My first rant. Looking for advice.

[Caruso329]

Okay.. I'm sick of this bullshit. I hate downswings. I hate them with a fiery passion. On a semi-small one right now but I think it's destined to get bigger. 5 buy-ins and counting at the moment.

Let's go over the crap:

Pocket pairs have refused to flop sets for me. When they do flop sets I pick up the blinds or maybe an extra buck or two. When I fold them on the flop, they turn a set. When I fold a low PP PF to a raise (2s-4s) they flop sets.

AK, suited or not has lost a lot of money for me. Normally it goes like this. Hero raises, 1 or 2 callers. Hero misses flop but is checked to and makes a stab. Someone calls. Check check turn. Villain over bets river and Hero folds.
Or the other side.
Hero raises. Everyone folds. Hero makes 0.35 cents.
Or the slightly better side.
Hero raises. One caller. Hero bets, fold. Hero makes $2.

Third point. My high pocket pairs normally have been going something like this.
Hero has KK-JJ. Hero raises, has 4 callers. Flop comes x-x-A.
Hero raises. Everyone folds.

Fourth, my AA.
Hero raises. Everyone folds.
I don't think I've been dealt an AA where I picked up more than the blinds.

I'm kind of tired of poker at this point. I want to take a break because it's depressing when I just feel like I'm going to lose money when I get on. The even more depressing thing is I'll actually start winning when I first start. I'll be up a buy-in and I think, hey maybe this will be the day I end my downswing. Next few hands I lose all of my money to an obvious beat.

Maybe I'm tilting... maybe it's an advanced form of tilt that's just gotten under my skin and deep in my brain. Should I just take a vacation from poker. Thinking about it, I started playing back on December 2nd. Haven't stopped since then. Literally I've been playing poker non-stop. I rarely miss a day at the online tables and I think it's starting to affect my play.


So... advice?

[NiceCatch]

Don't take this the wrong way... but this post doesn't belong on this forum. Probably the Psychology forum would be better. It seems that theredpill and certain other posters on this forum have started a negative trend towards low-content posts...

As to advice, definitely take a break. After you've gotten poker out of your head for a few days (or weeks, or whatever it takes for you), get back to the fundamentals, and read books that you found helpful in the past. Analyze your game as well. Find if any new leaks have appeared.

Regarding specific play: maybe you're raising aces too high preflop... do you think you have a betting tell? Too strong with aces, not so strong with any other strong preflop hands? And as to small pairs, I'd suggest that if you have a stack smaller than 100xBB, go ahead and play them to a reasonable raise (i.e. about 5 BB's).

Good luck.

[Caruso329]

I hate life.

PokerRoom No-Limit Hold'em, $0.50 BB (8 handed) converter

SB ($21.75)
BB ($29.85)
UTG ($24.75)
UTG+1 ($18.40)
MP1 ($19.20)
MP2 ($35.75)
CO ($31)
Button ($4.25)

Preflop: Hero is UTG+1 with A[img]/images/graemlins/club.gif[/img], A[img]/images/graemlins/heart.gif[/img].
UTG calls $0.25, <font color="#CC3333">Ruso329 raises to $2</font>, <font color="#666666">6 folds</font>, UTG folds.

Final Pot: $2.60

In response to you NiceCatch, sorry, but if everyone else is aloud one rant post, then hell I'm making one too.

I think I might take a break and re-read SS and HoH. Also might try to learn limit. I'm going to play it over Spring Break when I visit my Dad in Tampa. I've been trying to re-evaluate my game for about a week now.

I'm not raising aces anymore than I'm raising my other raise hands. $2 is my standard raise at these levels. I've experiemented with other numbers. 4x BB = $1, but that will get so many callers it's not even funny. $1.50 is just a weird number that people don't like to call in my experience. I think it's a psychological thing, the chips are bigger and it seems like a bigger call than $2 (Sorry if that makes no sense). Anyway, I do have success with $2 raises, it just happens when I make raises with TT, AQo, etc.

Even with a 100BB+ stack I don't like to call a $2 raise from UTG with 22. It loses it's set value.

Thanks for the help.

[NiceCatch]

[ QUOTE ]
Third point. My high pocket pairs normally have been going something like this.
Hero has KK-JJ. Hero raises, has 4 callers. Flop comes x-x-A.
Hero raises. Everyone folds.


[/ QUOTE ]
By the way, am I the only one who thinks this is a really good thing? Usually when I have KK-JJ and the flop comes Axx with the raised pot, I DON'T win the pot.

[Caruso329]

No those were two seperate actions. Either I'll have KK-JJ and the flop will come ace high and I'll check/fold (with that many people), or the table will just fold preflop to my raise.

[NiceCatch]

Ah ok... that's not so good. By the way, do you play full tables? I'd suggest you try out some shorthanded and 6max tables. It can be a little more stimulating, and more challenging.

[Caruso329]

I do only play full ring. My shorthanded game needs work so I shy away from 6-max. Normally if a game I'm in starts to break up, I'll stay and end up losing a good portion of what I won earlier. This is normally with 4-6 players.

[cookperson]

it's myexperience that when people complain like this , it is not a matter of bad luck ;but bad playing. Over time everyone will get the same hands. if i were you i would lookdeeper into your game, ask questions about how you should play specific hands,read the forum, get hand history to look at specific hands. i don't know you but i would guess that after a few tough hands you appear to go on tilt,saying why me why me. instead of blaming bad luck look to improve your game.or you will never get anywhere.

[Caruso329]

No offense, but your experience is only about 23 posts... [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[cookperson]

it doesn't mean that i haven't been playing alot longer