Don't have any 1010xx in your utg range where you have a card below your 10s. Even 1010a9 dbl is a fold imo.

6 handed? I want to believe you but that seems sooo tight. I really need to get some charts and study opening ranges. I know I'm playing too loose but I might be way off on how far I need to pair it back.


Another week in the books. The bad run has continued and I'm pretty much at breakeven again. The last 4 times I've gotten all in with AAxx against AAxx I've split one and lost the other 3. That alone pretty much put me in the red.
Similar to what happened before, when I start to run bad I may be compounding it by playing too scared on the later streets. Just seems like whenever I try to value bet I get raised or x-raised and at this level that generally means they have it. I'm not sure when I should be calling these or just folding. Its almost random. I'll call when I'm in disbelief - like rr backdoor straight when I've been potting it the whole time with top set and can't believe they could have a 57 or whatever. I'll also call a lot more when I'm tilted after a handful of these situations.
I'm not doing this with Q high flushes or the ass end of straight draws. Typically just sets that I keep barreling and can't get the board to pair up. Drives me crazy seeing the river bring the straight and the flush and just knowing they got there when the pot is finally big.

Good news is I did much better on volume this week. Played almost all day Sunday, which is pretty much what its going to take. Need to find another 3 hour session somewhere in the week or I'm going to keep falling behind on my 100k hand goal.


Hands for the week (2036)
Hands for the month (3273)
YTD Hands (8766)
YTD Profit (577)

The bad run continued yesterday. Just taking beatings everywhere. Seems like no matter how good I get it in, they find a way. Lost something like 15 buyins in about 2 hours. That was at regular tables and 4 at a time.
I am in despair. It's to that point where you can call every card coming off the deck based on what will wreck you. Feels like I'm never going to win again.
Down like 20-25 buyins in the last week or so. Fortunately I go on vacation later today so I wont really play for the next week or so.
Hopefully the reset will help.

Any advice on how to stop thinking about how bad this all seems or how to keep a level head through this is appreciated. I know it happens to everyone, but when it's me, it just feels like the world is against me. Annoying too, how much more I care about my results when I'm losing. When I was winning I didnt pay it much mind, just took it in stride. Poker was just a hobby. When I'm on a 2 week spiral it's all I can think about.

The horrible run has continued. Pretty much every time I sit down I lose 5-10 buyins. Pretty happy I cashed out the 3k when I did or I would have no doubt blown through that as well.
Today started with me going down 10 buyins at .25/.50. Gut shots and 2 outers everywhere.
Moved up to 1/2 because **** it. Lost 4 buyins in less than 10 hands. This was not tilt either. 2 AAxx and AAJT, one all in pre and the other the flop came something innocuous like T72 rainbow and I got the rest in there but he had hit a set with his 77xx trash hand that he cold called a 3 bet with.
Then flopped a set of kings and got it all in and lost to a backdoor flush. Then flopped a monster wrap draw (16 I think) got it all in with that and missed.

Moved to 2/5 with my last 200$, 2nd hand got dealt AAJT on the small blind. UTG raised to 17, I 3 bet to 60 he called with Q996 (2 diamonds). Flop was Qxx and I shoved my last hundred in and he called and hit running diamonds.

Thats pretty much how my last handful of sessions had been going. I just completely lost hope I'd ever win again.

I was fairly disciplined for awhile there, but I don't have it in me to stroll through a month long run like that. Its just not worth it for me to move down in stakes. I feel certain I'm playing well enough to win at .25/.50 but I just don't have it in me to slog through session after session of bad beats for a weeks at a time. Not now anyways.

Worst part is, I didn't even really want to play today but I had some time to kill and figured why not...

Pretty bummed out. Going to take a break for awhile probably.

Well, I'm back - sort of.

COVID hit hard a couple weeks after that last spew session. I had thoughts about re-depositing some of what I had cashed out and starting up again but my 2nd job closed down and we went to reduced hours on my 1st job and decided it was probably better to just wait and see how things went. I had also moved into a new place and had some new bills/budget and with the loss of the 2nd job I was feeling a bit squeezed.

Fast forward through summer and things started to go back to normal. Regular hours at my job and looking good. Didnt go back to my 2nd job but got comfortable on my new budget. So late September early October I put 2k back in play.

