Lessons from losing

[sethypooh21]

After my quasi-moan was rightfully flamed yesterday by Chickenhawks and Pommies, and some doofuses started talking about cricket (let's just say that poker has thrown me a WICKED GOOGLY over the last couple days),

I've done some thinking and come up with at least 4 important lessons, which may be of genreal applciability.

1. Bankroll is important - If I'm taking a 100 BB shot (somehow it read 1000 in my orginal post. If I have 1000 and lose 200 and bitch about it, I truly am a wussbag...), and I drop 50-75, STOP. DROP BACK DOWN. There is very little possibility of me playing optimally at that point.

2. Aggression does not make up for poor run of cards. Perhaps, looking back at the HH's, losing something was going to be inevitable given the way the cards were breaking. I made it worse by attempting to bully my way out of missed flops and obvious outdraws. Duh... If you only pair on the flop with AK 1/5 times instead of the standard 1/3, you are probably going to lose money on the hand.

At the same time, just because you have been outdrawn several times in a row doesn't mean it can't happen again. I find myself to have been very guilty of the "no way he did it to me again" syndrome and losing 2 extra BB's...

3. Losses of emotional control are bad. Duh. If I can't control myself from typing something negative in the chat box, how can I expect to control myself to play well?

4. Playing the players too much and the cards not enough. I probably spewed a lot of money overplaying hands vs. known lags because they'er lags, so they can't possibly have anything. A cap of 3-bets cold is still a cap, even by a guy with a PFR of 24. They get aces too... Regardless of how mindlessly aggressive an op is, AK still sucks on a 89ATJ board...

5. I wanted to thank everyone for the very deserved harsh comments yesterday. Hopefully, after a couple days to clear my head, I can use this as a constructive springboard...


Cheers and best wishes,
SP

[Mr. Graff]

[ QUOTE ]
3. Losses of emotional control are bad. Duh. If I can't control myself from typing something negative in the chat box, how can I expect to control myself to play well?

[/ QUOTE ]

Good point. Why chat after a bad beat? For emotional balance. So here is what you can do: Go ahead and type whatever crap you need to get it out of your system, just don't hit Enter. Just let it sit there for a while and then delete it.

[donger]

Good post. I came to these realizations after a recent horrible run of my own (and subsequent weekend of introspection).

These frantic, tilty, downward-spiral type downswings can really put the hurt on the WR of an otherwise good player.

It's almost a positive that 6-max is so swingy; it's great practice at dealing with variance. The higher you play, the smaller your edge, and the greater the variance. I think it's better to get these things out of your system now.

[Rhone]

This is a great post. I struggle with many of these exact same issues during a downswing.

[stripsqueez]

long term i think its about bankroll - taking a shot under bankrolled is fine if you have the discipline to do it but if your doing it seriously not keeping 2-3 times what you should need is false economy

i'm not sure what your saying under the heading aggression - typically you might tighten up too much when your constantly losing - i always try to assume the bad streak is going to end with the next hand i play

playing the cards is easy - playing the players is hard - i think when your running bad you probably should be trying to concentrate more on the players

stripsqueez - chickenhawk

[mister]

Ever since I learned to take breaks (as short as 30 minutes, as long as 2 days), I've discovered that I am a good player, and that I'm capable of overcoming the variance in this game. In a multitable scenario, I now accept that I can't do more then 2 hours (4 tables) without hitting the limits of my optimal play. Maybe something to take into consideration for your game also.

[pyroponic]

[ QUOTE ]
1. Bankroll is important - If I'm taking a 100 BB shot (somehow it read 1000 in my orginal post. If I have 1000 and lose 200 and bitch about it, I truly am a wussbag...), and I drop 50-75, STOP. DROP BACK DOWN. There is very little possibility of me playing optimally at that point.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think that if you're playing 6-max then I wouldn't dream of trying to make a run with 100 BB. If you lose 50-75 BB this wouldn't even be close to being rolled for the next level down.

[steaknshake925]

i would like to add that table selection is so much more important in a downswing. when youre up and on a rush its easy to stay on a marginal table and keep winning, but when youre running bad a crappy table can really hurt you. its really important when youre taking shots at higher limits to quit right when your buddies leave---i used to take shots at higher limits following some buddies, and when i lose i'd keep playing way after my buddies left and the game had became tough. that stuff can really damage the roll.

[sethypooh21]

[ QUOTE ]
playing the cards is easy - playing the players is hard - i think when your running bad you probably should be trying to concentrate more on the players

[/ QUOTE ]

In general, I don't disagree at all. In my self analysis though, I realised I was playing the players TOO much (or, perhaps more exactly, relying too much on less then perfect reads.), as hand values still count lots.

As for the bankroll issue, I had (and still have thankfully) more then 100 BB's of the higher game in my roll, I was just 'taking a shot' at the bigger game.

[sethypooh21]

[ QUOTE ]
i'm not sure what your saying under the heading aggression - typically you might tighten up too much when your constantly losing - i always try to assume the bad streak is going to end with the next hand i play


[/ QUOTE ]

In my case it was the case of where my big, unpaired cards were missing/semi-hitting flops, and instead of slowing down when being shown aggression, I assumed people were taking shots at me. But then my table image suffered, and then they were taking shots at me...while If I had taken a step back, I could have slowed way down and let them actually take shots when I had hands worthy of 3-betting the turn, and getting paid off. In essence, my furstration at running bad cards-wise led me to try to compensate with increased, unwarranted, aggression (worth noting that my turn AF during the bad run ~ 3.4, whereas during my 'normal' play it is probably closer to 2.8...)

I'm actually excited to start playing again in a few days as I feel like it will be learning how to play winning poker all over again, and that was the most fun part for me the first time...