This sounds similar to my February 2012, which at the time was one of, if not the, biggest downswings I'd had thus far.

I went on to win $17k over March/April/May.

Keep your chin up and make sure you keep tightening the screws on your game.

(Also, since that time, I've had sessions where I lost more than $1967. Not too many, fortunately.)

stick with it gg. I've just done some win rate analysis for the first time in a long while (because I'm on an upswing LDO) but it's proven how 'long' a downswing or an upswing can last for a keen rec player like you or me.

life situation - have a business that goes well but...a wife who doesn't have an income, three kids and three mortgages. So lots of 'wealth' but lots of debt and outgoings. I don't play poker for the money, I play because I enjoy it and for the challenge of getting better. But I won't ever dip into life roll for poker but do use poker roll sometimes for big expenses - bought a lounge suite, paid for a weekend away for wifey etc.

I forced myself to have a 4k BR before moving to 2/3 and a 7k BR before taking shots at 5/5. I average 300 hours a year

Currently have 1050 hours logged between a 1/1 home game (380ish hours) and the casino. Point of note is we have a hugely raked casino - 1/2 and 3/3 are $5ph table charge and then 10% to $10 per hand, 5/5 is $10ph and then 10% to $10 per hand. So we're paying $25-30ph to play and that impacts on win rate

The hour splits are pretty random but I've done this to prove a point about win rates

Hours 1-558, + $13899 at 15bb/hr, mainly crushing my 1/1 home game and the 1/2 and then 2/3 games

Hours 559-952 (394 hrs) - $947, winning 3bb/hr (where I still beat the small games but really struggled with both variance and the very different game conditions as I moved up to 5/5.)

Hours 952-1028 (76 hrs), + $8735 at 11.67bb/hr (had a mega loss at 1/1 which is affecting my bb/hr rate but am at 25bb/hr + at 2/3, 2/4 and 5/5, where I am literally running like Jebus)

Total 1029 hours +$21.6k at 7.5bb/hr

Stakes win rates are
+15 bb/hr at 1/1 (400 hours)
+10.5bb/hr at 1/2 (213 hours)
+9.3bb/hr at 2/3 (210 hours)
+5.5bb/hr at 2/4 (63 hours)
+5.5bb/hr at 5/5 (148 hours)

Both my 2/4 and 5/5 win rates look a lot better than they did 80 hours ago!

I don't know how good a player I am, what the overall EV situation of my personal variance is over the 1k hours etc, but I do know that for rec players, the long term takes a loooong time and we have to be super careful to invest any meaning at all into 50, 100, 200 etc up or down swings.

ATsai made a point a page or two back about the guys who give up poker if they run bad to start and I think that's exactly right. If I had had my break even/losing stretch of 400 hours at the beginning, I'm damn sure I wouldn't be here. I was really disillusioned late last year and was very fortunate to bink a $14k tourney score to bolster my flagging spirits.

I'm also very happy I had the discipline not to burn through my bankroll when I was winning early on. I'm reminding myself of that as I keep being tempted about taking a shot at a $3kBI donkament at my casino this weekend!

I won about 1.2k in ~40 hrs purely rec untracked 1/2 before this so the stats are a little better than shown. It's such a tiny amount of hands though, I am pretty sure my true rate is higher (or lower) than +3bb/hr. The sick thing is, the only way to find out is to play more hands, and that's quite an investment in live poker. Little different than cranking out 1k SNGs in a week and powering through a downswing.

Bro if you never tipped you'd up your win rate by almost 11%...

But seriously, if you were cranking out 1k SNGs a week online and you were winning, you should be able to beat 1/2 for more than this.

Good luck regardless.
If you post some hand histories we will be happy to give you some feed back.

7500 hands is not a lot of hands unless you're talking about a human

nice Duke.

also...1k sit n gos in a week? That would send me over the edge

Iraise

nice graph sir!

have you got your bb/hr numbers for the different levels you play?

assume you're playing 2/5 now where possible?

I've got all the BB/Hour numbers and all that, but I don't really ever look at them. It's all just noise given the sample size at each level currently.

I never play 2/5 at my home casino (2 miles away) as they only have 1/2 and 5/5 which is a deep stack 100 - 500bb game and there are 3 professionals, and 3 very competent semi-pros, 1 random normally and 1 - 2 recs who play enough to not be idiots. Not really the crowd I feel like sitting down with. And my 1/2 games play like a 2/5 game anyway in that opening sizes for most of the regs are $14+, and normally 4+ people sitting 200bb deep or more.
The closest 2/5 games other than that are 45 minutes and 1.5 hours away, so I only get out there on the weekends when I have more time to stay (4+ hours).

The last time I flatlined like this I followed it up with my biggest upswing, so things can definitely turn on a dime.

Ya, tightening the screws is exactly what I'm doing. Really trying my best to play perfect (or, at least, my version of it) and try to reduce the number of hands in a session, that in hindsight, I feel I misplayed.

I'm assuming your > $1967 losses are in bigger stakes than 1/3 NL (cuz, otherwise, gross!).

Gnot*too*worriedaboutit,morejustannoyedG

Amen to this. I managed to book 568 hours as a rec player last year (I'm assuming on the decent end for a rec player), and that is sooooo just a drop in the bucket.