I've been lurking in the forums since then but was hesitant to start posting on here again.
"After a couple weeks of run bad I tilted off 1-2k even though that was thing thing I told myself over and over I absolutely had to avoid. Now I'm back but it'll be different this time!" - wasnt looking forward to typing that out I guess.

Especially since 2 times over the last 3 months I've done the exact same thing again. Lost 4-5 buyins to some bad beats or whatever and divebomb into super tilt mode. Just got lucky those times. 1st time I played for like 8 hours into the morning at 2/5 trying to 'avenge' a 2-300$ loss at .5/1. Finally just gave up from exhaustion, still down about 1k.
2nd time I eventually went on a small tear at a 5/10 table trying to get back what I lost at the 2/5 tables where I was trying to get back what I lost in a few pots at the .5/1 table...... Ended up winning the single biggest pot of my life and got back to somewhere around even.

So stupid. I am actually pretty disciplined at all other areas of life (except eating bad food - which I do too much of) but I just lose my mind if I get sucked out on too much too fast.

It sucks just admitting to it. I've read other similar degen posts from people though and in some way, I find them inspiring. They typically come from people who are no longer posting as its a sure fire way to go busto and just give up. So, putting it down here will hopefully serve as a warning to others or give me something to look back at years from now and feel good knowing I finally sorted it out.

Time will tell.

Anyways, I do really enjoy reading other peoples threads and doing what I can to improve. I just love the game. I dont have any friends who play with any seriousness so this place is really my only outlet. Hopefully I'll stay on track and just keep improving and getting to chime in and follow along with everyone else.

To date I've been playing .5/1. I have somewhere between 20-30k hands in since September - there are a bunch missing in there from me failing to transfer them over to my new laptop. Apparently a lot of winning sessions were lost there too because my graph has me at even overall but I am actually up.

My plan is to keep plugging a long as I have been. I'll pull out half my profit each week (assuming I'm up). If I lose, then I'll have to get back to my previous high water mark before I can cash out again. Doing this for 2 reasons.
1. I'm very comfortable at the stake I'm at now but from what I've seen at 1/2 I'm nowhere near ready for that so I just want to take it slow - not trying to move up stakes until I get much better.
2. If I do tilt off again, I want to make sure I have a foolproof stop loss setup. It takes a couple days for me to move money onto a site so I can only lose what I have on there at the time. This will also let blow some of the money I might make to buy real things that I want and make it seem more real.

I cashed out my initial buyin last week so from here on out its just profit.

Welcome back! I just came back myself. ^^

Sorry to hear about the tilt issues. It seems like you're aware of it at least though. It's very easy to rationalise it's not a real issue. I've certainly been there.

One thing I suggest doing is trying to do more active solver work. I think it's very easy to just watch video and get fed heuristics, but I find that it sticks a lot more when you do it yourself.

As a friend of the creator, I am here obliged to recommend the PLO Matrix. For real though it's probably a first step.

Thanks for the input. I think matrix is probably the best next step for me. That along with actually planning out a study and play schedule to follow. I need to dedicate some time to pure study or I just end up firing up tables because I have time and really want to play.

I checked out the first half hour of your study stream and will finish it up in the next day or two. It is helpful seeing what good players are actually doing when studying rather than just have the vague idea that I should be looking through hand histories.
Back in school i absolutely hated studying and pretty much avoided it at all costs and now I find myself watching a video of someone studying and enjoying it.

Thanks again and good luck at the tables! I'll be following along.

Was planning on updating this a little bit more frequently but I'm currently mired in another run of insanely bad luck and thats killed my motivation. Right now if I get it in on the flop with a set against a naked pair there's about a 25% I hold.
Hopefully this will run its course pretty quickly. Another problem with spurts like this is that it affects my play for awhile after. Its hard for me to play aggressively after a week of losing every pot where I dont have the stone nuts.

Did have a spot come up today I was unsure about so figured Id drop it here - give me something else to think about.

Im utg with AKQJ ds and raise to 3.5
Folds around to bb who 3 bets.
We have 100bb effective.

I just call here instead of 4b since I'll be in position and 3b tend to be very heavily weighted towards AAxx.

Flop QT8 rainbow and he leads out half pot
I call.

Turn is another Q bringing a flush draw that I have no piece of.
He bets out like 7bb into ~40bb pot

I'm almost positive I'm ahead at this point, if he had TT or 88 I feel like he'd be betting a bit bigger. If he had AAxx with the ace of hearts I dont see why he'd make this blocking type bet rather than just x/c?

