Alright, aside from all the skill involved playing limit poker, sometimes you can run really well when playing any two cards. Especially after you win a pot or two and you kill the pot and win hand after hand. You flop two pair, hit gut shots, flushes, straights.
The same concept applies to when you are running bad. You will get a string of good cards, good flops, you hit you hands and you still end up losing your entire stack you worked all night for. Every flush draw/straight draw doesnt hit. You premiums such as AK,AQ miss every flop that you've gotten dealt 4 times in a row.
It can even be the dealer, changing of a new deck, the way the dealer cuts. People always try to find their own luck.
Also, people who have built a huge stack playing all night, end up losing most of it in the end, i'm sure if has all happened to us.

Basically, what are things you guys do at the casino when you're playing limit poker live to help you deal with the swings in poker when you're winning or losing? When you are getting dealt good hands after good hands in a row but still end up losing, how do you stop the outcomes besides getting up and leaving and going home?

I would love to hear tips on this!!

Thanks

If a string of bad beats is making you play bad, go home.

If the bad beats do not bother you and you can still play your A game, then keep playing your A game.

That you are bothered enough to write this post probably indicates that you should be going home on a bad night. Whether you realize it or not, you probably aren't playing as well after getting frustrated. You may start playing looser, figuring you're "due" to hit the same kind of gutshot or marginal draw that your opponents have been hitting. You may also start letting your emotion show, which might lead opponents to trying to exploit "that tilted guy."

The only way to get over a string of rough hands is to consistently remind yourself that if you continue to play well, in the long term, you will be successful. But getting aggravated about the short term is an easy way to lose a lot more.

Play more online multitabling, you'll see it all and won't be surprised anymore. Soon it'll be "ah that's just poker".

You are on tilt. Go home.

You might want to read Elements of Poker, it definately helped me with my live tilt issues.

thanks for the tips!!

When i'm running well at the table, i'm playing every hand back to back. The cards just seem to fall my way. And it gives me that loose image to the players even though i play a very solid TAG game. Especially when you win the kill pot running hot, i'm bluffing to take down pots. When i'm up 3-4 racks i'm usually cashing out or tightening up.
When i'm running bad or starting to run bad, i will get up from the table and take a small break, fold more hands that usual, and not chase my strong draws. I will tighten up my starting hand requirements more that usual.

Read Small Stakes Hold'em before Elements of Poker.

Also, do some session reviews if you play online. Look for the sign-up thread in this forum.

I have both SSHE and holdem for advanced players..both of which have helped my game considerably. I also just bought winnign in tough limit games about a month ago and started playing a lot of 6 tabling 6max LH online.

Live, what do you guys do when you are running good and built a big stack? Do you play a little different? B/C i've seen a lot of people lose a big chunk of their stack. When i build a big stack, i usually still play my A game, but i'm less likely to spew off my chips.

If you are playing weak hands because you're running well and folding strong draws because you're not, you are not playing a solid TAG game.

Oh no, on my strong draws, i am pushing them aggressively. But when i'm running bad and cant win any hands with my strong draws, premiums, I'm tightening up a lot more than usual. Sometimes when the cards down fall your way, I'm definately tightening against a player who is running completely hot and is winning every hand. I've seen it happen all the time at live casino's.

I think you're misunderstanding what people are saying here. If you are a solid TAG player, your play should not differ at all based on whether you are running hot or cold. Changing your playstyle is fine based elements you can control: the way other players at your table play the game, the amount of chips in the pot, your position relative to other people in the hand, etc. Changing your game based on some perceived notion of hot or cold is something you shouldn't be doing; playing 72o because you are "hot" is spew. Not raising AKs because you're "cold" and not going to hit is -EV. This is all just variance.

I don't want to be mean, but you should seriously re-think your approach to poker if this is what's running through your head on a nightly basis. The nights where you get dealt huge pocket pairs every ten minutes, only to see them cracked over and over certainly suck. But you can't let that get to your head; if you are, take everyone's advice and go home.

A very dangerous way to rationalize it. Magical thinking can get you into all kinds of trouble playing poker.

