punishment for cashing out?

I would like other players experience on cashing out. Specifically on hands and flops after cashing out. I've been playing for about a year now. Right now I play Pokerstars 2/4 or 3/6. I am finally making money but my experience consistlently goes like this. 1.Log on 2. buy in for $100 3.within minutes am to 150 - 200 4.lose about 20 5. quit for a while (hour or two) 6. repeat. Since I am not working right now and have no source of income besides poker I try to cash out $50 - $100 a day after I have increased my bankroll. Increasing my modest bankroll is priority. Then it seems I get no cards and when I do the flop is way off.
Any of you who have been doing this for awhile please let me in any tips or secrets of the trade. My game is pretty tight, I rarely chase and pretty much stick to SSH preflop selections. I really want to make my living playing poker because I love the game and am sick of boring accounting jobs. Any advice would be appreciated.
GL to all.
Lauren [img]/images/graemlins/spade.gif[/img]

[cracker9521]

Do a search for cashout curse and you will see this has been discussed extensively.

[MicroBob]

Hi Lauren -

Talk of the 'cash-out curse' is common...but that doesn't make it correct.

You are experiencing general fluctuation.
There is a lot of variance in this game.

Many so-so players like to try to find various excuses for why they lose.
The fact is, they are losing because they are either playing badly or are going through typical fluctuations (or a combo of the two).
There is no cashout curse and to think so is ridiculous (but, again, many people do incredibly enough).


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no source of income besides poker I try to cash out $50 - $100 a day after I have increased my bankroll.

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I really want to make my living playing poker because I love the game and am sick of boring accounting jobs. Any advice would be appreciated.

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If you are depositing and cashing-out virtually everyday and trying to make your living playing poker then it sounds to me that you are WAY underbankrolled to be doing this.

At 2/4 or 3/6 you can perhaps make around 1BB/hr per table (rough estimate) on average if you are a good player AND are sufficiently bankrolled enough to withstand the fluctuations.

So if you can play 4 tables of 3/6 at the same time then making $25/hour is not unrealistic.


For a pro (with no other source of income) this generlaly means having 2 months of expenses + 300BB at the bare-minimum and I personally think this would be too light.
3 months + 500BB would be a better minimum.

But conceiveably if you are already a proven winner (say perhaps you've played 50k hands and have a decent win-rate of 1BB/hr or better) you could get by on a bankroll of $6k ($2k per mth in expenses perhaps + another $2k for playing).

If you are just trying to make it by at 2/4 or 3/6 with less than $1000 then you almost certainly are going to bust at some point (if only from the living expenses).

If you are not yet a proven winner (50k hands AT LEAST of winning poker...and again, this is bare-minimum stuff..I would recommend much more than that) then you just shouldn't be playing full-time for income yet.


Ed Miller has had some good articles about this in the 2+2 magazine (very top left-corner on the green bar) regarding bankroll requirements and other such stuff for wanna-be internet-pro's like yourself.

The fact is, if you are confused or worried about cash-out curses and are just trying to 'lock-up' your wins everyday because you need the money then there is no way you should be doing this full-time for income right now.
Jobs suck...sorry. But you need to get another one for steady income while you continue to work on your game.


Also - as Ed mentioned in SSH...the pre-flop recommendations in his book are perhaps the least important part.
Read and re-study the book for all the great post-flop concepts to help you succeed.


Finally - I don't know why a pro would want to try to make it on the ring-games at pokerstars which just aren't that great.
With a decent rake-back plan at Party you can really help your own cause a LOT.

If you don't know what a rake-back plan is then there is ZERO chance that you should be playing online-poker professionally at this time.

I've been noticing this for a while (i.e. the 'cashout curse'), and I thought, no way, this has to be BS. Well, it's not.

I did an analysis of all my cashouts, EVERY SINGLE TIME I cashout I get crappy cards and second best hands time after time after time. It's unreal. Most times I lose 1/2 my bankroll, sometimes I lose it all and have to re deposit. It's worst when I have a lot of money left.

Lately I've been withdrawing every time I make $50. I keep the minimum in ($100), every time I make $50, out to neteller. It's just a few mouse clicks. Well, I've been doing it for a few weeks now, it's working a treat. My win rate is right where it should be, and I no longer get bad cards. I think somewhere in the software there's a thing that says if you don't have much money left, they don't give you a bad run (maybe they don't want you leaving altogether?? - I don't know).

So anyway, my advice is: Every time you make $50 profit, cash it out. DO IT EVERY TIME. Don't let these bastards screw you around, man. I learnt the hard way.

[SoCalRugger]

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I am finally making money but my experience consistlently goes like this. 1.Log on 2. buy in for $100 3.within minutes am to 150 - 200 4.lose about 20 5. quit for a while (hour or two) 6. repeat.

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There is no way in hell you will be successful at poker if you honestly think it works like this. Is this even a serious post?

[MicroBob]

I don't know if this is a serious post or not....but I obviously addressed it as a serious one.

The people I met on the PPM cruise were uniformally talking about 'unrealistic flops and cards' and 'cash-out curses' ALL the freaking time and were dead serious about it.
Others just don't understand bankroll requirements...and I met enough blackjack and roulette players when I was briefly a dealer who seriously thought a -EV game could be beaten if you just left at the right time....like NEVER playing beyond the point when you are either up $100 or down $50...that way you will supposedly, on average, finish up $50 for all your sessions so the logic goes...and other stuff about leaving when the 'dealer is hot' is generally accepte as correct as well.

The variety of people that I have met in blackjack/roulette dealing and on the PPM cruise leave me in a position where it would not surprise me in the least if all these questions and assumptions were completely legitimate from someone who was just new to poker or gambling and has heard some really bad advice from really bad players.


The good news is...with an open-mind to the possibilities (such as 'the reason you are losing isn't because of the cash-out curse...but because you are just not a good player yet')...virtually anyone can learn why these frightningly commonly accepted ideas are completely wrong.

[Losing all]

I think cashing out $50 a day is a great idea! It will be so awesome when poker sites start charging $15 per withdrawl.

Thanks for your response MicroBob,
Yes, I was serious about my post. I understand about variance and playing badly. This is just my experience after cashing out. I wanted to hear from other players to see if that happened all the time to them as well.
I do play on Eurobet rakeback. (have to fax id to Europe to cashout. wtf)
I am fairly new to playing online and am learning. I am not expecting to make a living on 3/6 tables but am working my way up.
I appreciate the advice, don't appreciate being slammed.
Cheers.

[jmillerdls]

And you are the reason new players get these ideas in their head. Just silly.

Hey Man,
Thanks for your response. It makes more sense than "playing badly" i.e your playing good made $100 in half hour, getting good cards, cash out $50 and it all goes to hell.
When I'm not getting cards or sucked out I quit before tilt or whole bankroll gone so I don't have to re-deposit. Variance Smariance. lol