Not a beginner, but feel like one!

[LSUfan1]

I have over 30K hands in poker tracker, and over that time I am up just over 1BB/100, but for some reason I feel like a losing player.

I once cashed out for 1K, but other than this amount I am playing just barely even. I feel like my play is deteriorating as of late though!

Here come the questions!

1. Have any of you been winners over 25-30K hands to then start playing losing poker, possibly from getting "big-headed" about your play?

2. How do you fix this? Do you go back to Hold'Em Poker by Sklansky, or go back to Small Stakes by Ed Miller?

3. Do you suck it up, and hit the books and post as many hands as possible to the forum until you feel that you have your "groove" back?

4. Do you get over yourself and quit poker for better endeavors?

Any help will be greatly appreciated! [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Any flaming, although obviously unwelcome will be expected. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

Thanks!

[texasholdemnut]

I'm in a similar situation right now. I haven't played a hand in over a week and don't plan on playing for another week. Sometimes getting away from the game and coming back with "fresh eyes" is all you need. A little reading on the side won't hurt.

[stlip]

I'm approaching 30k hands primarily Party 1/2 full ring. During a couple of bad runs in the middle of that period (classic and thouroughly predictable 100-150BB downswings) I was able to take a really hard look at my game. I think I sharpened it up a lot -- and a lot more than I might have been able to if I wasn't motivated to look for every GDammed thing that was even the tiniest bit EV negative.

The two biggest changes I made coming out of that period were to focus on position play more and start using check raises as ruthlessly as I could.

Look at your VPIP by position, I'm about a 22 VPIP overall, but I was playing 15-18 from the UTG and UTG+1 seats. Now I'm like 11 and 14. I check raise 2.2 percent, up from 1 percent in my first 10K hands.

When you look at your position stats also make sure that your PFR percent in the CO and Button is well above your overall rate -- those are premium positions and you need to take advantage of them by being at your most aggressive.

It's also possible your problem lies in the other direction. Lately I've been watching a lot of the overly tight players, i.e. 12-15 VPIP, and wondering if they get less action from the fish in the micro limit games than I do. Even fish must notice how few hands they play. As a result when one of these tighties enters a pot, and especially raises, are there at least some fish who halt all their wild aggression or even fold hands they would normally play all the way to showdown.