Well stated

For those times when you feel that you are running good but don't want to give back your stack you could take the advice of a poker coach that wrote for Card Player or one of the predecessors, "Continue to play until you have lost two consecutive pots and then bank your win and go home feeling good."

I wear my 'I'm Running Good' hat. And I must be, because at the end of every year, I am ahead. I don't worry about the short run, becaus anything can happen in the short run, and it usually does. Also, the short run is longer than you imagine it is.

Keep playing the same way. Eventually your good hands will hold up and win some pots. Obviously, you're not going to keep losing with your good hands for the rest of your life.

Metchie,

Welcome to the forums.

I think that you have a lot of good concepts that you're talking about here, and I fear that you misunderstand many of them. I'm just going to snip out some things you said; I'll try not to change them by removing context.

I wouldn't know if I ran well playing ATC. Once their in the muck, I tend to forget what I had. If I were playing ATC in very many hands (outside of very specific steal situations), I'd know that I was playing badly and think about leaving. Current "runs of luck" have zero predictive power and should be ignored. If other people adjust because you're running hot, adjust to them. The cards play no favorites in a useful, predictable fashion.

Luck happens all on its own. You can embrace variance. People who put stock in the things you listed are losing players. We love them for their money. Don't waste mental energy thinking about these things.
You have to stop this. It is EV suicide.

Taking a break anytime you're not in a normal mindset is a great idea.

You need to play a normal good game. You can make slight adjustments to your game based on your image at the table, and you make big adjustments based on the people likely to be in the pot. If you let your recent results change your play because of how you feel, this is called tilt. You need to get off tilt, ASAP. The less you tilt the better for you and your bankroll.

This shows a big misunderstanding of probability. Streaks happen in the past. Over the course of the night, several players will seem to go on rushes. However, the fact that a player wins 2 out of 3 hands at any given time does not make him more likely to win more than his fair share of pots in the future. If he does, it will become more memorable. Someone will do it. However, a hot hand has no predictive power, other than in the minds of the people at the table. You seem to be falling victim to this. A player who thinks he's hot might:

1) Play far too many hands. This does make him more likely to win pots; you can't win if you fold. Money-wise it is a horrible idea.
2) Chase draws too far. Again, he'll win more pots. We don't make money at poker by winning the most pots, right?
3) Bluff more because people "know he has it". Again, he's trying to make the prophecy come true. This is expensive.

I've just described a near maniacal LAG. Does winning a few pots make you become a crazy LAG? If so you need to stop. If someone else does this, just start making proper adjustments to their new style. There is a reason these people give their big wins back.

Go search for this post by BigBadBabar. Look at the graph, and understand that he's showing you a lifetime of live play. The long run is a very long time. Going on a heater for 20 minutes in a live game is meaningless. If you play long enough, you'll have 6 months of live play w/o a winning session. It happens to everyone. The long run is a long time.

hey guys, thanks for all your feedback!! it's great to hear and has helped out a lot about how i think of the overall game. I mean, I do play a solid tag game for the most part, and play position, premium cards,etc.

A lot of the times though, when i'm playing ATC, i have the kill button so i already have to post for that hand. If i get raised, and there is 3 callers or even 2 callers, i'm defending my kill. Especialling running good. That is the only time though.

I love the feed back in helping me through my journey!!!

Since December I've been trying to take a serious crack at playing limit, so I'm definitely still learning. I only play online, and at first it was very frustrating when I took a bad beat, etc. But now, I just take note of what a person played and how they played it. If a guy hits his gut shot or fills up on the end to sink me, I no longer sweat it. Sure, it's miserable to have a big pot go the wrong way, but if I continuously find myself ahead with one card to come and the other guy only has 4-5 outs, I'm probably going to be ahead at the end of the day. I'm going to be relentless on the people who are calling me down with inferior hands (I don't mean legitimate draws with good odds).

Especially when it's someone who you think plays poorly who draws out on you in a hand they had no business being in. Don't worry, they're anxious to give it right back to you.

