picking up when your brain tells you it's time is an underrated skill imo

Thanks sirs. I've gotten too old, my poker dreams have passed me buy.
Gone are the days of aspiring to be wsop champ.
My only goal from now on is to be able to continue playing without taking money out of the piggy bank.
Simple man, simple goals.

My post was tongue-in-cheek but I guess it was a little too "thin value". Don't actually bring all your bankroll to the casino.

I think 3 buy-ins is a decent starting rule. You have to figure out your own psychology first, what makes you tilt, what doesn't. How long you can play without getting tired, etc.

I think playing short makes for a lot simpler decisions, and if I'm reading OP right, that's likely what he needs at this stage of his development. Of course once he gets his feet under him and gets a feel for the game and develops more he's then free to branch out (*if* he desires, noting that it's possible he may come to the conclusion that playing short is just fine which is something I've come around to more lately).

Also just wanted to clarify for the OP that I doubt anyone considers 100bb - 150bb "short".

Agree that if you have a big advantage on the field at playing deep then obviously do that. Attempting to read between the lines, I don't think that's where OP is at.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Simple question: what's your winrate over how many hours? Based on your questions, I'm assuming it's not so great (although maybe I'm reading between the lines wrong).

You've got to learn to walk before you can run. Be very wary of advice that assumes you're currently a very good runner.

GgoodluckG

43 sessions
150 hours
- 9.78 h
- 1.470 total
Yes, I'm at a point where I'm running in the negative. Not pretending otherwise.
All advice is much respected and appreciated.
Just, I don't relish the idea of buying in for 100 and all my decisions being fold or all in basically. But, I also want to avoid situations where, I go all in preflop with aces and lose 300 against someone's floped set, for example.
How's the middle ground for a medium stack? Can I still call raises with small pocket pairs? Do I go all in to a raise with small pocket pairs?
I'm so confused

Anyone can lose 500bbs over periods of runbad (although, I'll be honest, I'm pretty sure I've done it less than half a dozen times in my 4100 hours, although obviously I play a low variance style which may come at the expense of a bigger winrate). So it's *possible* it's just variance. But given your questions, it's more likely you're simply a run-of-the-mill losing player that isn't nearly as good with regards to the rest of the table as they think they are (no offense).

I stand by my original suggestion. Play short around $120ish to simplify decisions. Play nit tight (in EP into MP, this means somewhere in the neighbourhood 77+/AK/AQs/ATs+/KQs and only adding on anything else in CO/Button). Don't ever call+ preflop raises unless you have a monster (which mostly you should be playing for shortstacks for ASAP) or know the flop is going to go very multiway and you have a PP to setmine. With the biggest part of your range that makes TP+ attempt to get your stacks in by the turn at the very latest (either by raising to 10%++ preflop or limp/reraising). Likely almost never bluff.

Once you get your feet under you then you can decide whether it's a good idea to deviate from this or not.

Gdon'ttakerunningadvicewhenyoucan'tevencrawlyet,im oG

Congrats on admitting your results to yourself. Many/most players aren't capable of this.

Don't buy in short. It lowers your EV and probably increases your variance. It zaps your skill edge and you'll be developing skills with modest applicability to your future success.

Do you have a skill edge? Probably not, but you may be close. The field is really bad, so quality study and modest aptitude can get you there.

post hand histories and carefully analyze the feedback. the challenge is some of the worst advice will be the most earnest. all you can do is consider the responses and eventually you have to work out for yourself who gives good advice. this takes time.

I'm not at all offended. I don't consider myself a losing player, yet.
But yes, run of the mill who thought he's better than he actually is, for sure. I'm only human.
Right after I wrote my last post, I thought to myself, nepeeme, you donkey, just use spr to base your decisions.
But all advice is very welcome. Merci.

@sailboats: He's currently losing pretty badly to the field and given the questions he is asking it's pretty likely he doesn't have a skill edge. I'll leave it up to the OP to decide whether jumping into the game with Poker 401 strat is better than Poker 101 strat.

Definitely post some HHs. If half the respondents think a HH was really very poorly played, then there's a decent chance it was, probably, maybe.

GgoodluckG

Thanks, it's no big deal, being honest. I'd rather be transparent.
But, I reserve the right, if I turn this around, to brag after

I first got my feet wet in no-cap NL games before the poker boom got started. I remember when a local cardroom started spreading 100bb-capped-buy-in 1-2, and feeling like I had to nit it up because the implied odds just weren't there.

