37 Weeks to WSOP Quest and $5/10 Disaster

[dogmeat]

Did I give away too much in that title about my $5/10 Play? It was a week from Hell. I finally got my bankroll up to $10,000 and was ready to give the higher limit a shot. I got shot!

I played about 12 hours, then posted that I needed some help with my poker tracker numbers after losing about $500. My first response was from Tosh, who highlighed the fact that I had only 3300 hands to base my numbers on and said "Keep playing", well, that pretty much killed my thread. What I was hoping was that somebody could look at my numbers and say they were normal (at which point I would know I was being seriously out-played after the fop), or my VP$IP was too high, or whatever. However, I can't keep playing. I put in another 3 hours and now have lost $750. Since I make about $21/hour playing 2 tables of $2/4, this was a disaster of a week. Instead of making $735, I lost $750. From my $10,000 I made my weekly $250 payment to household expenses on Monday and one today. I lost $735, then I made my two payments to my WSOP fund ($340) and paid my quarterly taxes ($1450). Next, I had promised my wife that when we found a nice lot to build a new house on, I would put up $2,000 of the down-payment. Well, today my bankroll is $6410.

I can't aford to play anymore $5/$10. I'm back to $2/4 and $3/6. Oh, well. For those of you that think since I have over 300BB I should play a higher limit, the problem is that I can't afford to have a losing week. A $750 loss where I should have won $750 is a $1500 swing, and I can't afford that.

Anyway, back to better things.........I played in the King of the Zoo Tournament on Thursday, and I made the final table again (I am four for four), but failed to cash. Vinnythefish spent a good amount of time beating on me. Twice I had pocket Aces and flopped a set (this was O/8) with a draw to the low, but it turned out I was drawn-and quartered both times, ouch. On another hand with Vinny and n1stunner I held 2,3 KK and the flop came with a 4,5. I was clearing the JULREL at Party at the same time and managed to fold, instead of call. Turn was an ace and I would have snapped them both off.........ARGG!

Well, that's it for this week. Good luck everybody, and remember, I want to see you in April at the WSOP.

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[Dov]

Hang in there dog, you'll make it. Just keep your head and enjoy yourself.

[BreakEvenPlayer]

A 75BB loss at $5/$10 is something you are going to have to deal with. If you claim a bankroll of $10,000 and then need to quit after a 75 BB loss then your real bankroll must be something around $1,000. The whole point of building a bankroll is to be able to easily handle the inherent swings of poker. If you can't handle a losing week, then all that money is definitely not your bankroll.

I suggest you build a $5000 dollar bankroll that is of no REAL consequence to your financial situation and you take a real crack at $5-$10. A bankroll has to have no strings attached to be a real bankroll and I think your mindset needs adjusting.

[CMangano]

The most important thing I have learned about poker is that you must play at levels you are comfortable with. And that means at levels where a bad losing streak won't break you. If a bad losing streak at 5/10 will break you, then don't play it. No one says you have to move up or play a certain limit when your bankroll is greater than or equal to 300BBs. Play a limit when you are ready. And you're making 21/hr at a level that you have almost no risk of going broke at, so why are you worrying about 5/10 anyways?

[Tosh]

[ QUOTE ]
I played about 12 hours, then posted that I needed some help with my poker tracker numbers after losing about $500. My first response was from Tosh, who highlighed the fact that I had only 3300 hands to base my numbers on and said "Keep playing", well, that pretty much killed my thread. What I was hoping was that somebody could look at my numbers and say they were normal (at which point I would know I was being seriously out-played after the fop), or my VP$IP was too high, or whatever. However, I can't keep playing. I put in another 3 hours and now have lost $750. Since I make about $21/hour playing 2 tables of $2/4, this was a disaster of a week. Instead of making $735, I lost $750. From my $10,000 I made my weekly $250 payment to household expenses on Monday and one today. I lost $735, then I made my two payments to my WSOP fund ($340) and paid my quarterly taxes ($1450). Next, I had promised my wife that when we found a nice lot to build a new house on, I would put up $2,000 of the down-payment. Well, today my bankroll is $6410.


[/ QUOTE ]

Sorry if you don't believe my response to be helpful but this is the thing. You can learn only very little about someone's play from a few random PT stats, so when the first thing I see is 'Hands played 3300', I immediately know the answer is sample size. It appears you've been winning at 2/4 and 3/6 for 15 weeks, do you really think the games are that much harder that suddenly you're a fish in the games? Yes they are harder, noone can deny that, but swings are part of poker. If you think you can't lose at 2/4 or 3/6 you're deluding yourself.

Of course the answer may well be you're not good enough to beat 5/10 yet, and so you are right to move down but I believe you need to post specific hands you are not sure about and not bother with a load of numbers that we can't really deduce a great deal from.

PS If you believe it would help I can e-mail you an excel spreadsheet I have kept of my records playing 5/10-15/30 over the last 6 weeks.

[dogmeat]

Tosh, thanks for taking the time to respond to my crying. I keep reading that the $5/$10 game is easy, but my earlier post was really a question as to what other players with stats from those games were seeing - since I had no pokertracker stats of my own but the 3300 hands. Any info is helpful and if you can email your stats, that would be great.

Thanks again,

Dogmeat [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[Tosh]

Ok no worries, PM me your e-mail address and I'll send it over.

[MarkD]

What are you putting into this spreadsheet that pokertracker isn't giving you Tosh? I guess I just am not seeing the point of the spreadsheet atm.

[jdredd]

If you are paying for things like family expenses and taxes out of your "bankroll" then its not really a proper bankroll. It's crucial that your bankroll be money that is set aside for poker playing purposes only. Also, if you can't handle losing $750 at 5/10 then you probably arent psychologically ready for that limit either. I think the emotional/psychological hurdles of playing poker are often overlooked, and in my experience they are one of the toughests aspects of playing poker at a high level.

[Tosh]

I only keep my daily records, i.e. I was up this day, down the next. It just shows the swings, a good illustration is a 200BB downswing and close to 500BB upswing.