Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

Hi all,
I play 100NL and in at least 90% of my sessions i drop a buy-in or two before I start winning. I wanted to ask if that happens to many of you and also to ask about some suggestions how to prevent it. I am quite aware of the 'problem' and I try to be particularly cautious at the beginning of a session, but, without noticing any glaring mistakes in my play, I still lose some money initially. The most logical explanation I can find is that I 'need' to lose some money before I motivate myself and bring my A game. However, even when I try to avoid it, I am unsuccessful... Any suggestions about what i should do?

Overall, I am a winning player at the 100NL level over a some months now (knock on wood :-))), so I don't think moving down in limits is necessary. I just want to fine-tune this one aspect of my play.

Thank you in advance for the suggestions.

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

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I am quite aware of the 'problem' and I try to be particularly cautious at the beginning of a session, but, without noticing any glaring mistakes in my play, I still lose some money initially.

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My guess is that there's your problem.

Most sessions you should start out down a bit. A buyin or two is extreme. What I'm referring to is simply that you will not win most pots you enter so you will probably be down a bit before you win your first few pots and make up for blinds and other bets put in when your hand didn't hit. While you haven't given enough information to really say I would speculate that early you are too cautious, playing risk averse poker and folding when you should be calling or raising, and perhaps calling when you should be raising or else just plain not raising enough.

Post some hands in the appropriate NL forum, particularly those from early in the sessions. Look especially for hands where you fold on the turn or river or where you were considering raising but didn't.

welcome to the forums.

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

This could also mean that it takes you awhile to get a good read on your opponents...Bret Maverick like

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

Same thing happens to me and I play limit. I seem to frequently drop 10-20BB right at the beginning of a 4-table sesssion before I start winning. I don't think it's a conspiracy or anything, just a necessary consequence of the blinds (which are also responsible for downswings' being steeper than upswings, I believe).

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

I also usually start out as a loser, but mainly 3-10blinds or so. Another reason I think is that it takes some time to learn how the table plays. To start out lose a couple of buyins seems extreme to me. Maybe youre bluffing away money in the beginning and get paid of later when you hit good cards?

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

I play NL $100 (close to 100k hands) and don't experience this unless I get AA cracked or suffer a couple of bad beats, but this is definitely not normal.

I know that I get excited when I start and am itching to go so I have to focus extra hard not to play marginal cards or make marginal calls. Focus is key.

Do you multi-table? Maybe try starting with only one or two tables until you get into a flow (15-30 minutes) and then bring up your normal number of tables. Or try playing a couple of $10 SnGs to get 'warmed up'.

Good Luck.

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

I went through a phase like this playing PLO8. My approach was to buyin short when I sat down (e.g. 160 instead of 400)and after a couple of circuits when I had a good feel for the table I woudl top myself up to the maximum (if there was still room [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img])

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

As a NL player, you should view losing 2 buyins as a bad streak. A good NL player's normal bad streaks are usually not worse than 3 buyins. So losing 2 with regularity is very very bad.

Here's my guess: you play very LAP weak until you get pissed off enough to start playing real cards. Then you begin to become more aggressive and more sharp. This happens to me occasionally, and it scares the hell out of me. It sounds to me like you need a little tilt to get your game on. This is fine until you run into a true bad streak and drop 5 or 6 buyins in a session.

Anyway, you obviously have the skills. You just need to get over whatever psychological hump is in your way every session. My advice: start playing fast, and then make your adjustments from there.

Good luck.

Marlow

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

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Same thing happens to me and I play limit. I seem to frequently drop 10-20BB right at the beginning of a 4-table sesssion before I start winning.

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This is true for me as well, but I can't convince myself that this should be happening. Looking over the past few weeks, I find myself down 10BB or more after 50 hands over 60% of the time. At the same time, I've been up 10BB or more after 50 hands 5% of the time. This seems especialy strange because I have been running very well lately. I've finished significantly up in almost every session over that span so why should my first 50 hands be so different?

I understand the influence of the blinds and needing time to learn your opponents style, but I think there is more to it than that.

I'm going to keep looking at those trouble hands and I'd like to hear from anybody that may have successfully dealt with this issue in the past.

Re: Always lose money before I start winning during a session. Normal?
 

Same today. First lost 32BBs in a coinflip situation 52% favourite. My all-in was no a no-brainer since there was already 25BBs in the pot. Next up my trips get cracked by a flushdraw and I lose another 30BB. Finally I start winning. My KJ hits trips and i win 20BB against a guy who overplayed TT.
Next up I win a huge pot with QQ against AK, AT and AT.
Overall result for this session about +80BBs.
But why does it start as a losing session most of the time? Is it mathematically justified?