Agree with GG if he's a dog in a lineup - buy in short. He shouldn't habitually do it though as it will stunt his growth as a player.

Not sure if this is the right spot to post this but I've been playing semi professionally for the last 9 months with decent success. I have a warm up and cool down I do before and after most sessions (I should do it every session) that includes writing out and thinking about 1 or 2 hands. I also have several questions I answer to myself. On Saturday morning I re-read everything from the last year and I noticed a few things.

1.) Towards the end of long sessions, especially if I am not winning, I become super passive. I end up limping way more than I should.

2.) I don't think there is ever a time to defend against a 3! light, even against a capable opponent. Now there are times if I am super deep it makes sense, especially if I have the type of hand that can stack someone, but if I open AJo on the button and a player 3!'s from a blind I should fold. Even if that player is "capable".

Players are just not 3! enough to try to defend.

3.) In big pots where I have made bad decisions, my thought process speeds up a lot and I have trouble figuring things out. I don't know why this happens from time to time but it's like my brain literally goes into hyper drive and I can't concentrate.

4.) If someone wants to make it as a live pro they need to stop worrying about being the unicorn and just be a workhorse.

I love thinking and studying poker at what I like to believe is a "high level" but really the key to making it in this game is just to suck it up and go play. But in those hours. Be a ****ing workhorse.

Thanks for reading, just thought I would share my not so random thoughts.

I have this amazing super power that while it is impressive to other players at the table it is basically useless to me. We got the usual suspects together to watch the UFC fight and played a friendly 1/2 game leading up to the main event. When not in the hand, I correctly called 3 exact hands when players were tanking because a decent amount of money was at stake (after the hand was over.)

However, when I am one of those players in a big hand, and I try to access my hard drive, I get the spinning circle of death and an error message that says "Error: Try clearing your cashe memory and reboot." Doesn't happen all of the time, but enough that it is super annoying.

Yes, very similar to what I experience. Sometimes in big pots I know exactly what to do, other times I go through this.

It's almost like I get lost in the hand.

Seeing that someone has to bring this thread back to life, I felt myself duty bound to take that step, at the risk of exposing my limitations at no limit.

1/2 no limit live cash.
New to table. About 20 minutes.
V is a youngish, early 30's, late 20's, WG. Has already been involved in a few big pots since I moved here.
Doesn't seem to be a maniac though. Seems to have controlled aggression. Seems to know what he's doing but not exactly sure how competent he is. His raises tend to be on the small side, 8. And, he limped
A bit too. In other words, he's been pretty active.
Hero is a MAWG bordering OMC status.
Certainly a tight image.

Effective stacks 200

After a couple of limps, our hero looks down at 2 Queens.
Hero decides to not commit and or expose our strength and only makes it 16. Ready to play it as a small pair, set mine, if we get multiple callers.

V in BB seems to contemplate and calls.
I wasn't sure if he was thinking of folding or raising.

limpers fold and we are, to my surprise, heads up.
Dream scenario with two ladies I guess.

Pot is 36 without rake.
Flop 9 7 7 two spades.
Hero holds the Q of spades.
Villain donk bets 20!
What do we make of his lead out on such a board?
Does he put us on two overcards and is hoping to buy pot?
What does our hero do?

Call

There's no way I fold flop. V can easily donk with a 9 or a straight draw. Maybe even a 7. He may take it up a notch and say "no way this OMC has any of that in his raising range, lol, I bet"

Call. And you need to deal with the bolded asap. Horrific mindset.

$100. Odds he has a 7 are much smaller than the odds he has a 9 and or a solid draw. Shove a lot of turns.

Well, to be honest, I wasn't afraid of neither a 7 or a 9.
I pondered the situation for a few seconds and thought to myself,"he's too good of a player to donk out that board if he smashed it. he'd more likely check to trap, if he smashed that flop. But, could he have flatted KK or AA. Posible, I've seen it before, but more on the unlikely side".

He's either betting a flush draw or thinks, because of my profile, he can bet and I'll fold , what seems more than likely, a whiffed flop for me.

Maybe you're right. But, can an OMC not play deceptive sometimes too?
I say OMC jokingly. I'm 52 and I look sort of geeky but I honestly don't look at myself that way at all. I'm just self aware enough that that's the way I'm perceived by a lot of the younger players.
would you call Eli Elezra an OMC player?

Reread bold.