Long, Painful, and Seemingly Endless

[AviD]

That is probably an accurate description for both this post you are about to read, and also how poker has been going for me this year.

Forgive me if this post is a little choppy, I just finished yet another vicious session of getting absolutely smoked.

Nevertheless, some of you may know me, most of you probably don't, but perhaps some of you can extract things from this post to either provide some guidance to me or even help yourselves in one way or another. For those that do know me, you know I've been virtually inactive on here for several months now, and the main reason for it is because quite honestly, I've been getting absolutely decimated at poker and have been trying desperately to figure it out, grind it out, and get past it all.

Before I even get started, I'd like to thank arkady for spending the time (hours, days, weeks on end) reviewing my hands, reviewing my stats, and observing the games I've sat in to try and provide some insight into my game and fix any potential leaks. And if it weren't for him, I question if I'd even be posting this right now. So thanks dude! [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Anyway, while we are on the topic of leaks, I'd like to admit I am no where near a perfect player and always considered myself to be average or a little above average. On the same token, I would say the leaks I do have aren't enough to result in this ridiculously long combination of downswings and break-even play. Some of the posters on here have played with me in the past and can at least attest to my abilities as a player (could be good or bad, I'm being upfront and honest, so hopefully they will as well in their responses).

Anyway, for a little background for those that don't know me, I've been playing for roughly 2.5 to 3 years now, and for the first 6 months...new to Hold Em', and like many others I lost. But in that time, and like all things in my life, I absolutely hate losing. I will do everything in my power to learn a given game, hobby, etc to not just understand how to play or do it, but to master it. I am 100% full steam ahead, highly motivated and highly dedicated fanatic so to speak when it comes to my hobbies. And that is exactly what poker is, with the antillary benefit of being secondary income for me (or at least used to be).

Beyond all that, and after my 6 months of initially "learning" the game and improving my own game (noting that this game is a neverending cycle of learning, adjusting, and improving as a player) , I began to become a winning player over the next year and a half. I grinded out the limits and moved up from 0.5/1 to 1/2 to 2/4 to 3/6 to 5/10 to 10/20 and finally to 15/30 with some 20/40 live play. I had set some reasonable goals for this year, but in a disaster of a year, I have taken a huge leap backwards.

As far as my BR and BR management, I am reasonably strict with what games I sit such that I don't risk losing my BR by sitting a limit outside of what I felt I could both manage financially and as a player.

In respect to my downswings and break-even play, and at the risk of sounding like a complete and utter bad-beat, downswing whiner, I really don't know what the cause/causes is/are.

I've literally torn apart my last 100K hands, and have not come to any reasonable conclusions in respect to my stats. I do play a mix of full and SHed (most 6m now), and my games are very different in each respective game. I am constantly adjusting, spending all my energy focusing on the players, have cut down to 2 tabling to increase my focus, etc...but to no avail.

I can go on and on about my stats, the games, etc...but in a nutshell and at the highest of levels, I am often times putting in a ton of money with the best hand and getting outdrawn constantly. These aren't even logical or "solid" draws or redraws, these are consistent 1-5 outers hitting over and over. We all know how aggressive the SHed games are, and quite frankly, the games I select seem absolutely excellent. I love when players CR me on the turn with gutshot draws, or overcards or semi bluff 3-bet a turned flush draw, etc...but the frequency of them hitting even in HU situations is absolutely mind boggling. Ultimately, I am putting in a ton of bets and losing to 2-5 outers with insane frequency and not getting anything when I have a made hand. It seems like any pot over 5BBs I'm losing, and no I'm not exaggerating.

I've thought about hiring a coach, but after the repeated brutal sessions of the same types of hands crushing the hell out of me, I don't know what a coach can help me with here. I don't feel as if my play is poor in any way, and at the worst I have a few minor leaks (such as not folding to river raises when the only hand that does beat me is a gutshot, which I can't seriously give anyone who cold calls 3 bets on the turn credit for) that may be taking away from my winrate (or increasing my loserate).

Anyway, like I said, I am not a beginner at poker, I've had people watch my play for hours on end, review my hands, and have had umpteen discussions about hands, various/best lines given the players involved, texture of the game, etc...but it honestly doesn't seem to have any significant bearing on the long run (or mini chunk of the real LONG run). I've tried pot manipulation to move people off hands and draws, forcing them into making poor calls they otherwise shouldn't, isolating weaker players, etc...alot of aggressive techniques to put myself in a winning position. On the same token, I am watching players with a very similar style absolutely crush games, the same games (limit) I am in or higher.

