VPIP from SB – 28.5
Saw Flop all hands – 22.2%
WSF – 28.32
W$SD – 56.23

What seems clear to me is the aggression factor needs the most work and obviously is the P part of TAP. I have gotten better at Attempts to steal but that is only pretty recent.

I am going to start posting hands and I would like to get some feedback. If anyone has any thoughts about what I have written so far, please let me know.

Thx, tom

[mungpo]

Your WSF is too low, should be at 30-34.

You probably were running good through your 18k hands. This is a good time to study your game and correct errors in your play. Variance with bad play can lead to losing a lot of money.

[iluzion]

how much were you winning over this past year? it sounds like not much, so if say you were beating the game at 1BB/100 and took a -5BB/100 swing from a string of bad cards and bad thinking, sure youll easily lose that money really fast, but what were the up/down numbers?

[Aaron W.]

[ QUOTE ]
I am going to start posting hands and I would like to get some feedback. If anyone has any thoughts about what I have written so far, please let me know.

[/ QUOTE ]

Please try analyzing others' hands and not just posting new ones.

[ QUOTE ]
What seems clear to me is the aggression factor needs the most work and obviously is the P part of TAP. I have gotten better at Attempts to steal but that is only pretty recent.


[/ QUOTE ]

You might be trying to solve the problem in the wrong way. Stats are are effects of play, not the other way around. Do you have a sense of where your play is weak? If yes, do you know *WHY* it's weak?

[Catt]

[ QUOTE ]
. . . I play on average about 30hrs/month . . .

I have always been a small winner until the past 2.5 months.

[/ QUOTE ]

This means youve had a losing streak over about 85 hours of play. I'm going to guess that you play 1 table at a time (since you play 18K hands a year, which is 1,500 hands a month, which is 50 hands per hour for 30hrs play). All of this means your losing streak is approximately 4,250 hands long. Even if the loss is steep, it is not unexpected -- poker is gambling and losing streaks happen.

[ QUOTE ]
I am going to start posting hands and I would like to get some feedback.

[/ QUOTE ]

Great - but you'll probably get even more out of responding to other discussions. Be sure to read many, many more threads than you ever consider starting; and be sure to respond to many more discussions than you initiate.

Best of luck -- and though you registered a long time ago and have enough posts that you're not pristine new -- welcome to active engagement in the forums nonetheless (i.e., welcome!)

[tomcain]

Hello

I probably should have clarified a couple of things. The 18K hands is only since September when I started SSH in earnest. My total PT database is 37K hands and I played a couple of months before I got PT.

Over the past 2.5 months I have lost about $4-500.

Otherwise, thanks for the input.

Thx, tom

[UncleSalty]

Tom,

One thing I noticed when I started looking into my own PT stats, (I just bought it about a month ago and discovered my AF was too low) was that a low aggression factor could mean you are going too far w/ marginal hands.

The calculation is (%Bet + %Raise)/(%Call) which means a low number could be a result of a denominator that's too large, rather than a numerator that's too small. For me, it was the "tight" in "Tight-Aggressive" that seemed to be lacking, and this finally hit home for me the oft quoted advice that you should be either raising or folding, but rarely calling.

Just my $0.02

-Salty