One of my fondest memories was some donk sitting on my left at a 5/10 late at night after the 10/20 had broken. He was playing ATC. Over a period of a few hours he ran hot like the sun, hitting everything and had built up quite a stack. He kept mocking my tightish play, telling me the only way to make money was to play like him. I smiled, knowing what was going to inevitably happen. Sure enough 2 hours later he had dropped almost $700 and was busto with most of his stack in front of me. Wasn't such a cocky bastard then LOL

This scares me to be honest. You must always keep in mind that no matter how you have run so far that night, the next hand is an entirely independent event (not taking meta game into consideration) and you are not any more likely to be dealt a winner or loser irrespective of how you have performed up to that point. Believing that the cards come out anything other than totally random puts you on the expressway to bustoville.

As an example - if you are dealt AA in one hand does that mean you have less or more chance of being dealt AA in the next hand? Answer: You have an absolutely identical chance of being dealt AA again as you did the first time - one hand has no influence at all on the next hand.

The money you have put in the pot is not yours any longer. If you have posted you are not protecting "your" money by calling a raise with ATC. If you call with 52o what you are effectively doing is throwing your actual money (ie money in your stack) into the pot when there is an extremely low chance you will get it back. So you just lose money that was yours trying to "defend" money that wasn't.

Metchie,

You don't seem to grasp that "running good" and "running bad" are statistically invalid and dangerous concepts. Each hand is mathematically an independent event.

EXCEPT in the MINDS of the PLAYERS, both you and your opponents.

The cards NEVER change. To believe otherwise is to misunderstand "random." As a result, core TAG play never really changes.

What does change is your image as perceived by yourself and others. That image factor can be very useful in adjusting your core game to the specifics of your table. Your discussions here will be a lot more fruitful if you understand this distinction and talk about how a good streak can be used to mess with the MINDS of your opponents. I agree that "running hot" is an easier opportunity to run over a table. But "running cold" and suddenly raising against the right player is an opportunity as well. But in those hot and cold decisions, I am playing the player and not the cards. If you don't understand what I am driving at, please keep your sessions short and your bankroll tight. If you are struggling with this distinction, post some hands from under both hot and cold conditions and talk separately about the math and the player. Then, you should be able to get some better, more concise and useful answers.

Good luck.

hey fishyak, thanks for the advice. I do understand what you are talking about. I play my positions, i play the players, i will isolate certain players, if the table is playing tight or certain players are, i will loosen up and vice-versa. I will find any opportunities to exploit players.

When i'm running well, and have the kill, i will play practically play ATC after hitting the past 3 flops and having a big stack in front of me. I know it is certainly a leak but when i'm winning and flopping very well and winning consecutive pots with ATC's, especially when no one has raised my kill and i flop 2 pair, tp,etc. Those nights have been my some of my biggest wins.
When i'm running bad, i still play my solid tag game and don't tilt. If someone else at the table is running good and i have a good hand AK or AQ and have been running bad, you bet i'm raising it up here.


All this advice is wonderful to here, i have a lot to work on in my game and these past 6 months playing poker seriously has definately turned me into a winning player as of now and i want to keep going.

Just to check up, you're not saying that you'll play more hands against tight players and fewer hands against loose players, are you? This sounds completely opposite to me (you're probably talking about the players left to act while I'm talking about the players who have already acted -- those are the ones who you actually KNOW something about).

You've referred to the big stack a couple times in this thread. Your stack size has a very, very, very small effect in a limit game.

I could certainly be mistaken, and maybe you just don't mean exactly the things that you're saying. It just seems to me that you may be taking some of these ideas about streaks to the wrong conclusions.

yeah, the players left to act of course. if a tight person opens up, my calling range is a lot tighter. if a looser person opens up a lot, I will try and isolate this person with a looser range than normal. If i'm first to act I will raise against the tighter players behind me.

about the kill, i know stack size doesnt matter as much in limit, i'm saying that when you are up 2-3+racks because of the kill, to play ATCs which you have to unless someone raises and even then, i will call 1 raise.