I am strictly a live poker player, playing low stakes NL cash games (1/2 and sometimes 2/5) as well as low buy-in tourneys ($100-$300) in AC and PA casinos. Over the past 6 months I have been taking the game very seriously and playing 3-4 times a week, attempting to make a living at the game. All in all, it has not quite gone as planned. I have experienced moderate success at both cash games and tourneys but have been in a slump recently and am back to square one, i.e. I've just dipped below $0 in overall profit after 6 months of play.

Back story out of the way, how can I accurately assess my play and determine where I am going wrong? I am a very well read player (favorite books include Professional NL Hold em, NL Hold Em Theory and Practice, The Harrington Books, and Gus Hanson's tourney book) but I just can't seem to turn the corner and be a consistent winner at the low stakes. Does anyone have any advice on how to turn my game around? Has anyone been in a similar situation and been able to successfully become a consistent winner? Any advice would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

Best advice I can give you is to track all your key hands and big wins/losses.

Then, input those hands into poker stove. DO NOT PAY ANY ATTENTION TO WHETHER YOU WON OR LOST THE HAND

what you should pay attention to is your equity and if you were making the correct decisions.

If you were making the correct decisions, then odds are you are a winning player.
If you were making the incorrect decisions, then odds are you are a losing player.

and it goes beyond just winning or losing a hand.
Are you value betting enough? Are you inflating the pot when you have lots of equity? Are you bluffing enough? Are you using your image? Are you aware of how villains percieve you? Are you playing your reads or folding when you think you are ahead but can't take the heat of a big bet?

It is a good thing you found this site. Not to be snarky, most live players think they are good until they get to this site and see just how deep poker can be.

Most live players have no idea how to do an equity calculation or understand the concept of equity and ranging and fold equity and extracting max value.

Anyways, work this site daily to include Poker Theory, the small stakes and medium stakes NL online hand postings. After two months of working this site, you will be amazed how much your game will have improved.

Anyways, back to your question. Track your play, results, and analyze all your key hands, and that will tell you whether you are a winning player or a losing player.

Are you getting it in good regularly or not?

+1... again Harris, I know this is getting old, but I just like what you post!!!

and he is spot on!!!

If visited the page more frequently in the last month or two and I can tell, that it helped my game a lot and that I have some leaks I wasnt aware of, but there where/are showing me the right way here @ 2p2!!! put in the work here and see your game get a BIG boost!!!

I agree w/ the above
playing and putting in hours at the table alone means nothing
if you are reinforcing bad habits by playing you could actually be getting worse.
The time you spend AWAY from the table is where you will improve your game. You will draw on the poker thinking you learn by posting/discussing later on In heat of the moment, but anticipating that just playing will improve your game is a fallacy IMO. I've played w/ lots of fools for 7-8 years who suck just as bad now as they did then, because apparantly they haven't spent a minute away from the table studying and learning the game ever.

Don't be one of them!

+1 for what stampler wrote

If you're consistently noting poor plays by opponents and thinking about ways to capitalize on leaks and strategy gaps your opponents have, then you can probably beat the game with modest effort. Keep detailed notes about your sessions and if possible use a poker tracker app on your phone.

Try playing micro stakes online (FullRing) and using poker tracker software to analyze your game.

I know for a fact that when I go on poker binges I get worse the longer I play. If I'm just coming back after a long break I'm usually super focused and I read as many HHs online as I can and I start writing down the # of hands I play and key hands at the end of every session. After a few weeks of going almost everyday I can't bring myself to look at a HH, let alone write one down after the end of a session. There's a mental block that prevents me from even thinking about poker when I'm not at the tables, yet I have this addictive urge to get back to the tables ASAP. That's when I usually force myself to take another long break.

Lot's of good advice above.

Let me add just one thing. If you are playing 3-4 times a week for 6 months at basically the same couple of places, the better players have figured out how you play. They are taking advantage of your tendencies by not paying you off when you have a big hand and knowing when you can be pushed off a hand. That isn't to say you don't have leaks as well, but the better players are working to make them wider.

Close your leaks. However, at some point if you become a regular that you have to adjust your game to the table conditions. If lots of people are limp/calling no matter what the raise is, raise big to punish them. If someone is deciding to be table captain and raising any limper, then you want to l/rr with more than AA. At the very top levels of poker (that's way beyond TV pros), people like Phil Ivey don't have a style of play. They simply react more quickly to the table conditions than others in exploiting them.

While it is possible to just run bad over that amount of time/hands if you are playing in AC and PA that have large player pools (IE fish) and are playing 1/2 and 2/5, there is a good chance there are serious leaks in your game. At least at 1/2 you should be a consistent winner. Are you keeping stats on how you fare in each game, are you game selecting? are you playing at peak times etc? Do you chase losses play tool long when your losing, tilt etc? are all factors

I agree w/ this but also need to add something. A lot of the losses from live players don't come in the 'key' hands. Most live players call way too many hands PF then just chk/fold every flop. Lots of players will lose 75% of their stack this way, then get all in for their last 25%, get sucked out, and say 'wow i run so bad'. Even if they win that last hand they're only back to like half of what they started with. So it's not necessarily the big pots that are causing you to win/lose.

very true,

good addendum

in fact, the above is probably a bigger factor than those "key hands" I talked about.

Or even worse, leaking away a buy-in while topping up, and then getting tilty in a big pot and losing another.