-1800/8 sessions of 7hrs each...

$-32/hr is totally sustainable.

#samplesize

im tilted about the continuous losing sessions. i think my mental game is good enough now i dont tilt on the table. i am also under rolled in turns of poker money. im not really under rolled from life saving but i dont like to play poker with my pay cheque. when i started live 1-2 this month i had 1000$ separate for the live 1-2 i really didn't expect to drop 5 buy in so fast. so basically the extra 700$ is from my normal saving, and technically my life saving would be rolled for 1-2 but it just seems like $$ value in my head right now, 200$ is a lot obviously in a normal person's life and i just dont like losing 200$ which is why i just bring 200$.

im kinda just playing casually which is why i dont have the mentaity now to bring like 3 buy in and grind at least 8 hours. i know that would be good but if i lose my buy in usually i just go back home to work on something else. but i just think the field would be weak (and it is) enough i can still profit playing with 1 buy in and/or short stack but i guess i was wrong if u go thru cold decks. it's always easier playing with money won, and at this point i think down 700$ from my monthly cheque the monetary value ss affectin me too much to play. it would really help if i can bank 1 win session but it seems like a nightmare when i sit down. the first 1000$ even tho i lost i was actually playing pretty good. i was still playing poker. but last few session im beginning to play like scared money and just chasing draws and folding. like i don't think its terrible but im just playing like an average 1-2nl old nit

read the mental game by jared tendler. it has improved many poker players by eliminating tilt mostly

Found your biggest leak. You have to get to the point where chips are just chips. That is hard live, because the represent money that actually makes a difference, but it is needed. You also need to have more than one bullet that you can fire, and not just in theory, but really NBD, just top-up/re-buy and keep going.

You need three things to get there:
1) A roll, so you can handle the potential loss better
2) Experience. As you get used to it, it's no big deal
3) Work on your mental game, enduring variance and card-dead time. Drop down in your online play to the kiddy stakes, turn off the auto top-up so you have to add chips manually, and play only one table at a time. This will teach you patience, and the variance will be much more obvious, helping you to get used to it.

900bb <EV can be pretty standard (esp if you're running like me). Missed FD's when playing for a 600bb+ pot and never hitting for example.

You might want to check some common NL200 live leaks:

-Playing ATo/AJo from UTG and raising it to 3bb-6bb (It simply doesnt accomplish anything. if 4/8 opponents know how to fold A2-A9 to an UTG raise, AJo lacks domination as AQ doesnt get 3b as often. - You cant' assume capped ranges on Axx board and therefore it's hard to get 3 streets of value out of position. And from UTG, 3 streets of value is the thing you want in live games. Note that AJs/ATs flops a flushdraw nearly 11% of the time, giving you heaps of playability and domination versus the weaker suited hands people are playing.

-Not folding to nit 3b's. If you get 3b with a ratio of 2% or less by a player, you should obviously fold if not offered insanely good pot odds. Hands you should be calling are suited connectors, if you think you have a good read on your opponent and have position. Also, sometimes you can setmine versus min 3b's.

-Defending your Big Blind too wide with dominated hands. Don't call your A7o just because you're offered a good price for a 4way pot. Especially during the beginning of a session where you have to get more reads, even calling a 3x raise from MP can't be good. Note that this changes in HU pots, where you can 3b/c-raise flops etc with more success.

Losing ~850 bbs is never standard (I've only done this once in 2300+ hours at live 1/3 NL, and come close just one other time), but it is most definitely possible (and my guess is that everyone who plays for a non-trivial amount of hours will eventually experience it). It is also certainly possible to go long periods of time not making a hand / not getting paid off when finally making one.

FWIW, red flags went off as soon as you mentioned you only buy in for 1 BI and leave if you bust it. I highly doubt there are any winning players who use this method. First, it is *so* easy to lose just 1 BI, and you'll often be forced to leave a good table. Second, after simply losing a hand or two you'll find yourself shortstacked, which is not an optimal stack to play at these fish infested stakes. In fact, when you get down to a ~$150 stack (which I'm assuming you do often), you pretty much can't play any pot that's been raised due to lack of implied odds (but I'm guessing you find yourself in some anyways?).

Are you keeping accurate results? Be honest with yourself and your play. I'd recommend posting some hands that you find troublesome / questionable and getting some feedback.

Ggoodluck!G

I can't tell from your thread whether you're focusing on PLO, online full-ring NL, or live NL. Have you recently played 50K (or more) hands of online 25NL? If you have a decent sized database you have looked for leaks? Have you had anyone look at your stats/history?

One thing that helps is reading lots of threads and going over in your mind how you'd play the spot. Also think about how you can make money from the people who look at spots incorrectly.

It seems like years ago you were more willing to admit you needed to work on your poker game: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...shove-1135268/

Everyone has room for improvement in their NL game. Even wizards like Polk or Holz work at it.

A 95% confidence interval on your expected total loss over that estimated time period was VERY roughly +/- $2000. So, yeah, you MIGHT have only a small true loss rate at your game.

I was (and am) a winning 2-5 player and dropped $6000 in 40 hours. It took me 3 to 15 months to recover, depending on how you define "recover".

Just chiming in to agree with several of the points that have already been made:

1) -$1700 ain't standard. I've had two downswings like that. In the middle of them, I was sure that I was just running bad. And if I looked at individual big pots, they each were either unavoidable coolers (set over set on a wet board) or spots where I was ahead when the money went in (overpair against top pair, top pair against straight draw). But as I've fixed my game, I've also come to recognize that I had a bunch of small tilt-leaks that were contributing to those downswings.