I cannot even begin to describe the level of frustration I am experiencing. But it is worth noting, that that frustration does not transcend into my play. For those that have played with me live, they know I do not tilt easily and have a tremendous amount of patience. Much is the same in online poker. I do not tilt easily, and make it a point to stay very level headed and keep an even keel regardless of the results. But in all honesty, my ability to keep that even keel is becoming increasingly difficult.

I have run, what I consider bad, for at least 8-9 months now. When I say bad, I mean consistent downswings, long break-even stretches, with very few "good runs" or upswings. Overall, everything I won in the past and January of this year in 15/30 got blown away.

A few side notes regarding withdrawls and my current profit margin.

I have taken a relative signficant amount of money out of my BR over the course of my play (since I started), but have not taken much of anything out in the last 4-5 months. I did have to pay some bills off, and some CCs, and put a down payment on a vehicle, and paid for LASIK surgery, so that all came from poker. So overall, and per my first year and a half to 2 years of winning player, I am still technically in the GREEN but not nearly where I should be.

I would further say for the 2005 year to date, I am probably in the red. Not tremendously so, probably -5K. Considering I dropped into 5/10 for my last 4-5 months or so, and with the mix of limits, I would say I am on a solid 100K hand downswing (with some long break-even stretches). In the last 8-9 months, given the relative limits, I would say I have lost at least 800-1000BBs.

At this point, I am at the end of my rope. Tonight I dropped another 90BBs and last night 70BBs. My BR is getting to the point where it is crippled and in all honesty, I am simply not willing to drop another limit. I am at a point where I am comfortable just busting out, simply because I am frustrated and it will give me an excuse to stop spending countless hours playing online poker. I do love the game, I love poker, but this simply isn't fun running this bad for this long. I look back to all the hours I've put into poker, all the time when I've been away from poker trying to figure all of this out...and it seems like such wasted time as I have absolutely nothing to show for it now.

So what is the point of this whole post (yeah about time I got to that)...well, I honestly don't know. I'm sure some can relate, I'm sure some will immediately assume I just suck and that is why I am losing (hey I might not disagree), and some will be equally baffled. I am at a dead end here, and honestly don't know what my next step is other than quitting and possibly playing live for entertainment. I've never quit at anything in my life, and I've never struggled at anything like this in my life. Quitting never was an option, but when I consider all the time invested and all the frustration that has resulted and its relative impact on my real life, I have to start considering whether or not this "hobby" is really worth it all (especially when I get literally nothing positive in return).

So I'm throwing this all out there, along with my pride and my ego, hoping someone, anyone can provide some guidance and help me get beyond this all. I've met alot of great people since I've started playing poker, and I really do not want to give this up or cave into failure. But right now, for the first time in my life, I feel like I've been defeated, like I've failed. That is an extremely hard pill for me to swallow, and even harder for me to accept. I've tried to deny it and fight through it for the last few months and it just seems to never end, and its only getting worse.

In the long run, it isn't life altering or even supremely important. It all just comes down to my desire to be successful at those things I spend the time trying to master, and poker is something that has turned a complete 180 on me. Something that seemed so easy before has now become so utterly impossible. I've been everywhere from grinding full games with a mega tight aggressive style to playing as near to ideal SHed poker as I can manage based on what I've learned, observed, and applied over the last couple years and has proved successful before...and its the same consistent end result of me breaking even or losing.

I'm not sure what any of you can offer, or what a coach can offer. I'm sure there are facets of my game that could use some improvement, I'm sure that is the case in many people's games. But in all honesty, I really don't think it is those minor leaks that are amounting to all of this.

I have no logical or analytical explanation for it, and I don't expect anyone else to really. I figured I'd just vent this off, see what others can recommend and see if I can find something to apply. My motivation and confidence at this point are completely shot, but my dedication and refusal to submit keeps me going, and has kept me going for months now.

My head has been everywhere from wondering if I'm marked by Party and Affiliates, to wondering if there is some coincidence between rakeback and my losing streak considering I suddenly started losing the day I signed up for rakeback, to me being the unluckiest son of a bitch on the planet. Somehow, all of those seem highly unlikely and there is plenty of counter evidence to at least the second one! [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So, can anyone offer any insight? Any suggestions? Any thoughts?

I'm sure there will be some questions, and if you want to PM me, please feel free. I've been spending my weeks at work thinking more about poker than working, so I can probably address most replies tomorrow.

Thanks ahead of time for everyone that actually reads this all. I know its been all over the place, and I'm sure I've been ridiculously repetitive so bear with me. Thanks all.

[tonysoldier]

I've got a couple of guesses and a couple suggestions, probably nothing really great though.