I did not want to just call and have the 2 of hearts on the river and lose to some side card, 4 high flush draw or have the case A show up and cooler me - this is the sort of thing that has been happening to me pretty regularly so its probably affecting my judgement.

Should I just be calling here and hoping he hangs himself on the river trying to push me off the hand or makes a small 'value bet' on the river thinking I must not have anything?
Should I make a smaller raise like 3-4x? Or just jam here?

Just read this, and wait what?? This is blatantly not true, am I reading this wrong?





We should never limp, though.

Flatting this is just standard, BB vs UTG is meant to be tight. We only basically 3b ds mid a run downs like AT86ds etc. Those play much better than broadway hands.

I probably just jam flop. People over cbet.

I think this is untrue. That said, I'd def still go with it.

I think this is not a good way to think about the hand. You're going to lose sometimes, yes, but that's poker. I do think you should raise, but you shouldn't be that worried about having tough decisions on future streets as long as it's still the best play. I think this is a mental game leak.

11% vpip from utg? think 18% is standard

Subbed, gl

I would also make this call against most players, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's a 4bet in theory.

I think you need to raise, especially when you have one or more BDFDs. Making AAxx fold is not a bad thing here, but if villain doesn't fold we have more than enough equity to be happy with a bigger pot.

I think it's pretty hard to make a big mistake on this turn unless we fold.

Keep in mind that even if a flush comes in you might fill up; villain's equity is likely really low. That's a reason for us to consider slow-playing, actually; we may not gain much EV from a raise given how often villain may fold.

I like a small raise best given the texture and how timid villain appears, but again: I don't know if you can make a big mistake here as long as you at least call.

As played I guess I'm leaning towards making a smaller raise instead of jamming. If I'm beat I'm getting called no matter what. But maybe a 2-4x raise entices some hands that I have crushed to stick around. Like you said, probably not a big mistake either way.

And yeah... mental game has been more of a sieve the last week or two. Hopefully these stretches toughen me up rather than break me.

I'm trying to take a minute before I start a session up and just take a deep breath and sort of remind myself what I'm doing - zoom out. Brace myself for some inevitable bad beats so when they come, I'm a bit more stoic.
Also been starting to just set a timer on my sessions and quit right when its up.
Additionally trying to ignore my balance when I log in, which isn't exactly easy to do but I find when I'm not sure if I won or lost in a session (or any given short term time period) then its very easy for me to just wrap up a session and not be too butthurt about it.

Last day or two hasnt been too bad so no real tests on any of these little 'fixes' so we'll see.

It really annoys me that I have to try and do silly stuff like this. If someone was outlining this same problem that I have, and asking for my advice Id just be like - 'dude, just relax, think long term, who cares if you lose a few sessions in a row from bad luck? Its gonna happen, its a part of the game. You just need to accept it and not let it bother you so much. If you push through and just deal with it, in a month or 3 it will just be a blip on the radar that you wont even remember.'

Maybe the worst part about all this is that I'm now aware enough that I can feel the monkey tilt welling up inside me after the 3rd or 4th suckout. I know Id be much better off just shutting it down and maybe taking a day or two off but usually the only thing I can think about is just getting unstuck and I've just found it to be an overwhelming urge.

Oh well, day at a time for now. Just going to try to keep getting some sessions in when I can and do some studying. Hoping to coast through till the end of the month at least without any blowups and see how it looks from there.

Feel like I had a decent week this week. Trying to just shoot for 10-15 hours a week and paying very little attention to short term results. When I can do it, it works great...

The Mental Game has popped up on a few threads recently by people talking about the same sort of issues I have and so I think that's going to be next up on the reading list.

A recent hand that's been irking me:

I'm at ~100bb in sb with AAK10

Cutoff raises to 3.5 (also ~100bb deep)
Button calls and only has like 6bb left

So I can't min raise and hope button just shoves and lets me 4 bet over the cutoff.
I pot it and they both call so we go to the flop with about 40bb in the middle and about 80-90bb behind

Flop is 872

Not amazing but this seems perfectly fine for me. No reason to think cutoff will bet this and I don't want to check and give free cards.
1. Even if I thought he might bet this, I'm not sure I'd want to check raise - would I?
2. I end up betting half pot. Spades or 9TJQ or something similar aren't going anywhere even if I pot it and if they don't have a straight or flush draw, or flopped some set then this should be enough to get them to fold... I think. This seems fine right?
3. Cutoff pots it, effectively going all in and leaving me with a 60-70bb call. I really really hate these spots. I recognize that I'm probably beating most of their range. Other than the 10 I'm not blocking anything (kk I guess).

