Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

OK, I haven't posted here in a while becasue I've been playing mostly SNGs for he past 5 months, so I'll give a little background. I did ok at those, but was never particularly happy with my winrate and decided to come back to limit. I played a ton of limit last year, moving from 3/6 up to 5/10 6-max before having to drop back because of BR considerations (not so much becasue I was losing, but becasue I had to cash out more than I could really afford to). I ended last year playing some 3/6 then decided to try something different for the new year and got into SNGs.

Since then I have played basically no limit-holdem except to clear Party/Empire bonuses and I played 1/2 6-max to do that since it was faster than full tables and I didn't have the roll to play 5/10.

Last week I decided to jump back into the 3/6 pool and have had a completely terrible start. My first 3 sessions were small losers, but I could tell I was making some pretty obvious mistakes and went about tryig to fix what I could and posted a nice win in my 4th try erasing my loses from the first couple days. Then I really hit a bad run and dumped 120BBs in just under 2000 hands.

In almost 100K hands last year I never had anything like this, looking at PT I see no glaring errors in my play. I'm probably a bit too aggressive sometimes but I really don't know (PT shows me as a 16/11/3.3 player).

I know this could be varience doing its ugly thing but I'd like to have some honest opinions on what the chances are that I'm just playing really bad considering I've played maybe 5K limit hands this year before last Thursday? Should I just keep chugging along or should I really step back and take a long hard look at my game before I spew anymore money away?

- Thomas

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

You didn't have a 120BB loss in 100k hands last year.

Last you was luckbox central, then. I've only played 10,002 hands at 3/6 and I've had 1 - 150BB and 1 - 100BB downswing.

-d

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

I might have had a 100BB downswing, but never in 1 day.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

If you have played limit much, "you suck" is probably a good partial answer [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

That said, variance is a bitch. I had a streak of eight (yes, 8) nut flushes in a row screwed by a full house over the course of less than 1000 hands. That put a HUGE dent in my win rate and I'll feel that impact for quite a while in my statistics.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

Just variance.

I just weathered my first 200BB downswing in 2 years of poker. (Month of May for the most part)

Icky - but knew it was coming

Stragely one thing that helped, was the fact (by accident) I was multi-tabling and to make room i had my windows scruched in such a way, on several tables i couldn't see my chip total. I just played. I was SHOCKED when i closed those windows how much I was up. I think sometimes I played incorrectly trying to "get back to even" or hit $X amount of $'s up before I left.

Meh - probably just a fluke.

Good to have you posting in Limit SS thought.

Sarge[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img]

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

hey, i did the same thing yesterday, and while i was not playing at my best, i certainly dont suck. It happens.

that having been said, unless you are super comfortable at 3/6, you may want to start at 2/4 to reacclimate yourself. I have seen you around, and while there wasnt any genuinely bad play, you are certianly looking a touch out of practice.


peace

john nickle

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

I had three 80 to 100 bb downswings at 2 4 this weekend alone. Sure, there was a little donkishness involved but the bottom line is that my best hands just would not hold up. If it wasn't for this forum I would have been on my way to the 10 20 6 max tables on a drunken tilt fueled rage.

Finished the weekend up 60 bb's by the way. Hang tough, man. I've follwed your posts since last summer and you are light years beyond me. In fact, some of your candidness convinced me to quit blowing my brains out at 5 10 6 max and play at stakes I can afford.

Hell, you're probably killin' 'em as I type this.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

[ QUOTE ]
that having been said, unless you are super comfortable at 3/6, you may want to start at 2/4 to reacclimate yourself. I have seen you around, and while there wasnt any genuinely bad play, you are certianly looking a touch out of practice.

[/ QUOTE ]

I might just do this. People seem to think the 2/4 is a much easier game and I always preferred the 1/2 blind structure anyway. I'm not costing myself much potential profit either and its probably a good idea to get my feet (re?)wet with slightly less risk.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

It can be rather hard for some people (like me) to switch gears from SNG to limit or from 6-max to full ring. I have played with you plenty in the past and you are certainly a solid player. I would play 2/4 until you regain some confidence and get back into the limit full ring groove.

BTW, I cleared the last Party bonus playing 1600 hands at 1/2 6-max. I was down 116 BBs. It happens.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

[ QUOTE ]
I might have had a 100BB downswing, but never in 1 day.

[/ QUOTE ]

Honestly I'll have a 1 session 100BB downswing about once every 2-3 months

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

I don't know when you stopped playing 3/6 but it is playing very differently when compared to about a year ago. It's more aggressive with more HU and 3-way pots and fewer limpfests. Anyway, I doubt you haven't noticed this given how much 6-max you've played.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

I dropped about 75 BB at 3/6 last night in about 300 hands (what can I say -- I was on a roll) and then won 85 BB over the next 300 hands or so.

I think I was generally playing pretty well even during my downswing (except one hand when I had JJ on a KJT flop and I completely blanked out to the possibility of AQ from a PFR TAG -- costing me several bets on the turn when I didn't fill up).

So variance is a very real thing. I do think 2/4 is generally an easier game, insofar as table selection is easier there. At 3/6, I often play 2-3 orbits at a table and then get up and leave. And I still have a tough time knowing whether I should play when there are all tight players and either just a single very loose player one or two seats to my left or two marginally loose players who are also on my left. I think that those tables are so marginally profitable that I should be hopping around more. At 3/6, it can take a while to find a good table.

Whereas when I was playing 2/4, I remember about 75% of tables that I sat down at random ended up being pretty good tables.

Re: Another I\'m losing do I suck or is it just varience post.
 

I've dropped 100 BBs in a day before, though only once & it was at 10/20 6max. It sucks & there was probably something in your play that helped fuel the downswing (it's tough to keep playing properly TAG poker when you're missing every flop & getting sucked out on with all your big pairs), but for the most part it's probably just variance. Definitely take a good hard look at your hand histories & look for problems, and post up a couple hands that you're not sure about. But don't give up the game over it either.

I'm almost in the opposite boat as you, as I've started playing more NL SNGs & MTTs after a huge downswing covering the second half of April through May. It's a nice change of pace, but I'm already noticing problems adjusting back to limit when I go to get my hands in there. They really are two totally different games, so I'm sure there's some rust in your game that isn't helping.