This year I decided to keep track of my poker playing... I My sessions so far at live 1/2 are -$20, +49, -$195, -$10, -$200, and -$160... That is a total of -268BB ($536) in 17.5 hours of poker playing, or a winrate of -15BB/hour... This is more devastating considering I am poor and have no bankroll... I am trying to build a bankroll and would have played much more poker if I had been winning... What can I do? I am watching training videos online and just don't know what to do... I have definitely been running bad, but I would like a way to build a bankroll and not be busto... Most of the players I am playing with know very little theory and I could objectively say that I am better than them, but I just can't seem to beat live 1/2, which is tough to say...

You have a very small sample size-much too small to reach any conclusions.

If you think you're on a downswing, there's no way to "get out," because you can only know once it already happened. Each hand is an independent event-the fact that you had poor luck in the previous hand shouldn't affect your "luck" in the current hand.

If you want to get better, start posting and reading the live low stakes forum in order to tailor your game appropriately. It's a long process, and the vast majority of players at your stakes are losing money in the long run.

If poker is a means to an end for you, and your goal is to make money, I suggest finding another source of income.

Get a job, save as much as you can until you have $2000. Read some books, watch some videos and read the forum in the meantime. Don't rush it and you'll be fine.

I realize that the outcome of each hand is an individual event and has nothing to do with the previous or next hand... I understand intermediate poker theory... When I say bad luck I meant -ev... I am not saying that I should be winning but I am definitely running -ev and it is very hard to get anything going when this is the case

What do you want a pity party? Toughen up or find a new hobby.

Poker is a game of chance, so if you play you can lose on any given day. Bankroll management is the only way to protect yourself from variance, but it sounds like you don't have a bankroll to manage.

Either live with the swings (the ones you post above are pretty modest) or don't play poker until you have a big enough bankroll to sustain them easily.

This is me also I have about a grand and it like a roller coaster

I would like to find a way to play live poker without being constantly busto

You can play well while you're running bad.
You can play poorly while you're running bad.
You can play well while you're running good.
And finally, you can play poorly while you're running good.

Those are pretty much all your options.

Of course the advice to get a job is good. BRM is the only way to play poker without being broke. 2k isn't enough. You should have 4K. If you can only scrape together 2k maybe there is a friend of yours that would buy a percentage of your action?

This is tricky tho. He really has to be ok with losing the $. Don't give up if you really love the game tho. Your sample is really small.

If you knew poker theory then you would know that downswings of this magnitude are super standard and 17.5 hours of play is nearly meaningless.

I haven't been playing very long (500 hours), and I have pretty regular $500 downswings. I've even had a few in single sessions. I've even had a few in single hands. I've faced single bets as large playing the same stakes as you. If this is devastating to you than you shouldn't play poker.

So basically keep playing well and it will turn around? When is the long run anyway?

Grunch. Don't too feel bad man. I don't want to sound too overzealous ;but I'm a pretty decent winner over 500 tracked hours and just lost $1.6k in my last 7 hours of 1/2. You can be good and be a winner and still lose like you're losing very easily. At the very least I absolutely guarantee you that.

The best possible advise I could've given past me w a shallow BR would be to put more time in to studying and less into play and to let the number expand as I went. Like start w at least a 1:4 play hour:study hour ratio. Do it just like that, play hard, take every note and review every situation in a 1 hour spot. The game is incredibly, incredibly complex and when you're shallow every edge is magnified to an incredible degree. Literally a $20 mistake might end up being the thing that ends busting you for a month. So pay lots of attention, and turn over every spot until you're confident that you nail it.

I saw at a glance that Johnny said it but you need another source of income and additionally to not life tilt/drain your BR.

It may not be what you want to hear, but w lots of things in life, and especially poker there are things you need to do to be successful and they aren't always ideal in terms of your current circumstances. Part of being successful is changing some things that are currently limiting you from being successful. It doesn't just happen, you have to make it happen.

I am about to take a shot with 2 BI out o desperation OP. Count your blessings.

Whaaaaat? Also what stake??

Take out a loan and take a shot pal. Moneytree has good rates.

meh, there's a lot of variance in this game, I started the year on a 2500 downswing playing mostly 1-3 and have only recently gotten back above even. A few huge suckouts, a few times you need the board to pair and it doesn't and you can end up in a downswing, especially playing deep. Keep your head up and grind through it.

Lets say you win 15bb/100. Which at 1/2 comes out to about $8 per hour at 25 hands/hour.

http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

In the top 4 lines put

15
-7.5
120 (Live has higher standard deviation than online which the site was made for)
500

Read the whole page.

Then put 5000 in on the last line which is about 170 hours

Then put in 50000 in. 1700 hours.

If you want to be up 140 bucks in 17 hours guaranteed, get a ****ty job. If you want there to be a high probability that you are up 14000 bucks in 1700 hours, then poker is for you.

This works out to be a bit more than $8/hr. The ****ty job is still the best way to get there.

OP, you are going about things the wrong way. You just can't watch videos and get better. You have to take a new concept and work on it for several weeks of full time play before it is ingrained in your game. As for your skill, you aren't nearly as good as you think you are. A lot of beginners assume that if they know how to play tight pf, they're much better than their opponents who seem to be playing everything. The reality is that they are playing far better than you are post flop. That's hard for a beginner to see.

please don´t do this...

He obviously probbbly doesn't have anyone to buy his action.

Also OP you should just find something better to do with your life.

Find a job. Make some money. Get a bankroll. Play poker and get better. It will be a very long time before you can even consider poker as a way to make money, so don't bother.

Seriously, I don't understand anyone who plays poker when they can't afford to lose the money. Everyone has ups and downs in this game.

(assuming this is not a level) get a job and when you have a few thousands dollars set aside, you can play poker again. Your sample size is like a spec of sand on the beach (it's meaningless).

The fact that you are broke and playing poker thinking you can crush 1/2 because everyone is so bad is even worse than being the biggest fish in the game.

The long run is the rest of your life. Seriously. It could take a day, a week, a month, a year to break out of a downswing.

You can win 2 out of 3 sessions and still be breaking even or losing under the right circumstances.

I lost 3 buyins Wednesday night. At a soft $1/$2 table. I won't bore you with the bad beat stories, We all have them.

What JohnnyBuz said is harsh but true. If you can't handle losing, just don't play poker. Because you are going to lose and you are going to lose more than anyone likes to lose.

There's a saying a friend repeats to me all the time that was said by a pro once: We may have no idea who the best poker player of all time is. He may not have survived an initial downswing. Most of the best players or pros started off hot and kept going. They eventually have a downswing, but because they had a hot start, it's easier to overcome. It's very difficult to overcome a losing start. It takes away your desire to play and to learn to get better.

I don't have the background online that a lot of players do on here. If I was a 22-year-old version of myself, I wouldn't even step into a casino to play live until I could crush 1 cent/2 cent and move up online.

Perhaps you should look into playing online to build a roll.

Don't ever play poker again until you have a reasonable bankroll to do so (which may be a very long way away if you consider yourself poor).

Ggetyourprioritiesstraight,imoG