If youre reading this I'm guessing youre going to tell me to just toss it in there and hope for the best - and as I've typed this out and throught through it a bit more, given the odds I'm pretty sure its correct.

On the other hand, I just dont see guys making very many moves like this which really makes me think that at best I'm up against a pair plus fd which would put me as like a 45/55 dog and at worst hes got some random set or two pair which puts me way behind.

I guess my question is really just seeing if this is a no-brainer call and I'm being way too much of a nit?

Had some time to kill today so figured I'd update the end of month a bit early. Didnt have anything from the first week so this is just 2.5 weeks @ 10hrs per week.
Looks like I'm getting somewhere around 230 hands per hour 4 tabling. If I put in a full 4 weeks at 10 hours per week I should be on pace for 100k hands this year which is something I'd love to get to without destroying my roll via tilt. Would love to have that big of a sample size to look at and really be able to start getting a long term picture and results. A year is a long time though.

Not much to say about only 5k hands. Started slow but ran ok for a stretch there and am happy with the month. I'm using Pokertracker and Ignition Hand Converter and something about this breaks the ev calculator. Went on the PT forums but all I took away from it was that I dont think the hand converter is exactly supported/recommended. Anyone know of a fix for this?

I've been taking brief notes on hands where all the money goes in with me as a 60/40 favorite or better and I'm doing really poorly on those. I dont know if this is a good idea or not - having a reminder that I'm losing way more than I should be....

One thing I've gotten as a takeaway from my early results is that I gotta tighten up a bit from the sb. I see a lot of multiway limped pots and its real easy for me to justify throwing .50 to see a 4 way flop with 40% of my hands and hoping i just smash the flop. Just need to remember that even when I do, its hard to get paid from the sb.

Right now I'd be way better off just blind folding everything from the sb...

Hoping to stay on track for 10hrs a week for February and slowly start growing my sample size.

And just as I was starting to feel good about things I get hit with an unbelievable run of bad luck.
Kept track of the all ins where I was ahead by 60% or more. 12 of them last night. On average I was an 84% chance to hold. I won 2. Should have won 10. These were all 100bb+ pots. Most of them 200+.
Even if I was running bad and only won half of them, I'd have an additional 800+bb. This kinda thing is what wrecks me.

Studying to try and find leaks and get small edges here and there just seems like a lost cause when you can't ever hit a draw, top set never holds up and you flop top boat against 2 people and get all the money in only lose to the only 2 outer possible.

Erased a couple weeks of gains in 1 or 2 hands. Those kind of sure fire spots for huge pots dont come up that often and then they do and instead of winning 75% of the I lose 75% of them.

Obviously very frustrated right now. I go through these kind of streaks where its hard to believe its possible to run this bad every other month or so. Seems to last about a week usually. Typically I'm broke by the end of it. Im my life though I have never seen anything close to the opposite. Where are those days where I hit every draw and hold every hand?

Going to take the rest of the week off.

Good luck, viggie79.

Everyone goes through bad stretches.

Just develop your game plan and improve it as much as you can along the way.

Thanks man. Trying to just keep it in perspective.

Things seem to go so bad for me sometimes that it just doesnt seem possible and when it happens, I just can't keep the perspective long term. It just feels like its impossible for me to ever win again.

I know that no one likes hearing about bad luck/runs like this but just get so incredibly frustrated sometimes.


Went back over some of the session. It was really just a handful of real big pots that should have gone my way that turned it from what could have been an ok night to a real bad one.
A lot of coolers too. I realize these are what really kill me because then I get frozen trying to get any kind of value betting in. Seems like every time an innocuous card hits and I bet for value, I get raised or check raised all in and they seem to have it every time.
Then I miss out on value bets and dont bet for protection enough because I'm scared to death they hit some 3 out gutterball. This compounds things because then everyone gets more free/cheaper cards than they should.


