I used to play only tournaments and never cash games, but I discovered a bad habit and decided to move to cash games to try to fix it.

The beginning of the tournament I am very loose. I limp in more than I should and overall play hands I shouldn't be playing. Then when I do hit something I hold on tight and refuse to give it up.

This happens the majority of the time I played tournaments. The result was that I would become short stack and tighten up. The bad thing is as a short stack one bad hand can knock me out of the tournament.

I was making 1/3 bubbles, but nearly always with a short stack. This meant I normally would not make it far past the bubble.

When I moved to the cash game to try to fix my bad habit it ended badly. Iv been playing cash now for 3 months and the pattern is even worse. I will give an example of todays summary of the 1/2 game.

I buy in for $100. I play half a dozen hands but only win one small pot. I am down to $80 after 15 minutes. I get JJ and raise it to $10 and get 2 callers. Flop comes AK?. I bet $10 and everyone folds besides one who raises it to $20. I call. Next card is a K and I check and they shove enough to make me all in. I hesitate for a sec and make the call and of course loose. Overall I played this hand and all prior hands very poorly.

I buy in for another $100 and over the next 30 minutes I proceed to loose it. I then buy in for another $100 and again over the next 30 minutes proceed to loose it. I use my last $60 for more chips.

The next hour I loose $30 and am down to just $30 in chips left. This is like a trigger as now I consider myself short stack and I tighten up.

With my last $30 I slowly rebuild my stack. Over the next 3 hours I go from $30 in chips up to $500. I play tight and stop chasing long shots. Overall my game greatly improves.

This is what happens nearly every time I play. I loose nearly all my chips and am down to a very short stack. I then tighten up and overall my game greatly improves. The problem is while I am short stack I'm just one hand away from busting.

Everytime I played cash Iv done this. I would estimate 1/3 of the time I rebuild my stack and 2/3 I would just bust. I am lucky that that 1/3 of the time normally ends well enough that I am still ahead in winnings.

I need advice on how to fix this major flay in my game.

To be blunt it sounds like you are just not very good at poker. When you have JJ and the flop comes AKx you should not put another dime in the pot unless the turn and river are QT. Buy a book, study the game more, and keep trying. This forum and the live low stakes forum can help you with some concepts, but it sounds like you dont even have the very basics down yet.

There isnt really any easy answer to your question of how to fix the flaw in your game, because your flaw is the whole game.

I think you’ve just answered your question. When you play tighter, you’re game is probably on point. You’re thinking more logically and determined. When you have lots of cash, you almost don’t care if you lose. That needs to be fixed. Maybe take only a hundred bucks with you next time? You will be forced to play your A game or go home early. Try it out. Best of luck

start shoving at 0-20BB. any ace, pairs, high cards.
You need to double up.

nothing wrong with limping in early with junk if you know how to fold and when to bet.

The thing is I consider myself decent in poker just not early game. It is the early game that gets to me. I let my winnings and looses speak for itself.

Last year during the WSOP I entered 9 tournaments. 7 daily deepstacks and 3 bracelet events. I ended up cashing in 4 of those 9. The rest of the year I gambled maybe 360 hours and ended up in the positive. Not by a whole lot but still positive.

This year I have taken it easy and have only entered 2 tournaments but cashed out in 1. Played mostly live and played around 30 hours of live so far and am ahead by ~$520.

I also play poker for the fun of it as it is entertainment. It is not a job. I only budget $1800 for an entire year of normal poker and $5000 worth of buy-ins for the WSOP. This puts me as just a casual player.

The problem is I loose 90% of my chips in the early game and only than I tighen up and IMO become a good player. Early game I am a very bad player and late game I am a good player. This is what I need to fix and what the post is about. If I just tighten up and play like I do late game my winnings and bankroll will increase to the point I can maybe enter more larger WSOP bracelet events.

I agree that it's like I do not care if I lose. I still have money to play with so I feel I need to get my chips in.

I think I will take your advice but lower it to $50. The casino is just 1 1/4 hour away so it will suck to drive all that way just for a few minutes of play. $50 will mean I play tight from the start.

I will slowly increase that until I can get to my normal $300 normal buy ins.

Thanks for the advice.

Short-stacking CAN be a strategy, but it does not sound ideal for you.

At low stakes, the $10 bet with hands like JJ and AK is just begging for half the table to call you. Things like that are clear leaks that you need to plug. And until leaks are plugged, $50 short-stacking is going to lead to much frustration...

The drive isn't that bad unless a chunk of that time is sitting in stop-n-go traffic. But if you are working and then making that drive, you are arriving in a mental state of mind that will leave much to be desired. You ideally want to be sitting down without being frazzled.

You shouldn't limp at all, ever. That you limp more implies that later on you still limp, which is just donating money.

It's not normal to increase your stack by 17 without running extremely well. It doesn't necessarily mean you're playing well. Also by this point the whole table probably thinks you're the biggest fish on the planet and you have this image working for you that you wouldn't have had otherwise. In other words, if you just sat down with $30 and nobody has seen you play, you aren't going to get the action you're getting after losing buy in after buy in with underpairs.

I think there's very few things in poker that you can say you shouldn't do ever, especially live. You might say you should never limp with aces, but if I can see someone behind me with a huge live tell that they're going to raise themselves and it makes sense to backraise them, then I'm going to limp. As to the rest of your sentence I think you're reading it a bit different to how I am.

I can pretty much guarantee that OP is much better off not even considering the option to limp. For practical purposes, OP should never limp.

I can get behind this with one cravat for poker.....

Never say never
Never say always

Sure, if OP can identify the spots where limping would in fact be better without sacrificing value the times where he misjudges, then it is sometimes. Thing is, he won't, so why even present the option? We're talking a specific case here, not whether Phil Ivey can make limping work.

Sorry,,,, guess you didn't (did really) get my post.

Gist is I agree with you. OP is better off NEVER limping. But in my opinion, OP will NEVER follow this advice.

The real message is "OP, don't ever limp....but if you do....you really really really need a good reason"

true, true

I mean obviously later on everything goes, GTO solutions (can I use that word?) tend to everything once in a while even if it is at low frequency.

I don't know if OP follows this advice, it tends to be pretty tough to get someone to stop limping. It's like smoking or not eating until your stomach pops, people try and then they see this pretty Q4 of hearts and they need to see that flop.

My weakness is full tabled holding JTs UTG. I wanna limp so bad........

Once I tighten up I rarely limp. Normal on a 1/2 game if I have a hand I bet $7+ or call if someone else has already raised or even re raising depending on my hand and who im against. Hands I may limp in is 89 suited, 56 suited or Ace and lower than jack suited. Only reason I limp with those hands is because i like them and they have earned me much more than they have cost me.

The times I limp late game is when I know someone has a habit of making large bets into the pot to steal the pot. Example is last night there were 2 people who had this habit and I trapped them multiple times. I knew if I raised they would have likely folded due to watching them play for hours and previous times.

I do much better late game because the following.
1: I tighten up and stop limping most of the time.
2: Players now consider me loose and will bet more into me. Calling a few bad calls will do that.
3: I get a much better read on players and know who I can trap and who I cant.
4: I know how much I can bet to get callers and how much will push people off decent hands.

Overall if I can improve my early game I would consider myself a decent player who wins much more than he looses. I am already winning more than I loose, but just not enough IMO. My win per hour last year was only $3.25/hour. This year it has been around $16.25/hour but I ran really hot one weekend. I also haven't played much this year and only 2 tournaments.

I keep track of all my play. Hours, win, loss and date.