The biggest leak ?

[waynethetrain]

Honesty, at this point I think my biggest leak is simply sitting down at the table to play. I'm sure I must be doing some things wrong. However, there's little doubt in my mind my pre-flop play is very good based on SSHM. I count outs and play draws well. I protect my goods hand fairly well. I rarely slowplay, but when I do the hand is almost a total lock. You would think that doing all these things right would make me at least break even player even if I occasionally misplay 2nd pair and overcards. The reality is that I'm losing 2BB per 100 hands at $1 -$2. It is really tough for me to believe that many of the players here that claim all sorts of profits are telling the truth. Sure there may be a few experts, but I can't believe that with all I am certain I am doing right that other players posting hands here are that much better than I am. So it is clear to me that my biggest leak is sitting down to play.

[waynethetrain]

"Oh, and by the way. NO ONE plays ace-king, suited or offsuit, poorly enough to turn it into a net long-term money loser. No one. The hand is too good. "

Ed Miller may want to reconsider this statement. I am getting crushed with AKo after about 6K hands. I'm not just losing with it. I am getting killed.

[Absolution]

[ QUOTE ]

I am guilty of this. Online when multi-tabling it is easy to chase a bad draw or just call when I should be raising. Live I have more time between actions and play them better.


[/ QUOTE ]

Hidden outs, redraws, implied odds, equity, etc... All of these things are taken for granted by many people as they strive to figure out whether they should fold AA on the turn. That's a problem.

[ QUOTE ]

Your post clears up the confusion as to which leak could be the largest and the reasoning as to why. Now lets switch to methods of identifing if we have these leaks in our own games.

1. Folding the best hand on the river when the pot is big.

Ed harps on this it must be important. Worst part is you will never know when you do it. PT has the stats - Won$wsf, Won$atSD, and Went toSD%. Will these numbers show this leak? Is there anouther way to spot it? Or do we call 99% of the time when facing one bet on the river and stop the leak for sure? Which is what I do and I have won some crazy hands doing it!


[/ QUOTE ]

Those crazy hands you won are the reason it's profitable. This could definitely be a big leak, but I think most here know enough not to make the mistake. And, all it takes is 1 or 2 times of you folding in a big pot where you'd win with something like 2nd pair to set you straight (or at least it should). If it's getting capped on the river and all you have is king high - well that's a different story.

[ QUOTE ]

2. Slowplaying to often or at the wrong times.

I have no idea how to spot this leak in your own game. Would it show up in your postflop AF in the flop number? I never slowplay at low limits unless I playing against friends and want to have fun messing with their heads. [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]

In the average micro game I always bet a good hand. I have bet/raised a flopped boat, nut flush, even quads the one time it happened. The players don't think what I could have but still call as always. If you don't bet they will check it though and money is lost.


[/ QUOTE ]

I agree. I think it's pretty rare to need to slowplay in micro limits. People are so willing to pay off at this level that you just push it every chance you get. Most seem to agree that shorthanded against good opponents might be the exception.

[ QUOTE ]

3. Misplaying overcards.

This one is hard to spot as Im told these types of hands have the highest variance. So you may be a net loser with several of these hands for long periods of time, even when playing them correctly. And as you pointed out these cards are to good and not costly enough to be a players biggest leak.

4. Going too far with marginal hands when the pot is small.

How do we spot this leak in our games? I don't know, and have a feeling this is my biggest leak. If the pot is small it usually means there are not many players in the hand. If they check to me I am betting to try and win the hand. This is dumb and I do it like a reflex even when I hold nothing.


[/ QUOTE ]

It's not necessarily dumb. Maybe if you do it every time it is. I think properly estimating you chances and odds helps a lot here. The math generally tells you when you have a big or small pot. This is another reason I put playing draws as the biggest leak.

