Pure frustration -- no content -- don't read

prayformojo · #1 10-23-2005, 12:12 PM

Don't read this. I just need a place to vent frustration. My apologies for cluttering the forums. I just had a one table 5/10 session where I lost 80BB in the space of 2.5 hours. There were four players with VPIP over 50%. The biggest donkey was raising his gutshot for value on the turn. And catching. And catching. And catching. Every blind was defended, and every J2o caught a 2 on the flop and called down to the river.

I went back over my hand histories. I did not play optimally, but I don't think I played terribly. I took down a total of ten pots out of 280 hands. My biggest losers? AK against AJ on an AA46J board. A9 against A8 on an A9588 board. KK against 55 on a K234A board.

It's break time. Maybe an hour, maybe a week, I don't know. I probably just suck at poker. Scrabble sounds good right now. Letter variance is a bitch, but I feel like I can crack all the s'es and ing racks with EEEEEEE right now.

angst · #2 10-23-2005, 12:24 PM

I know how you feel. Variance is both a blessing and a curse at the same time. You really feel like [censored] and as if you are the worst player on earth when you go through your worst losing streaks.

smartalecc5 · #3 10-23-2005, 12:51 PM

t hurts the most though when you know you lose it all to a copmlete donk. You get excited when you sit down b/c you think you will take all his money and slowly but surely... he takes all of yours [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

JohnnyHumongous · #4 10-23-2005, 01:04 PM

[ QUOTE ]
Don't read this. I just need a place to vent frustration. My apologies for cluttering the forums. I just had a one table 5/10 session where I lost 80BB in the space of 2.5 hours. There were four players with VPIP over 50%. The biggest donkey was raising his gutshot for value on the turn. And catching. And catching. And catching. Every blind was defended, and every J2o caught a 2 on the flop and called down to the river.

I went back over my hand histories. I did not play optimally, but I don't think I played terribly. I took down a total of ten pots out of 280 hands. My biggest losers? AK against AJ on an AA46J board. A9 against A8 on an A9588 board. KK against 55 on a K234A board.

It's break time. Maybe an hour, maybe a week, I don't know. I probably just suck at poker. Scrabble sounds good right now. Letter variance is a bitch, but I feel like I can crack all the s'es and ing racks with EEEEEEE right now.

[/ QUOTE ]

THis happens all. The. Time. At 6-max. This weekend I had two separate 115BB downswings at 10/20, and I'm actually up 115BB for the weekend, boosted by a ~4 hour session last night that won me 160BB. Long story short, you need a stomach for these games. You can easily play less than optimally (as I did during those downswings) and often before you have a ton of experience you can't even identify when you're playing sub-optimally.

One thing that helps a great deal is actually multitabling, because by playing 4 or more tables you blow through the swings in a small amount of time, so they don't cause you as much emotional hardship. Also, I find that those "super juicy" tables are tricky themselves, in that you can run up 50BB in 20 minutes and you can just as easily drop 50BB when it's you and 4 or 5 super donkeys. Obviously you're gonna win more than you lose in the long run at these types of tables, but in the short run, especially single tabling, it can be frustrating.

Best of luck.

GetThere1Time · #5 10-23-2005, 01:09 PM

It happens all the time.

FWIW, a post saying don't read is silly since you wouldn't be posting if you don't want people to read it. There's lots of ways to privately vent frustration. I prefer to punch my monitor and give it the finger when they suck out. If it'll help I'll order you 1000 pokerstars stress stars.

tinhat · #6 10-23-2005, 02:52 PM

[ QUOTE ]

One thing that helps a great deal is actually multitabling, because by playing 4 or more tables you blow through

[/ QUOTE ]

Personally I think this is/can be great advice for ppl like me that have short fuses. I stumbled on this by sheer accident and was shocked at how less likely I was to blow my top when playing multiple tables. Things move so quick compared to single-tabling you just don't have any time to dwell (and not being able to let go of the past is probably the #1 thing that leads me to steaming). So until I put in the effort to work on my temper this has been a very helpful short-term solution...

Mike

prayformojo · #7 10-23-2005, 03:37 PM

Okay, I took a couple of hours off, then 3-tabled for an hour. I tightened up, played reasonably solid against some donks, avoided FPS, and clawed my way up a respectable 12BB. It's time for a good supper, a bottle of wine, and forgetting about poker, secure in the knowledge that money comes around in the long run.

This will be my only whine post for a long long time. It was silly, not only because it's unproductive, but because this downswing comes in the middle of my most profitable month in a long time.

Oh, and I did play an hour of literati, yahoo's scrabble clone. I am so much better at that than I am at poker it's sick. If there was a way to play that game for real money I would go pro in a second and pwn my way to fat city.