Also noticed that I do loosen up quite a bit when I tilt, thought it doesnt feel like it at the time. Enough times of getting big hands cracked by garbage and it gets easy to justify calling a raise with a lot of hands I shouldnt be. 'If they can do it, so can I' kinda thing. Obviously dumb.

Just gotta try to keep these things in mind when it starts to go bad.

Played a few hours today and lost somewhere around 10 buy ins again. Sucks thinking about how I need to run good for like a week or two straight to make up for 2 days of bad luck and get back into the red for the year. Need to time travel a month or two and hopefully put this behind me.
Gonna be a bit busy this week so wont be playing too much. Got 7 hours in today so I'll still be able to hit my 10hr per week goal at least.

It feels like it's impossible for you to win because
1. You have the mental game of a whale (you keep going back on your word about not playing and tilt moving up)
2. You have the PLO technical skills of a whale (the nice open limp with TTA3ss)
3. You definitely ran good before and are now not running good (you showed a positive winrate in the small blind and was running at 20bb/100)

Add these all up and you have a black hole that's gonna suck all your money in until you change it. Sorry to break it to you this way, but you need a slap of reality.

GL at getting better or finding the will to quit gambling, whichever you choose.

My technical game definitely needs a lot of improving but it might be a little harsh judging my entire play off of one hand history from a year ago (I dont open limp anymore for starters)
Can't really argue anything else you said though - which sucks for me.
Youre right - I see where the issues are too, I just gotta keep working at improving them.

Do you always open limp or what's the reason for that? I'm PLO5 player trying to move up to 10 now in February but never do that.. just curious. Nice results man, are those 4 regular tables or do you have some Zoom/FastForward variant at the site where you play?

No, I dont open limp anymore unless there's some weird shortstack dynamic or something like that.
At the time my thought was doing it with hands like this, suited ace and mid pp that will either flop real hard or whiff completely (sorta like set mining mid-low pocket pairs in holdem)
I'm not the guy to be taking advice from though, I'm probably not any better than you I just happen to have more money set aside for poker right now.

I'm playing 4 regular tables. Results for 2 weeks or so were good but thats evened out now hoping to keep climbing over this next month though and have a decent graph after 20k hands.

Im starting to wonder if my expectation of what 'running good' means is causing me a lot of problems....

Its very obvious to me what 'running bad' looks like. Its bad run outs and coolers, oftentimes with unbelievable regularity. The stretch last month where I was logging all the hands that went all in with me as a favorite for example. Getting it all in with 75% chance to win and losing is gonna happen. When it happens 75% of the time for a week or two though, thats when I know I'm just running like crap.

So in my head then 'running good' would be the opposite of this. Me winning 75% of the time when I'm a dog. Getting it in with KKxx against AAxx and winning most of those. Hitting backdoor draws in pots I'm all but dead in etc. etc.

But I'm starting to realize that I'm running good right now and that it doesnt mean sucking out in a lot of hands I'm behind. It just means that my hands are holding up. Not every time, but a lot of the time. I'm flopping a set and the board pairs sometimes, or the flush and straight draws dont hit every time. I'm getting it in with AAxx against Axxx and winning a decent amount of those. Catching some good turns and rivers, stuff like that.

It seems kinda dumb now that I'm typing it out but in my head 'running good' meant being lucky - winning with AAxx against KKxx isnt 'lucky', flopping top set on a dry board and ending up with the best hand isnt 'lucky'... I'm supposed to win those a good chunk of the time.

About halfway through 'The Mental Game of Poker' and so far it seems like it will be helpful. I see myself and my mindset in a lot of what he talks about/gives examples of in the books. I know I'm able to recognize the signs that I'm starting to tilt, these have become more obvious to me lately. Its just a question of whether or not I can work through them, not let them affect my play, or even just quit when it goes too far.

Anyways, its been a good run the last couple of weeks so I'm cutting into my losses from January. The game is obviously much easier when things are going well. Still trying not to pay too much attention to results day to day or even week to week. I'll post the February graph at the end of the month. Would love to keep going well for a couple more weeks. My first big goal is just to make it through the end of March with zero tilt sessions.

Its easy to do that now that I'm not getting sucked out on constantly but I know its coming at some point to test me.

Still annoying to me that I have to focus so much on getting over this hurdle which just seems like it should not be so difficult, but it just is for me and I'm never going to get anywhere with poker if I can't get past this.