[ QUOTE ]

5. Failing to properly defend your hand with aggressive play when the pot is big.

This one is going to be hard to spot. I don't even understand it fully. I think it is about check/raising and waiting till the turn to try and chase people out of the hand. Sometimes flop betting/raising can force the other players to call to the river? You said it best

[ QUOTE ]
Not protecting hands in big pots. I think this is the most OBVIOUS difficult situation for us. It is a tricky subject with a lot of subtlety and it comes up quite often.

[/ QUOTE ]

If someone has ideas how to spot and fix this leak please share. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]


[/ QUOTE ]

Math and properly counting your outs helps again here. I'm still working on this part of my game. It can get tricky and is very situational I think.

[ QUOTE ]

6. Misplaying draws

How many post have we seen about pot odds, the math of holdem, the 2/4 rule, and the rule of 13? Ed says memorize the odds. This is to simple and most people are to lazy to do it. This is my favorite chart Thank you Lost Wages. So how do we spot if this leak is fixed? Post hands here I guess. I have tried to learn the odds but I still make huge errors. I grasp for reasons to continue to draw like implied odds which I don't fully understand.

Somethings have become clear. I have leaks, lots of them and most are big! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I think a lot of odds are easy to count. If you have a flush draw on a non paired board, or have a flush draw and overs, it's easy to know what to do most of the time. It's the marginal situations when you have hidden outs or partial outs and the pots odds are close that worry me. Just look at all of the posts where people don't count all of their outs or implied odds and end up folding (sometimes when they should even raise). To a lesser extent you see some people finding excuses to call and fight for smaller pots when the math just doesn't justify it. That's what I was referring to.

[cowboyzfan]

[ QUOTE ]
Honesty, at this point I think my biggest leak is simply sitting down at the table to play. I'm sure I must be doing some things wrong. However, there's little doubt in my mind my pre-flop play is very good based on SSHM. I count outs and play draws well. I protect my goods hand fairly well. I rarely slowplay, but when I do the hand is almost a total lock. You would think that doing all these things right would make me at least break even player even if I occasionally misplay 2nd pair and overcards. The reality is that I'm losing 2BB per 100 hands at $1 -$2. It is really tough for me to believe that many of the players here that claim all sorts of profits are telling the truth. Sure there may be a few experts, but I can't believe that with all I am certain I am doing right that other players posting hands here are that much better than I am. So it is clear to me that my biggest leak is sitting down to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

well you basically have said your biggest leak is not knowing what your leaks are. BTW, i make mistakes all the time and am a winner. You need to use poker tracker or post a bunch of hands or something. But the first thing is to stop thinking you are good, if you can't beat 1/2, you are not good.

also, you might be playing in the wrong games. observe your prospective table, if you don't see people making obvious mistakes, don't sit down.

one more thing, you shouldn't be playing $1/$2 if you haven't yet beat 50c/$1. Start at the bottom and "earn" your way up, then if things get hairy you can always drop back down and work on your game. good luck

[Stuey]

[ QUOTE ]
Honesty, at this point I think my biggest leak is simply sitting down at the table to play. I'm sure I must be doing some things wrong. However, there's little doubt in my mind my pre-flop play is very good based on SSHM. I count outs and play draws well. I protect my goods hand fairly well. I rarely slowplay, but when I do the hand is almost a total lock. You would think that doing all these things right would make me at least break even player even if I occasionally misplay 2nd pair and overcards. The reality is that I'm losing 2BB per 100 hands at $1 -$2. It is really tough for me to believe that many of the players here that claim all sorts of profits are telling the truth. Sure there may be a few experts, but I can't believe that with all I am certain I am doing right that other players posting hands here are that much better than I am. So it is clear to me that my biggest leak is sitting down to play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Your post makes me think it is not enough to know which leak is the biggest. But we must be able to identify if we have these leaks in our games. How do we spot them and fix them? PT stats, gut feelings, asking others to examine hand examples? I have a gut feeling you MUST be folding winning hands in large pots. Maybe not for the one river bet but EVEN earlier. Or your sample size, as people love to say, is just to small. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

I don't think the other players here lie about their results. I am not a very good player but over 25K hands at .5/1 I am show a 1.5BB/100 profit. Most of these hands have been before finding 2+2.

