No more live poker until Las Vegas first week of September. Rant?

steamboatin · #1 08-10-2005, 12:11 AM

Possible rant;

I am getting my head kicked in regardless of the limit, can't beat 4-8, can't beat 10-20 and I can't tell if it is variance or poor play. I am playing tighter and more aggressive than I have ever played before. Obviously aggressive play increases variance and big bet wise I am within noral variance but I think it is time to hit the books again.

I think I played good poker tonight, I was the tightest person at the table and I was very cautious about calling raises. The problem is that I can't tell if I am just running bad or playing bad. Probably some of both but I don't know how to fix the problem until I can identify the cause.

I think I should just play my low limt games on the Cryptos and really concentrate on finding leaks.

Let me quailfy my staement. No more live poker until Las Vegas unless I can get my VPIP down to 20% and preflop raises up to 10% or more. I was at 30% and I am at $24.6% for August.

Jersey Nick · #2 08-10-2005, 04:02 PM

Say it ain't so, Steam. I'm headed out to Louisville on the 24th and I was hoping to behold "the shirt" in person.

AKQJ10 · #3 08-10-2005, 04:45 PM

You seem to think much like I do: online poker's purpose is to prepare you for the mechanics of play, so you don't bleed money when you play the real thing.

Not saying that to bait flames from the pro-online community -- just saying that's its role in my life.

steamboatin · #4 08-10-2005, 06:24 PM

I don't actually wear "THE SHIRT" out in public except on a dare.

Jersey Nick · #5 08-10-2005, 07:27 PM

[ QUOTE ]
I don't actually wear "THE SHIRT" out in public except on a dare.

[/ QUOTE ]I dare you to spew chips with me playing 4/8 at Ceasars IN on 8/24 while wearing "THE SHIRT". I will wear my "shirt" too.

Fianchetto · #6 08-10-2005, 07:53 PM

Someone else on this forum said it, but it was something to the effect of:

"..if you play hold'em long enough you will eventually run worse than you thought possible"

That is not to say that it's just running bad, you might be playing bad too which makes it worse. But my point is that even playing good poker you can lose for a long time, especially in a card room where it is sooo much slower.

I've had losing streaks for upwards of 10K hands online. After I knew I was a winning player at that level. Part of it was bad play yes, but jesus in live play, that could be like months of running bad.

Just look at your hands, post hands, review the hands that cost you the most that night and see what you could have done differently. If somebody hit a gutshot, but you charged them the maximum, you can't really do anything differently.

Hold'em is really a sick game sometimes.

steamboatin · #7 08-10-2005, 10:06 PM

That is why I am sticking to online play, Poker Tracker will not let me develop selective memory.

BoxTree · #8 08-11-2005, 03:08 AM

[ QUOTE ]
I've had losing streaks for upwards of 10K hands online. After I knew I was a winning player at that level. Part of it was bad play yes, but jesus in live play, that could be like months of running bad.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm going to hijack and probably start another thread regarding this topic because we see it over and over again, but just in case I never get around to making said thread...

Players don't run badly for 10,000 hands in a casino. Okay, that's not true at all, but the fact is that they won't realize it until after 10,000 hands have been dealt. If you play eight hours in a B&M, you'll probably see around 280 hands (fewer if the B&M doesn't have auto-shufflers and fewer still if you're playing No Limit). To keep the math simple, I'll round down to 250. You're not going to have 40 consecutive 8-hour losing sessions (250 * 40 = 10,000). Even if you have net losses by the end of the 10,000th hand, you're not going to feel the pain of having never left the casino a winner during that 10k stretch.

If you want to compare online swings to B&M swings, do it by sessions -- not hours.

shmahappens · #9 08-12-2005, 02:54 PM

Instead of 'being cautious about calling raises', see if you can only play when you're willing to threebet. That's aggressiveness.

MicroBob · #10 08-12-2005, 03:19 PM

yes. i wasn't sure what he meant by this either.

if he's talking about pre-flop then I'll just jump in here with the friendly reminder that cold-calling raises pre-flop is generally NOT a good idea.

Once I stopped doing this (either it's so good I want to 3-bet or really it's not good enough where I should be playing it once it's been raised) my game was officially in its 'road to improvement' mode.
It was from some thread a couple years ago about cold-calling pre-flop...and the general idea that many players would be better off if they NEVER cold-called pre-flop (either re-raise or fold).

Not cold-calling EVER isn't perfect of course.
Just that NEVER cold-calling would be a better alternative to cold-calling too much which most players.

As far as calling raising post-flop...(like on the flop multi-way with your drawing hand...or heads-up on the river...etc etc...that's obviously a different matter entirely)