Hi, after a phase of playing sporadicly over the last couple of years, I started grinding properly again about exactly one month ago. I played about 2500 games of $3.50 18 mans + 45 mans with shockingly bad results, dropping about 150 buy ins after profiting little at the beginning. For someone who used to have 2-digit-ROIs at micros and high single-digit-ROIs at lowstakes, this is pretty hard, as I didn't think this kind of swing would for me be possible to suffer... The main problem isn't the swing itself, it's losing confidence as much that I question if I can beat even $3.50s anymore. Are the games in such a bad state? Especially the 18 mans ( where the vast majority of my recent losses came from) are as reginfested as $15s+ used to be. Loads of new brazilian regs who started playing in late 2015 or 2016 and that are actually really good, where do they come from out of the sudden?
Another thing that worries me is my EV. It used to happen that I will run 300K-400K chips under EV... But over about 2500 games my chip EV is exactly 318 chips positive.... So pretty much stone breakeven. In 18 mans my EVbb\100 is at -0.xxbb\100, in 45s it's 1.4EVbb\100 or so, which doesn't exactly equal crushing either.
Is this kind of stuff normal and I have to deal with it in 2016? Is it possible my edge (if any left) dropped so much in 2-3 years? I never had a brealeven stretch of over 1.5K games at these specific buy ins, nevermind a 100+ buy in downer over that sample, maybe I was just lucky until now?

Appreciate any reasonable posts to that topic of games in 2016.

to answer your question - yes, the level of play is way higher then 2-3 years ago. and yes, 1.4bb/100 is pretty bad. work hard and you will get there. its not 2004 anymore dude

in the 180s there are also a large number of brazilian players who are very good.

Thanks for replies guys.
Any source of content that I could use? I already do study by myself using SNGWiz2, but my main problem seems to be the new structure, as in Ante starting from 1st level. At 40\80 and 60\120 I am largely down in chipEV (these levels, especially with Antes, didnt exist by then), while 10\20, 15\30 and any blind level over 60\120 my EV is consistently high (probably because first couple levels play changed only a bit + all further levels play the same as they used to). However, 40\80 and 60\120 are cruical levels of course. Then there is a certain former MTT Reg with 200K in profit that crushing the games I am struggling at, doing stuff like cold 4bet shoving pocket 3's with no FE with 15bbs. Is that really the way to go now? I can't really believe that. Is there any actual site with videos etc. where I can watch content for MTSNGs? Most stuff that I find it outdated (pre new structure)
I appreciate any help

Not really, the fastest and most effective way to improtve your game is to get a lot of 1-on-1 coaching with a current and proven winner on the format you wanna beat. The 2nd way that i would recomend is to get yoursefl on several skype hand history study group and network yourself in with a couple of the most active memeber on them to really break spots out and improve together. My 3rd and final advice is just to abuse the advance search feature in this forum, there´s a lot of great and valuable stuff here, just search for specifi spots you´re having problems with, hope that helped, cheers.

also purchase HRC (or ICMizer). About the cold call with 33s. This is certainly possible. For instance when the B opens, the SB jams,against certain opponents it is correct to cold call with 33s in the big blind. (allthough you are never going to be making a big mistake folding 33s in that spot)

18s are not much harder than they were 2-3 years ago, if at all.

Same here @OP. I used to play $2,20-$2,50 180men back in 2010 where in about 1500 games I had 30% ROI... some may argue that's a small sample and I agree, but hell, the game was softer.

I stop playing in 2012 and I decided to come back playing more serious a few months ago, mixing 45-180 men 3,50 and 2,50... after a few weeks playing I realized it's not worth it.

#1 - I have a job and I can only play from 6pm to 10pm (Brazilian time) - I'm tired and not able to put decent volume / play my best game.

#2 - I don't wanna be a pro, just wanted to make some extra $$ - Obviously I'm in the wrong game.

#3 - I checked sharkscope leaderboards and It's just awful - I can't not put that volume and even if I could, top players seems to have 10-20% ROI in 2,50 180 men, and most of their profit come from 3,5+r...

#4 - you can be stuck at variance for months if you dont put volume...


To sum up, it's not worth it playing these if you can't put volume and maybe you want to make a transition to regular MTT asap.


I'm brazilian, and what I can say is that there's a lot of highstakes/midstakes coaching and staking players and teams, that's why we are calling your shoves with stuff you wouldnt expect.


GL.

it might be the case that OP's game is just rusty, or he overestimates his ability. That isn't meant to be rude, but a lot of players are guilty of this. I would recommend practising extremely conservative bankroll management in order to combat any potential negative variance.

MTSNGs are much harder than a few years ago; i would think that a lot of the recreational players have moves to formats like spins

We all get that lack of confidence you are experiencing when we hit a bad run.

The best thing to do is play lower stakes and build up the confidence in yourself as well as get accustomed to the new games