GlongtermkindatakesawhileG

I've been thinking about taking 3/5 shots. BR is $4800. I spend my BR on life sometimes. Have separate life roll and I do not live from poker in any way. The problem is, if I blow this roll, I will have to argue with my wife to get any more poker money. She owes me 1300 right now.

Should prolly wait, right? But I can always take one shot and step back to 1/3. Also jonesing for some plololololol. My casino has 2/2 with 5 bring in.

It's a little less than I took shots with. I started when I had 7k....logic being a 1k shot while leaving 2000bbs for 2/3

Definitely think it's a gradual process anyway. You can see my hours and results above but I still regularly play 3/3 if I think the 5/5 game looks too reg/pro infested and will continue to do so

yah, saw your stats above wrathy. I'm feeling impatient. Dumped $5k last year at 3/5. Feel I've been very disciplined playing 1/3 this year, feel ready for 3/5. 2BI max ($1k). Then back to the 1/3 grind. But hopefully off to the races instead. I might play plololol tonight though. Will check out 3/5 and 2/2 plololol.
Blame it on bip! Jelly of his results. Figure why not me ?

I ran pretty well my first two times - +1.3 and then +500 but then fared pretty badly

my 5/5 game can be pretty much like what iraise described earlier. We have 3 or 4 really tough pro guys and because the 10.20 no longer gets up (damn you Omaha), those guys play 5/5. I tried to sit down vs them and also tried to change my game to combat them and it resulted in bad play.

as long as you keep your ego in check and game select, you should be OK.

just make sure you flop lots of sets

Disclaimer; not a huge fan of posting stats over small sample sizes, but I felt this needed to be said in this thread

If you are a "Pro" who is not "crushing" (10bb/hr+ at your stake), you really should consider coaching. Ever since I received coaching my winrate has skyrocketed. Sample is small, sure but I see the difference. I have played a little $1/2 and $5/10 NOT included in this figure, but this is all my $2/5 strictly rolled up since mid-april when I received coaching. This is all with buyins of 100bb (500$)

Also highly recommend a mental coach or a lot of mental game books. Without that skills mean nothing. Note: I was wining 8.5 bb/hour historically at $2/5 prior to having a coach over 1k hours. I also don't think is this sustainable, but its nice to know I have the potential to make this kind of earn over a given 500 hour block.

Frish on a eater

It depends on how much you spend our of your bankroll (more taken out means more money needed), But I'd say you need at least 8k for 2/5 or 2/2 PLO.

P4MS,

Nice 2/5 NL stats. Once you have accumulated some more 5/10 NL volume throughout the rest of the year, I expect to see you achieving $100+/hour win-rates at 5/10 NL.

2/5 is normally the biggest game spread at my local casino. The buy-in is uncapped and the grinder types usually have stacks of $1,500 or more. Typically the rec players and tourists buy in for $500 or so at a time.

I'm just starting to take shots at this game and I'm underrolled. I play for profit but have a full time job and am okay being aggressive with my bankroll. Is it totally fine buying in for $500 even though that will often put my in the bottom 1/3 of the table stack-wise? Are there any disadvantages other than sometimes not covering all the bad to mediocre players that I need to be aware of?

BR is currently at $4,700 and I'm willing to risk about $1,500 on this shot. I'm a teacher so the only real concern is that I have a decent enough roll to stay in action at least for 1/2 come next summer.

No, there is no disadvantage buying in for $500 even if everyone else has $5million on the table

Thanks, that's what I was thinking but thought maybe there could be something I wasn't considering. It's a little strange being at the table and here comes a reg who plops down 4 $500 chips on top of his actually playing chips. I suppose it's probably good that I'll be pretty even stack wise with the rec players and not too deep with the regs to start.

Games here pretty much all play deep. I buy in for $300 at 1/2 and I'm often an average stack.

there's only the possibility of you feeling 'psyched out' by seeing those enormous stacks. But only part of their stacks play as the effective stacks in play vs you.

if two of the big stacks are in the hand with you, then you need to be aware of any implications of those guys playing against each other for deep stacks and how that relates to you. But somebody like ATSai or the pros who play deeper more often will be able to break down that better than I could so I'm not going to muddy the water

10 years ago I used to short stack an uncapped buy in 2/2/5 game with 100. I would hit and run against the guys who would try to bully around the scared money saying "you cant play this game with only $100"

I actually struggle with uncappes games because it messes with the "always buy full" mantra. When I go to vegas for work im always next to the hard rock which has 1/3 uncapped. I say just buy in for what youre comfortable with. Returns diminish as games get deeper. Ie the value you gain from increasing your buy in from 400 to 500 is greater than increasing from 500 to 600. Pick a number youre comfortable with, and take shots upping it when you see deep stacked fish.

Playing with 100bbs is fine/standard but realize while you're not at a "disadvantage" per se you are experiencing the opportunity cost of missed value by not playing deeper. Most villains are terribad when it comes to deepstack poker so competent heros should have a significant edge.

So yes shot take 100bbs now but realize your game is fantastic and your eventual goal should be to buy in deep in position vs other deeps.

No

The disadvantage comes into play when the game "plays bigger" pre-flop because of the large stacks. It can cause unfavorable SPRs for a large portion of your normal hand range such as suited connectors/gappers and small pairs. $50-$75 to see every flop sucks when you have a $500 stack.