Overcards have huge variance. Over 25K hands at .5/1 I have the following results.

I was dealt AKs 56 times and made $32
I was dealt AKo 168 times and made $11.50
I was dealt AQo 171 times and made $197.50 !
I was dealt AQs 63 times and LOST ($64.37)

Interesting info sure but I have no idea how to use it to help my game.

[waynethetrain]

I guess the point of my post wasn't very clear.

I am quite certain I am not an expert micro limit player. However, I am equally certain I am doing some things very well because I have a very good understanding of the issues and mathematics. I've been playing for over a year, have read "all" the required material and understand and apply most of it.

The fact that I am losing at $1 - $2 quite badly despite what I do know that I know, is not so much a commentary on my play but on the claims of others here.

I read many hand histories here and see some commentary that I know to be wrong. Yet these same players claim to be winning multiple bets per 100 hands. I do not believe that my own lack of success or their success can be strictly a matter of variance. I suspect that many players that claim they are winning are not.

No doubt I need to improve my game and perhaps I have had some bad luck, but I am certain there are many fewer winners here than you would think.

[cowboyzfan]

that's fine. I was just trying to help you out. I really don't even think about whether others are winning or not. It just isn't important to me. All I know is I have benefited a heck of a lot from the advice on this site.

[cowboyzfan]

According to Gary Carson the biggest leak by far is lack of table selection. He certainly is not the only one who thinks this, but I am reading his book right now and he makes a big point of it.

I mention this in the context of comments about needing to be "expert" to make money at this game. Nothing could be further from the truth. You could suck arse and as long as your opponents suck more, you will make money.

You could be the tenth best player in the world but if your nine opponents are the top 9, you will not make a thing off them in the long run.

BTW, thanks for using me as the example of what not to focus on in a classic post Ed [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[mr pink]

uhh... calling down when it is clear you are beat and have no chance to improve is a leak regardless of how big the pot is.

[MooFrog]

I really can't see that "Most of the winning players" are lying, or fooling themselves. With poker tracker, it's very hard to lie to yourself due to the big numbers telling you that you're losing money. I'm sure there's a number of people who are losers that pretend to be winners, but there's so many variables to consider that just because someone makes a mistake in a few hand posts doesn't mean they are bad at poker. The only real way to fool yourself is by convincing yourself that with rakebacks and bonuses, you're actually winning (personal experience here).

I'm totally a losing player right now, but I'm starting to understand why and fix a few of my leaks (like you, sitting down to play sometimes feels like my major leak). I don't count outs enough, go too far with poor hands, expect to turn up cards that I don't have the odds for (after counting odds), and generally play with my heart instead of my head much too often. This is after lots of reading on 2+2 forums, reading SSH 3 times (once to get the ideas, 2 studying reads, and on my fourth now).

I'm just starting out from the beginning again now, moving down to nanolimits to get a grasp on the basics and really get a feel for what I should be doing. This took a bit of humbling, since a few months ago before I took a break I was multi tabling 1/2 and believing I was good enough.

Anyway, I'd recommend that you drop down to a limit that the losses are negligible, and just play to get better. When I can ignore the amount of money involved, I find that I play much more correctly. Also, I usually keep the starting hand list from SSH open in front of me as a sanity check - usually I'm in line with it, but there's been a lot of times that I've been thinking of raising as a bluff or semibluff from EP and realized the hands not even listed, saving me quite a few bets over time. This also helps me work on my postflop play, since I know that I'm getting into the hand with something that I should.

I know it's hard for a lot of people to really accept that they suck, but after 6000 hands I guess you have the choice of continually hemmorhaging money or going back to the start and really studying. Hopefully we'll be able to see each other in the higher limits later on, since I'm not sure how my own "path to poker glory" is going to go either [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]