You're most likely tilting a bit more than you think. The exact same thing has been happening to me for a shorter amount of time. I notice that I am folding slightly less, especially on the turn and river, where it is at least -.5bb EV to call. It's purely out of frustration, and when I look back on the hands I justify it, but I shouldn't, it's just bad. It's taken me not playing, but really closely looking over hands for a couple of weeks to realise it.

Your confidence is shot, and you're not bluffing at the right times because you have no faith in your reads and little "feel" for the game, meaning for what your opponents are going to do based on a certain hand range. You may bluff "enough" but not in the profitable spots.

My suggestion is to take some time off and really go over hands by taking out the pen, paper and calculator, coming up with an opponent hand range, fixing percentages to those hands and figuring out which play is best. Really pain-staking, time-consuming and boring - very helpful (to me).

I just feel like when you encounter a really difficult problem in any intellectual field, at a certain point you need to step way way back, to the most fundamental fundamentals. This is really hard to do for me.

Good luck.

[BoxTree]

100,000 hands?

8-9 months?

-800 to -1000 BBs?

Would you mind if we took a look at your PT database? Maybe we can find something in there that arkady missed.

If you were down 300 BBs over 100k hands, I could easily be convinced that you're just in a terrible pit of luck.

But 1k BBs? There has to be a leak(s) that arkady and you haven't caught.

[BoxTree]

I also agree with just about everything in the post above mine.

[chuddo]

DERG?

[sweetjazz]

I feel for you. I hope you can hang in there and have things turn around.

I think the best thing you can do is take a break from poker for a while. Just to clear your mind and come back fresh. After the break, do some studying on your game and make sure you feel like you are ready to play your A game.

Then, if you can let your ego go, look to play in a small stakes game, maybe 2/4 or 3/6. Do reverse table selection: try to find one or two tables with surprisingly decent players for the limit. Play your game and ignore the results. Hopefully the dollar amounts will be so small that they cannot affect you. The swings should be less.

Then gradually get back into the higher stakes games and readjust to the increased aggression. Accept that there is variance in the game, but go out and play your A game.

After all of this, you may end right back where you are now. Playing solid poker and hoping the results are favorable for you. But hopefully you will have more confidence and be able to shake off the sessions where you drop 50 or 100 BB (because they will still happen from time to time even when you run better). And this can get rid of any subtle tilt you may have.

The last point is relevant to me at least. I rarely tilt by throwing away chips in a reckless manner. But I sometimes subtly tilt. I make slightly suboptimal plays preflop, I try to steal too many pots postflop with weak hands, I get overaggressive on the turn and raise weak hands without enough fold equity to warrant it, I make loose calls on the later streets because I am afraid I am getting bluffed when a logical analysis would tell me to lay my hand down. And all of these forms of tilt are way more prevalent when I run bad than when I run good. If this kind of tilting costs you 1 BB every 100 hands, it can move you dangerously close to a prolonged downswing.

So all I can say is hang in there. You are a better player than your results are indicating. Take a step back from poker for a while and come back playing your top game. When you do that, you will make money in the long run. I just hope the long run isn't too far away. Keep the faith.

[TimM]

This is a scary post, but I can't believe it's possible without there being something wrong with your play. It's certainly possible to have good stats but still be botching some things. What happens is your winning and losing sessions are both a little worse than they should be, and this causes the longer down and break-even swings, and the shorter upswings.

You probably need to start by rebuilding confidence. I don't think you should be afraid to drop even further, just to regain confidence that you can win again. This is the most important thing. It sounds like you may have been a little stubborn about this.

I had a similar feeling for two months last year. I dropped and dropped, as low as 2/4 before I got it back together. I cashed out most of my roll and rebuilt it all. I needed confidence and this helped. All the while I kept reading and thinking about the game of course. I worked my way back up to 15/30, even while poker was my primary source of income.

Try this, what have you got to lose? Cash out, down to about $1500. Just doing this is very therapeutic; you're pulling a chuck of money out of the game that you can never lose, because you are never going to redeposit it. It will feel good.

Now rebuild. Start at 2/4, get to $3000, go to 3/6, get to $5000, go to 5/10, etc. Don't bang your head against the wall for too long; if you stall at a level for a while, cash out and drop back one. I had to do this twice, once at 10/20 and again at 15/30. Each level feels easier the second time around, both coming down and going up.

[mike l.]

"not nearly where I should be."

you have been running bad and unlucky. others on here have been running very well and very lucky, and moving up higher and higher and they think theyre poker gurus. still others have been coasting along in between, paying the bills.

just chill, do other stuff and when you least expect it the sun will peek through the clouds and you will smile again. i was where you were for about 8 months, a very dark place, and for 3 months it's back to the sort of non-stop winning i had been used to for 5 years.

