Thanks for posting your giraffe.

Yeah, this is all part of what will eventually make up your poker giraffe for your lifetime; you'll have good times (looks like you had a similar sized uptick at the ~600 hour mark), you'll have bad times (now), and everything in between. The more hours you play, the more you'll experience these types of things which will move your overall results more towards their expectation.

It's giraffes like these that make me extremely wary of claims along the lines of "I was beating 1/2 NL for 12bb/hr over 600 hours, it is so easy, so I moved up". My guess would be that you wouldn't even think such a downswing was possible at your 1200 hour mark, and it also shows what lol sample sizes we get in this game for our lifetime. It took me 1800 hours of 1/3 before I even went on a 500bb downswing.

Good luck moving forward. Just try to get in your best head space and play your game (the game you know works) and you'll be fine.

Ggogogo!,imoG

Thanks man. It’s super frustrating, but a large portion was when an ex-dealer came to my 2/5 table and started blind shoving. Lost $3500 to 3 blind shoves in a row. Also lost set of QQ to KJ on a KQ3r board for almost $2k.

But yeah, it was enough to check my ego and sanity at the door.

Something seems weird with this graph. Dont you play 2/5? If Im reading it correctly, you were up about $29,000 after 1200 hours? That's about $24/hr. Not bad but nothing crazy good either. That's not the weird thing though.

I dont think as a moderate winner, I would be calling multiple $1000+ blind shoves unless I had really good hands. What did you call with? If Im a $20-$25/hr winner Im probably not calling those huge blind shoves without knowing I have a pretty big equity advantage. Im not waiting for AA/KK but Im also not calling with with hands like rag aces or QJs just because that's ahead of a random hand.

You lost about $11000 in 100 hours? Even accounting for the -$5500 you mentioned (which is huge but an outlier Im sure), you still lost another $5500 in less than 100 hours. That's 11 100BB buy ins on top of the other losses.

Something seems amiss. Im guessing there was some serious tilt in there? I dont know anyone who has lost 11 buy ins without some serious tilt/bad play mixed in. Im not picking on you. Ive been on a bad run myself and I know Ive made some subpar tilt plays, but somewhere near 5 buy ins, most people need a serious wake up call / self evaluation.

Why does your winrate matter to how wide you'd call a gift spot? If you're rolled for it you should take the +EV call and ride the variance train. It should be a BR question, not a WR one.


You can call as wide as 22+, T9o+, J8o+, Q5o+, K2o+, A2o+, 98s+, T7s+, J6s+, Q2s+, K2s+, A2s+ if you were heads up and still have >50%. Total range is about 58%. (Had a couple of guys in my HG that used to blind shove often enough it was worth figuring this out.)

If we just look at the magnitude of the oscillations around hour 800, I'd expect that +-$3000 is a perfectly 'normal' swing for this player/game combo. Tack some of that on to the super runbad and there's almost no way that there isn't at least $2k of tilt loss in there.

In theory, you can say that as long as you have the bankroll, you should call with any equity edge, but we dont play in theory. We play in real life. We arent robots. When a $20-$25/hr winner loses $3500 in 3 hands, probably within an hour or 2, its going to have a massive affect on him.

He just lost 140-175 hrs worth of winnings. That's pretty hard to get over mentally. It will affect his mood when hes away from the table. It probably led to lots of bad play and tilt. I could be way off base but if those losses did lead to bad play, who knows how many $1000s those calls cost him.

Sometimes a small edge for relatively large amounts of money is not worth it because losing them will hurt a lot more than winning them will help.

Nothing looks amiss in MarshMan114's graph. I've lost five buy-ins in one night in the same type of game. It's not difficult when you have crazy players. I'll take all in for $1000+ at a 1/2 game all night long with hands like AQ vs. Q6, and I will always put my money in when I know I've got an advantage.

Of course, I've won $4,000 in one night at the same game. Heck, my husband won $8,500 in the same night I lost $1,500 (yes, in a 1/2 game). And I won four buy-ins back two nights later.

Variance is variance.

MarshMan, I can totally understand your wanting to go down in stakes, and I think it would do you good mentally, but don't fret about the loss -- you will make a comeback. Just get your mental game back and you'll be fine. (Start studying PLO for your Vegas trip, too!!!)

All good questions. His first blind shove I had AJo and it was for about 900. His 22 held. I had 2500 on the table. (Very deep but I had gone down 1000 and rebought and got back to even.) next shove I had KQo and his 97 held. I bought in another 1000 and called in CO with A7. His AA held.

I asked another good player about it and he said it’s printing money. I think the lesson for me is to max this out at $500 a pop. You don’t have to believe this, but I really didn’t tilt like you think.

One of the variables is I started buying in for 200bb once I got comfortable. (Maybe hour 900?) And we get a decent amount of regs who match the big stack (our 2/5 can match the big stack). I was also playing very nitty in the beginning and wasn’t getting paid off as much later on. So I’ve been trying so loosen up in spots. So really its like I’m playing a 5/10 or higher depending on who shows up.

