Start of sessions

[UVaHoo]

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This happens because to enter a new game you must put money in the pot blindly. Also, if you don't post behind, you will also start with bad position. It takes a while to get a hand you will then play and when you do, it's not like you win every hand you play. You start out behind.

The other reason is that most good players start out extra tight until they have a feel for their table and then they can decide how they want to play. You may pay a few blinds before you really start playing.

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I agree with this post. The latter point, imo, is especially true in NL tables. I'm much more reluctant to play a potential trouble hand like AJo early in a session because I'm not sure how the other players are likely to act. So, I get blinded away a little bit until I develop a feel for how the table is playing and how to play different types of hands.

[AaronBrown]

I was not precise. If your win rate during, say, the first hour of play is consistently less than your average win rate, that is a problem to be addressed.

However, as both of us said in different ways, it is usually the case that there will be some point during the play when you are down. So it's not a leak if you find that 90% of the time you lose money on the round of hands, or if 90% of the time you find yourself down at some point during the first hour.

[winky51]

I did a lot of thinking about this. I continue to almost always start off down then come back up later within the hour. I think its partially because of the following.

1. your image is not set.
2. you have no information on your opponents.
3. you really can't bluff.

I think #2 is the most important. I know when I play if I have a read on a player, fish, LAG, TAG, I alter my play to each player. Some fish I will always fold without a strong hand to a raise, some I will always call just about because they bluff so much. When facing unknowns you don't know anything so you play incorrectly against specific players. I have seen players bluff the new guy at the table or raise on the turn top pair with crap kicker when I hold top pair top kicker or something similar.

All this extra information is what makes a solid player go 2+ BB per 100. If rake was taken out I would be profitable more than 50% of the time starting out within the 1st hour. Since you have to overcome the rake and lack information on your players you technically make mistakes. Thus lose money.

Just my theory. I expect to start off losing so it never affects me. The other night I turned my -$50 within 20 mins to +$230 in 2 hours at 3/6.

[damaniac]

Your image may help you, again it may hurt you. Same with having an unknown image. If no one knows anything about me, I may get early calldowns with garabge when I have a good hand, or people may fold a better hand to a semi-bluff/free showdown raise.

Likewise, I have no info on others, but they have no info on me. This is partially alleviated by the assumption that if you are better than the other players, you also presumably use your info about them better than they use their info about you.

And you can bluff, you just have less info and have to make more board-based decisions than player-based ones, which reduces your ability to do it, but by no means stops you from making probable profitable bluffs.

I really think this is more likely than not the same issue that causes people to claim that "Aces never win" or "73s is my hand, I always win with it", just selective memory, plus the initial blinds that put you down from the get-go since you start posting and OOP. I'd really be interested to see graphs of the course of single-table sessions. Otherwise I suspect the effects are fairly minimal, but I could be wrong.

Of course you start negative. You lose 2 or 3 hands for every one you win. Unless you hit that winning hand right off, you'll go into the hole before you hit a hand or two and pull into the black.

[tinhat]

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Of course you start negative. You lose 2 or 3 hands for every one you win. Unless you hit that winning hand right off, you'll go into the hole before you hit a hand or two and pull into the black.

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I like that; plain, simple, sensible.

I've also noticed (maybe selectively?) that if I'm able to splash around as soon as I sit down, the session usually goes much much better for me than if I have to wait a long time for something to play. Maybe that's the image part somebody already mentioned; or maybe a "confidence boost" thing for me; aren't sure...

Mike

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Id say 4 of 5 sessions I play I start out losing. Sometimes 3-4 BB per 100 then I catch up.

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Why bother letting your thoughts get distracted on something like this? If you're beating the game, it shouldn't matter whether you're in the 1st hand or 1,000th hand of a session. If you're not beating the game, then it shouldn't matter either.

These kinds of thoughts are just like the other fables and phobias like stop loss money management, quitting while you're ahead, pushing your luck because you're on a good run, changing your strategy because the cards are running bad, etc., etc., etc.

[winky51]

Interesting point. Although I rarely remember doing backflips after 2 hours where I just beat the crap out of my tables from the get go. In 2 years it has happened rarely. But man when it does, ooooooooh boy its like a giant boulder at the top of a mossy hil and I just gave it a little nudge.

No usually I take a good 2-3 BB per 100 beating for the first 20 mins then it comes back slowly. Very strange. But maybe its because its 4 tables. I uess if you post 3/6 on 4 tables in the BB you pretty much auto lose $16, then you call a coupld times or raise and miss with all the loose action and poof your down $50. You make this up later though. Yea thats seems about right

[winky51]

I'm used to it. Doesnt bother me. In fact I prefer it to winning $100 off the bat then losing it. I think that affects your state of mind worse than losing up front.

It was more curiosity to why it happened and now I know.