Supposed to be beating weak players but I am losing to them ARGH!!

Hey everyone I need some advice. Right now I am trying to build a bankroll and I am not having much luck and I don't have alot of money to do so. (married w/ kid and full time student). Heres what I've read so far. Harrington on Holdem #1. Started #2. Getting started on Holdem, Small Stakes Holdem and Sklansky on Holdem. During Christmas break I will be reading Holdem for Advanced players. I am a tight but aggressive player. I can read hands pretty well and know where I stand after the flop, turn, and river. I do my best not give my opponents the right odds to call, I don't play crap I'll raise, reraise, but I continually get drawn out by weak players it is frustrating. They are making incorrect calls but are getting lucky is this normal. I feel that I should be beating these guys at a higher rate but instead they are sucking money out of me. Help any advice will be welcome! Thanks [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

over how many hands have you been being consistently outdrawn?
I'd hate to tell you this, but just about everyone who thinks they 'always get outdrawn' just aren't that good.

[TreyOfLight]

Put in a few thousand hands at play money tables. Use Pokerstove to determine what you need to call allin against 5 random hands. Observe that you're losing most pots but winning chips hand over fist. Acquire an eight-figure bankroll.

Return to the real money tables with renewed clarity of purpose, and free of the notion that you can control your opponents or the cards.

[mason55]

are you playing limit or no limit?

[afreeman]

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During Christmas break I will be reading Holdem for Advanced players.

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While HPFAP is an excellent book that you should definitely read, much of it is not really that helpful at lower limits. If anything, a goodly number of the strategies (particularly those involving bluffs) are -EV at the very low limits. Sacrificing some immediate EV for a greater EV later is probably very effective at higher limits, but LL players are just not generally that observant. This also applies to Super/System.

Instead, I'd suggest (re)reading Theory of Poker. Its dense and takes about four reads to fully parse, but once you grasp on it begins to solidify, it WILL dramatically help your understanding of the game. Combine that with extensive hand readings from this forum. In particular, try to understand why a particular move is or is not theoretically correct.

You might also check out a program called "Poker Academy Pro" (see http://www.poki-poker.com). IMO, it has the best commercially-available poker AI on the market at the moment and its a great way to tune your play. Plus, you can import the data from your poki play into PT to do further analysis. The NL AI is a still a bit soft, but if you can reliably beat its limit AI then you'll be more than prepared for LL live play.

Its been working for me, anyway.

First I am playing NL at Noble Poker. .25/50 NL. Second what I mean by being drawn out ex someone chasing a set when there 22-1 underdogs and hitting and they are not getting correct pot odds to call. Or AQ offsuit raising for times the BB. Getting called by two players in first and second position. flop- 83A. I make a pot sized raise, player comes over the top to put me all-in. My concern is the player has AA's, AK, or A whatever and paired his kicker. The turn a 4 and river K. The player that won had an A4 in first postion. Heres another example I have KK utg raise 3X BB. 4 call. flop JQ6. I make a raise the size of 2/3 pot. Player goes- all in I call he has TT. Again he is a 22-1 underdog to hit his set. He got it on the river. I don't know maybe its me I am just frustrated. I understand the gap concept, check raise, semi-bluff, bluff, and being dominated and not to get into situations where I am dominated. Thanks so far for the advice. Keep it comin.

A lot of people make the mistake of assuming that someone raising too often is a donk. I raise everywhere, and I'm a winning player.
Because the table seems very loose and aggressive doesn't mean it is full of bad players. In fact, that can often mean it's full of strong players.
Now, obviously if you're consistently getting all your money in with the best hand on the flop, you're doing fine and it's just variance that's killing you. But I had such thoughts back when I was a losing player. Do you have Pokertracker? That really helped me see my faults more clearly.

You're not getting drawn out on every time. Im not calling you stupid or saying you're a donk or anything, but it's statistically impossible. I went through the same thing until I got tracker, and honestly started looking back through things. Yes Im sure you're on a variance downswing, but if you keep playing solid, you'll be steamrolling when it turns around.

Good luck to ya, and I look forward to seeing some hands, and hearing about this turning around for you.

-Eric

[Skuzzy]

I note from your examples that you seem happy to get it all-in with an overpair (KK) or TPGK (AQ). My first attempt at NL ran for 60,000 hands at the end of which I was winning at a rate of 1ptBB/100. It was a huge waste of time to play at all with that win rate.

I stopped reading books, stopped reading forums ( [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] ), stopped playing and started to think about the game and everything I had read. It seemed like winning should have been a straightforward proposition given that I was taking the time to really learn the game. I discovered that I was losing beause of tilt and ego. My biggest leak was lying to myself for the purpose of ego stroking.

I would play a session of 1000 hands, I would get dealt KK 5 times and 3 times I won preflop, once I'd get called by AA, once I'd lose my stack to a guy who raised me on a ragged flop with TT and caught his set on the turn. I preferred to see this as an injustice rather than my own error(s)

NO ONE IS A LONG TERM LOSER WITH AA AND KK!!!! You have to accept the truth that being a 5:2 favourite means that you will lose twice, to hands much worse than yours, out of only 7 hands played, where you are a favourite. You will lose. You will. Really, losing is poker. AA and KK lose a lot.

The way to stay out of trouble is to fold. You have AA on an undercard flop say QTx rainbow, you bet the pot, player X pushes his stack what does he have? The answer is easy. He has you beat! Fold save your stack for the time you have 66 in a raised pot on a flop of QT6 rainbow and the same guy pushes his AA allin, now you have him beat (most of he time!)


The way I turned from a loser into a winner was to drop down to 25NL games and simply play by 2 rules,
Rule 1: If your pot sized bet is reraised and all you have is top pair or an overpair even AA just fold. Your opponents as a whole are only bluffing here 1 time in 5 at the very most. You cant throw your stack away 4 times to catch one bluff.
Rule 2: Play it fast. If you think your raises are getting to much respect raise more not less. If you flop top set bet the pot anyway. If you flop the nuts and a player on your right bets into you raise it. If you think your hand would win more by slowplaying it then either you aren't in a SSNL game anymore or your mind is messing with you.

PS: It's not always right to fold AA to a reraise on the flop but as a "general" rule its always better to consider the "general" cases. If you are certain your opponent is reraising with KK then go ahead and push back but be sure of your reads and don't cry when he catches his set!

Good Luck !

[gunslingner]

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The way I turned from a loser into a winner was to drop down to 25NL games and simply play by 2 rules,
Rule 1: If your pot sized bet is reraised and all you have is top pair or an overpair even AA just fold. Your opponents as a whole are only bluffing here 1 time in 5 at the very most. You cant throw your stack away 4 times to catch one bluff.
Rule 2: Play it fast. If you think your raises are getting to much respect raise more not less. If you flop top set bet the pot anyway. If you flop the nuts and a player on your right bets into you raise it. If you think your hand would win more by slowplaying it then either you aren't in a SSNL game anymore or your mind is messing with you.
Good Luck !

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