Here is an example of mini-tilt. ($900 effective). Button fish on a heater limps, SB completes and I make it $30 with AJ. Flop AKJ

I bet $45 and he raises to $180. I consider he’s a rec and instead of folding I reraise thinking he has a lot of AX. We get it in and He shows Q10 and the A on the river slow rolls me. Now I’d like to think the money got in on the river, but it didn’t and I should’ve folded.

I’ve also seen an uptick in super aggressive players putting you to the test for stacks.

If nothing else, I agree that I’m not great and need to improve. I’m also buying in for $500 now and trying to reset this month.

Marsh

Thanks! Funny thing is PLO is going ok for me here. Who would’ve thought that’d be the steady ale for me last month?

If you get in the right games in Vegas, you should have no problem. My only advice is to set a win-limit / stop-limit per session and stick to it!

AJ, KQ, A7 vs blind shoves are printing (I’m just assuming you were last to act for each, if you weren’t it could change things a bit) Sometimes you run bad, it happens.

Only thing I’d say is just be 100% sure the guy is actually all in blind - I’m sure you did, but it’s a common angle. (Him showing up with AA in one hand my only reason for saying this but obviously just unlucky if you know he’s blind for sure)

Oh yeah I made absolutely sure.

And to give more credence to the fact this isn’t your normal 2/5: it’s Tuesday evening and there’s one table running with $13k+ on the table (3 players with $3k). About half the table is straddling. This doesn’t happen everyday, but at least once per week it gets big for some reason.

Month 3 coming back to poker is at an end.

+1550 over 56 hours for May @ 1/3. Feels like there are way better players at the table than me but their overall strategy and occasional fancy plays feels like its turning big winners into average. $28/h or just under 10bb/h. Really felt like I ran under ev this month even though it was my best. Lost 3 sets, couple over flushes, lost AA, KK to under pairs.

Month 1 & 2 were similar to each other. 45~ hours played, +850 per month so about $3200 made in 150 hours.

Congrats on the results!

But if were behing honest, trying to draw any conclusions from 3 months of playing is just asking for trouble.

Continued good luck to you.

The advice should be to work on your weak mental game, not avoid tilting spots. You're turning down hundreds of dollars of EV.

If losing a few buy-ins is going to severely tilt you then that's a huge problem.

Should I cancel my move to Macau?

If you think losing 3 bi there doesn't tilt you, then your mental game is pretty weak yourself.

Everyone is going to get tilted in that situation. To say you wouldn't means you are just trying to fool yourself. Intentionally ignoring your tilt is a form of tilt (and it may be one of the most costly forms). It's just a matter of recognizing it and knowing what your specific type of tilt leads you to do, and how to slow or reverse that process.

Me personally I know my first sign of "tilt" is my ears get hot. Literally like a cartoon with steam coming out of my ears. When this happens, I take a walk and ask myself what is really going on, so I know the best way to combat it.

Its really easy to say on a message board that you dont tilt. It sounds really cool and macho, but its BS. The opportunity to have a guy blind shoving $1000s is pretty rare. If you call 3 of them in a short period and lose all 3 costing you 700BBs and dont tilt, then you are a robot. Good for you. For the rest of us humans, its going to affect our play going forward.

Maybe to clarify: I absolutely went home and didn’t play anymore that day. And then took a few days off after the AJ vs royal flush debacle that closed out my month.

I’ve certainly tilted before but it’s usually life tilt that causes me to punt stacks with no regard and that’s only happened twice that I can vividly remember.

If you define tilt as anything that costs you money, then as a +ev player deciding to quit is a form of tilt.

Not saying it's wrong as it might be less costly than your other options.

But recognizing it is still important, so that if you can work on it and next time it happens you only need to take 1 day off as you can now recover quicker.

No they aren't. Very presumptuous of you to think so. If you've played long enough and have the correct mental status and bankroll, losing three by-ins is just a bad run -- and it's really no big deal as long as you are playing well and making the right decisions.

I lost $1,500 in one night in a 1/2 game, and it didn't tilt me at all. I wasn't happy about it, but it didn't affect my play. I didn't leave early, I continued to play the way I always play, and I went back two nights later (the next game) and continued to play the way I always play. I won $1,200 of it back. No tilt.

I agree that it is possible to massively reduce how prone you are to tilt.
But to eliminate it completely is probably impossible during the worst times.
I also agree with MarshMan that life tilt is often more dangerous than card tilt and is something that players should constantly be aware of. I am far more likely to play poorly due to life tilt than run bad tilt.

Speaking for myself losing any amount of money in these open shove spots is very low on the list of things that tilt me. I will gamble with anyone anytime in these spots and accept the result. What sets me off the most is making an obviously bad play, like calling on the river when I'm never good. Kind of off topic with my personal anecdote but to not take these massive +ev spots because you might tilt if it doesn't go your way is a huge mistake.

Ok so yes I am sure some people don't tilt. To me tilt is any mental reaction that causes you to play less than your A game. Many people tilt when winning worse that when they are losing.

I have never met one of these tiltless people but with 8 billion people I'm sure some of them don't tilt in any fashion.

I would guess that the number of people who don't tilt in some fashion are less than the number of people whos real win rate at 5/10 is over $100/hour.

Getting chippy in here folks. Keep it positive.

my exact mindset as well. +1