2) you NEED a bigger bankroll. Otherwise you're just waiting for a seemingly-profitable spot, throwing your money in, and crossing fingers. If that's the only thing you do at the table, then (a) your downswings will last longer, (b) you'll get more frustrated along the way, and (c) you won't develop the other, more profitable elements of your game.

Any idiot can sit around, waiting for TPTK or better, then throw their money in and hope. Against the right 1-2 lineups, that can even be a profitable strategy! But it isn't a strategy that will ever help you reach crusher-status.

grunch:

not sure if this was mentioned or not, but I suggest you save up around $3K (at the minimum) to give you a sufficient roll to play 1/2. Always buy in for at least 100bbs, and if you ever fall below 90 bbs, always top off and so you're at 100 bbs. Also I suggest you start posting hands that you've played. The best way to improve your game is to start posting and reviewing your hands and getting input. GL.

appreciate it guys. if i go play again i'll def post some hands. i'll prob start a P&G page if i ever do start playing regularly again. thanks

He plays 1/2 and a little bit of 1/3. He tried 2/5 a little bit but it was only 2-3 times. You should look at some of his other videos and his thread (link below). Unfortunately a troll has derailed the thread in the last few pages but he will probably get banned if he hasn't already.

I do think some of the Troopers losses are alarming however, especially his recent losing streak. I played with him a couple of times and think he is a long term winner, but I didn't play with him much.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/10...poker-1492434/

Aren't all of you guys much better than a lot of the other winners you might see in your games? The average regular here is going to have a much higher winrate than the nitty, ABC player who wins a little but has plenty of significant leaks and doesn't put much effort into improving his game, for example. And being better than other winners will help you limit downswings a lot.

And yet all of you have gone on downswings like that. For smaller winners I'd expect those downswings to happen more often.

As for the OP, I don't know how good he is so I don't know how standard losing $1700 would be for him. I do think it's enough to be alarmed so he should use it as motivation to improve.

Definitely the two most important pieces of advice you got in this thread are:

1) Post hands for feedback.
2) Don't only bring one buy-in with the intention of never reloading and leaving when you go broke.

I think that it is possible for a player to be a winning player if they stood up voluntarily and left after dropping their first buy-in in a big pot, because they wanted to avoid tilting off more buy-ins. But if you are losing a few small pots and not even reloading to a full buy-in, or if you lose your buy-in due to variance in a good game and CAN'T re-buy, you're probably really hurting yourself.

Here is some basic math behind why you're hurting yourself doing this. Imagine that you and I are playing a game where you roll a 6-sided die. If it comes up 1 or 2, you pay me a dollar, and if it comes up anything else, I pay you a dollar.

You will win $1 2/3 of the time and lose $1 only one-third, so every time you roll, your EV is one-third of a dollar. So theoretically, the more we played this game, the more you would win, right? Well...

Suppose that we add another stipulation to this game which is that you will quit anytime you are $1 down, but I will not quit unless I am $10 down. What is the probability that when we have finished playing, you are $1 down, and what is the probability that when we have finished playing, you are $10 up?

Yeah, the money matters too much to you. I would suggest if you're going to play under-rolled, buy in for like 50-60BB and just be a supernit. But if you're not going to play properly and happily be down $400 when you shove your nut flush draws and miss, then you shouldn't be playing. Because you're just slowly leaking money by playing them passively and then having a short stack because you just lost some of it chasing.

It took me about 3-5 months before I had a solid 4k bankroll where I could play my draws very aggressively, pick up dead money in puts, be able to run triple barrels in profitable spots, etc. But you can't do any of those because you don't have the money to be able to risk it. So, either play uber tight and nit it up until you have at least 3k, or just stop playing all together until you get a good BR. The money matters too much and you're not playing optimally.

i used to play online only. Micro stakes NL 50 and Lower. I moved to 1-2 and play at Maryland live and house games. I am up around 15k and still play 1-2 over 450 hours. My basic strategy is to play most hands late position and play real tight in the early positions.

The trick to beating live for big win rates is to get deep. You want to bring at least $600 with you. I bring $1000 and when I can't top
Up to 100bb I go home. So that means I've had a few 850$+ losses. It happens and sucks.

When you are deep you can play more hands and get into the big pots. You will lose some but when you do win you will win those 1k plus pots which is what you want.

So keep your stack topped off. Table change if your a table sucks. And bring more money with you. If you can't do that get a job. You won't win if you only go with 200$. Also play a lot of hands late position. People don't fold correctly and hands like 78 suited and Ax suited play well in multi way pots which happen all the time in live.

definitely agree with those who say you shouldn't play if you are going to limit yourself to 1 buyin per session. how many times do we bust a buyin or two or three before things turn around in a session? it's very difficult to remain on your A or even B game if you are losing money you aren't comfortable losing. but you want to stay in a good game as long as possible and you want to be able to maximize your big hands. being down to $100 or $125 makes it tough. i know, i've done it. it's just the way things go sometimes.

good luck

This depends on the table a lot whether its is +EV but one thing i sometimes do live, in add a really wide limping range to my pre flop range. 1/2 is usually a limp fest and you can often see a flop getting great odds with decent enough hands that you usually wouldn't play, the Q9s, J8s, 85s, type of hands. You seem to have a reasonable sense post flop so i don't think you will leak too much post and you can still flop big with these type of hands. Maybe you are not rolled well enough for this but even if it is break even or slightly minus EV when you in a funk like this seeming more hands helps. Also helps your image bit.

In terms of chasing draws i used to have a real hard time fold draws but you have to really look at you opponents range and how often you get paided when you hit. If you aren't fold draws at least sometimes you are leaking money.

Overall i would just chill out and keep playing. Maybe study up abit on how to play draws and just pay a little more attention during hands