[dankhank]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, while we are on the topic of leaks, I'd like to admit I am no where near a perfect player and always considered myself to be average or a little above average. On the same token, I would say the leaks I do have aren't enough to result in this ridiculously long combination of downswings and break-even play.

[/ QUOTE ]

i don't know where to start because many thoughts were racing through my head as i read your post. but when i came across that quote early on in your words, i knew it was what i would reference in my reply.

i've recently come out of my own long downswing so believe me when i say i know how you feel. it is a frustrating process to take a bad beat, recover, accept it, get back to playing good poker, make a few more correct decisions, and then get bad beat again and watch your precious poker account balance drop in size. and to have this happen hour after hour, day after day, then week after week - and to have it reflected in thousands of dollars of actual loss - is psychologically damaging. so in other words, i get the pain part.

but there are some things you should know. and the main thing is, if you think you're only an above average player, then i don't know why you expect to be winning at high levels, for large amounts of money. a small percentage of people win money in the long run, and those people are either a) lucky or b) very good to great players. that is the only way to do it.

if you have been running bad for nine months and 100k hands then there should've been a large part of your post that explained all the ways the downswing has improved your game. when i turned pro six months ago i thought i was already a great player, while simultaneously admitting i had a bunch of leaks, mainly around discipline and overestimating my postflop abilities. my own downswing forced me to buckle down and literally eliminate leaks (and faulty thinking) that had existed for a long time as part of my game - and as a part of who i am. sure, i still have leaks and screwups (like say, doing a wild bluff in NL that has little chance of working), but now instead of saying to myself "oh there you go again" i actually look at the causes of why the leak popped up and try to prevent it, rather than tacitly accepting its presence.

the last paragraph is sort of irrelevant to you because you have your own flaws in thinking and execution that are holding you back. but there are obviously flaws, because 100k is too long to be on a downswing and still be a winner. you have to be constantly looking at your poker game with some serious rigor if you want to improve. it sounds like you're trying to do that through other people's advice, but i think this is something you have to do on your own to really internalize it. and all i mean is, while you're playing, after you're playing, and before you play, think about poker and yourself in majorly honest and complex ways and figure this dang puzzle out.

early in your post you said that you struggled at poker for about six months but that since you hate to lose, you figured out how to become a winner. my approach was fundamentally different. it's not that i hate to lose or love to win - i love to learn. i really think that if you're going to fade all the bad luck and tough opponents that poker lines up against you, then you have got to be a seriuously sick player who doesn't screw up much. and that means a) you have to know the right move for thousands of situations and b) you have to have the discipline, confidence, and calmness to make the right move over and over. acquiring that takes a lot. it's not enough to say "i'm going to learn how to win." instead you have to learn the game.

[ QUOTE ]
My BR is getting to the point where it is crippled and in all honesty, I am simply not willing to drop another limit. I am at a point where I am comfortable just busting out, simply because I am frustrated and it will give me an excuse to stop spending countless hours playing online poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

i watch the webcase "live at the bike" that's referenced on this site sometimes. for a bunch of months in their big NL game there was this guy gore who always sat with a big stack and usually was a big winner. some viewers probably thought he was the best player at the table. well, over the months i definitely saw this guy make some big blunders and misreads, and over time i came to see he wasn't all that great. good, but not great. well i was listening to a webcast last night while playing, and one of the announcers talked about why gore hadn't been on the show lately. apparently gore ran bad for awhile and decided to take some time off of poker.

so, that's how he dealt with a downswing. let me tell you how i dealt with my recent downswing: i played more poker than normal. i played through that mother f'er. it was so totally obvious to me that i was losing money not because of my own play, but because of variance. and so my biggest motivation on a daily basis was to ride out the variance by pounding out more well-played hands.

all through a downswing you will have lapses in confidence about whether you're a winning player, and whether your current strategy is a winning one. the bottom line i think is that someone like gore couldn't look back on every aspect of his strategy and see that it was winning, so therefore he couldn't generate the neccesary confidence to continue. right now you still want to continue, but you are seriously wavering.

if you really are a winning player and if your strategy really is right, then you will have the confidence, the motivation, and the skills, to eventually right the ship. your 100k hand downswing will turn into a 140k breakeven stretch. and if you continue with poker it will eventually become a 140k blip on an otherwise upward moving graph. but if you are anything other than a true winning player (one of the few), then this downswing will be the exact opposite of a blip: it will be the year that effectively ends your poker career. it will be a stretch of bad luck that you weren't a good enough player to overcome.

[TimM]

[ QUOTE ]
just chill, do other stuff and when you least expect it the sun will peek through the clouds and you will smile again.

[/ QUOTE ]

You may be right, but I prefer to force the smile back on my face by playing in games that are almost impossible not to beat. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]