Rather than play 4x a week I would recommend skimming old threads/reading a book instead.... then buy in full. In other words, skip shortstacking altogether.

Shortstacking generally sucks for reasons outlined; mostly it limits what you can do at the table. To be profitable ss'ing at all usually requires some sort of lengthy winning internet SNG background where you were adept at "pushbotting"/taking dead money.

Lol. Smh

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But it's fun saying all-in a lot and looking like a boss.

Why do you play? (Serious question.) If you're on 2p2, it implies you're "serious" about the game. If you're trying to play seriously, you're better off playing 1 or 2 times a week for a standard buy-in ($200) than 4x a week for $60 a pop. Play a standard ABC game and avoiding trouble spots should be profitable.

If you're playing solely for entertainment value, by all means keep buying in for $60.

Okay so over the past 211 hours I've went through a small downswing (7 buyins) and ended up with a 1.1bb hourly at 1/3 through this time. Through out this period I've played 36 sessions while winning only 15 of them for a 42% winning session %. 4 of these wins were for under 30 bbs.

I guess what I'm asking is what is the longest breakeven stretch/bad run you've went through? I've used the search bar and read a bunch, but I'm still interested in hearing a few more opinions. If everyone is tired of talking this stuff go ahead and lock it up mods.

Also, what would you guys say is a normal winning session % for a tag? 60-70%?

It's not that hard to go on 100 hour losing stretches from time to time. 200 hour losing or break even stretches do happen but they should be very rare. This is assuming u are a winning reg with a big edge. Otherwise u will go thru downswings muh more often.

I have broken even over a period of 2 months one time and have had several other break even months separate from that time. That's about the worst of it for me. And yeah, ~70% wins sounds about right.

I would consider myself a TAG. Sessions are relative....they can be 1 hour or 10 hours. Just to give u an example....my winning sessions is about 60% if u go by 2 hour sessions. My winning days (I average 5.5 hours a day when I do play) is about 70%. This is over a 1k hour sample btw. I think other winning regs will have similar numbers

Thanks for the reply dude. If you dont mind me asking, were you playing full time? Just trying to get a timeframe for your experience in the matter. Also, how did it effect you mentally?

What are you hoping to get out of this?

The whole thing about losing or winning months is kinda ridiculous when u realize a lot of players play like 10 hours a week. Those guys can go on losing or breakeven stretches for months even if they're a top reg cause it takes so long for them to get a good sample size. I recently had my first losing month in April (I play 30-40 hours a week). Yes I ran terribly all month (coolers and bad beats constantly) but I still coulda broken even for the month if I hadn't misplayed several hands due to frustration of running bad for so long. My point is that as long as u put in the hours and have a huge edge and play your a game all the time you will rarely ever lose over a long period of time and things will turn around where u will win big again.

Im assuming I have a mediocre winrate (5.5bb/hr) Ran at 9.5bb/hr for my first 200 hrs, now this run has cut it almost in half. I know the sample size is still pretty dang small, so im probably speaking waaay too early anyway. Might be a losing player for all anyone knows.

I guess just some insight on the type of swings that can occur to a decent reg.

Yeah, I was/still do. I feel that it was sort of a self fulfilling prophecy of sorts, since I had been absolutely crushing the game for like a month and a half before then and knew that my run good wouldn't last forever lol. Mentally it was tough. Even after I knew it was going to happen. It taught me a lot about myself. I was in a situation where I wasn't under any pressure to make money, and most of what I was making was being saved. I couldn't figure out why this number effected my emotional state so much. It's so crazy. For example, even if I was making 20bb/hr over a period of time, if I then started making only 10bb/hr It would effect my thoughts and emotions. It really led me to search for myself in a sense. Evaluate what exactly made me happy. I found what I was looking for. Now I know that it isn't any physical object (money, material things, people) that makes me happy, but rather a conscious choice.

All good players go through down swings, but they don't last forever. The worst thing you can do is let your emotions affect your actions. I'm sure things will turn around for you.

I'm glad to hear you got through it and it sounds like it actually helped you as a person. Thank you for taking the time to write this up and for the kind words of encouragement.

If you want to be a pro, you have to embrace losing.

There are 52 weeks in a year, assuming you play an average of 4 days a week, that's more than 200 sessions.

Even if you manage to win 70% of them, you are still going to lose 60 sessions a year.

If you're a 1/3 player, losing average of 300 - 400 per losing session is a pretty decent number. In other words, all those times that you walk out the casino with a losing session, you will leave a total of anywhere between $18,000 to $24,000 at the table in a year.

So ya, and that's someone who's winning 70% of sessions with average win very close to that of average loss.

Learn to embrace losing, or you won't make it.

Just to give you an idea of what to expect. I have already lost more than 32k this year in more than 60 sessions.

Edit: typed too fast.

You're completely right, I just gotta get back on the felt, play well, and realize that losing for an extended period of time is completely in the realm of possibility for a winning player. Thank you for the insight.

Crazy numbers btw, you must play in the big games. Even more thankful for the reply now lol

Im a 1/2 live player and am currently on the biggest downswing in my allbeit short career. im currently -1600 for the month of july. typically my downswings are between 3-4BI. I am generally a TAG player if this helps.

I haven't played a ton live yet, so I don't have any input here. But I'd like to post a similar question.

Usually people say to do 10,000 repetitions at anything to see where you're at. How many hands per hour are we assuming? 1 hand every 2 minutes, 30 hands per hour, 10K hands will take about 333 hours and once I hit that I'll have a good benchmark on my hourly going forward?

Sorry to intrude on this post, but was thinking of making a thread for a few days, it's related to this.

Here's to us running and playing well! We're about to go on a sick heater

we could sure use it!

I've read that you really want 1000 hrs logged before you can be too sure of anything. Pretty dumb of me to make this thread, but I was just curious as I'm approaching 500 hrs pretty soon, and wanted to see the types of swings other players have went through in a relatively short amount of time.

I think 25-30 an hour is an agreeable estimate.

Plenty of players have played poker their entire lives and still suck at it.

Time has changed and so has poker.

From March to the start of June this year I had a 14-15k downswing playing 2/5, 1/3, 1/2. It's possible to run worse than you can conceive off. I was getting coolered in huge pots in so many spots it was unreal.