I discovered poker a few years ago and really started taking it seriously this year but I honestly think I need to stop playing forever. It has put me in a massive financial hole and I keep digging myself deeper trying to get out and its starting to scare me. I have always accepted variance but being on only one side of it has made me feel helpless playing this game.


I have no idea how to gauge what I can change when I feel like I'm drowning in bad variance every single session. I played on stars yesterday and got stacked set over set four times in one session. I went back through my hand history on poker tracker and counted getting KK vs AA 13 times in my last 20000 hands, losing them all. I got AA vs KK three times in the same time frame and lost one of them.


After I got tired of stars, I switched to party poker. In just a few hundred hands the same things happened. I was playing 100nl 4 handed and got stacked set over set once, AK vs AA twice, AK vs KK once. Twice I had my small flopped flushes counterfeit on the river in huge pots and twice I 3b short stacks, flopped top pair and lost after getting it all in on the flop vs a set and a flush draw.


This happens every single session, without fail. I have played a half a million hands and my all in adjusted winnings and actual winnings just continue to diverge further and both are going way down and I have no idea how to stop it. I feel incredibly helpless. I watch and read tons of poker content and feel I have a good grasp on the game. I don't get too attached to pairs when raised in 3b pots but tend to stack off with them if the SPR is less than 1.5. Should I not be getting in AK in preflop? How do I reduce this variance and will it ever turn around. I know I'm not a crusher but I look back at session like this and it feels like it doesn't matter how I play in 99% of my hands because once you factor in all these coolers it just isn't possible to have winning sessions. I'm at a complete loss for what to do and appreciate any advice and criticism

If you have convinced yourself online poker is rigged just quit as otherwise you will be playing on permatilt.

Otherwise:

Move down (100nl )

Don't post a wall of text about variation - nobody cares (we all have to deal with it, that's the "joy" of nlhe)

Post actual hands.

GL and welcome to the forum.

PS stay out of BBV...that's not the place for you

Seriously you're playing 100NL?

You have a GTO backbone to your game and make the adjustments? You think you have an edge over the field? 0.5/1 has a major rake relative to the tougher competition, but it is known to be beatable like 1 bb/100 + rb/vip, if yu'r really good.

Allin EV, likely pretty accurate at these sites. Opponents being nitty when the big money goes in? 13 times alone isn't a long run.

There are long runs when I lose to a river suckout (studs, triple dr) way more than my share, and I have also had my times when I flipped 1 on 1 in nlh and rarely won (50-50 expectation). But I have a positive long run score in all but omaha8 plo games (but I am not good enough either, having casually read just one book there), and I have played most sites, cash and tourneys.

I could also tell some other stories like winning 19 out of 20 heads up S&Gs, beating a nlh cash game semi long run for 10 bb/100 plus rakeback, on the same site where I expect to get sucked more than my fair share when allin somewhere, or just being sure my top 2 is garbage time after time in multiway pots.

Maybe you could try 10 dollar buyin tournaments (any type of tourneys, as long as you have your tourney strategy good enough) or find some good tables for nlh50 cash for roll management reasons.

At a certain point moving down should have crossed your mind before quitting. What history or success has led you to believe you're actually a winning player at NL100? If you really want to improve post hands, join a study group, and practice solid BRM. One of the biggest failures I see is that you didnt practice BRM at the start and now you're so far behind it's hard to not let downswings and variance bother you. Had you followed BRM, you would have moved down and found your comfort zone where you are actually a winning player.

After about 100k hands, you can accept that it's a decent estimate on how you are performing within reason and its not variance (though of course variance has no stop or end) which is why I emphasize "within reason" but 500k hands and you are still getting crushed is a huge sign saying that you aren't ready yet. There is no shame dropping to 25 or 50 NL and grinding it back up, it gives you confidence and you have a much better shot of keeping your head above water and properly on your shoulders (mentally)

Welcome to the forum and hopefully we can assist you with making the best decision for you and your game. All good stuff here so far ... as you can see the posts are direct, which should be the case unless you 'just don't want to listen' by re-posting the same comments over and over.

I'm not an online guy, but the stats available should be your best tools to getting some outside views on your game. If you have +EV 'all-in' winnings (before the River) then that's a good place to start by posting some of those hands to see if 'all-in' was the best option AND to see how you are setting up your opponents to be in a position where all-in may be they're only logical choice.

We can't do anything about 'stupid' but at your stake level there just isn't much of that from what others have experienced. Personally I would find it hard to play with less than quarters online, but I would have to see where my skill level is as well.

I've told folks that I wish I knew less about poker than I used to. (Ignorance is bliss) But I also know I found out along the way that I was really good at winning small pots and really good at losing big pots!!

There is a lot on this site already. Take a look at what's already here and then put something else more specific to your game 'out there' for review. GL

The above advice given by others should be like a 2x4 upside yo head, SR. Are you SERIOUSLY playing 100NL? THAT!! is your main problem.

Second main problem is you may be a losing player. Get a coach.

Are you playing a short stack strategy?...... starting with a 20-30BB starting stack on each table? Also...and these are all serious questions.... how many tables do you play at one time?

Specifically about the your strat I quoted above. Too be kind....R U Nuts? No, getting AK in PF is probably not a good idea as a generic strategy. And if you have been doing this for a while....then YES, variance is a biatch (math is a biatch)....but cmon maybe you can help us here: Please list the factors you think about when you shovel in chips with AK.

It isn't bad advice given above, but I think it is inadequate. So here's the test you must face: Move down to 2nl and play.

If you are serious about poker, you'll do it. If you have any skill whatsoever, you should be able to beat 2nl, eventually beating it substantially in terms of BB/100. Once you've won $40, move up. At the same time, start posting hands that caused you problems. Once you won another 20 BI at the next level, you can move again. Maybe when you get to 50nl by doing this, you can think about signing up for a coaching site.

Now if your first thought was, "I can't play 2nl. I can't take that stakes seriously. I need to play 100nl" you have a gambling problem. In that case, you should call Gamblers Anonymous or whatever the local equivalent organization is. You can't solve that problem on your own. You will need help.

Sure it sounds extreme, but if you don't do these things, you aren't scared enough yet. I hope you don't have to get that scared.

Jesus... lol

@OP how often are you playing may i ask do you take *longish* breaks from poker and come back or do u just have the mindset of trying to get unstuck day after day, if it's the latter then i might take a really really long break in regards to ur intiial thread question.

First of all I just want to thank you guys for actually taking the time to write a reasonable response to my post, god knows it didn't deserve that. I am going through some very rough stuff in my personal life and shouldn't have been playing at all and as I have no one to talk to about poker I ended up looking like a fool ranting online.

AznblackhawkCo hit the nail on the head. I never practiced good BRM so now that I'm down I freak out and play high trying to win it back, it's a terrible, stupid way to go about things and I need to change now.

To answer specific questions, I very rarely play 100nl, I usually three or four table 50nl zoom. I felt stupid just typing that out, why am I playing that high and so many tables. I was one tabling last night and it felt so much easier to play with only focusing on one table. I only lost $100 in the end but was up $600 at one point so losing it all just set me off. I don't play short stacked, I usually stick to a 100-200bb stack. If I am above that I leave and rebuy for 100.

As far as shoving AK goes, it seems standard to get AKs in for 100bb four handed. I find pokerstars players on the tighter side and often fold to 4 and 5bets with AK depending on their hud stats. On Party Poker, however, I constantly see people getting in TT and JJ. Against a 4/5b shoving range of TT+/AK, I feel like always folding AK to jams/4bets is super exploitable.

I think (know) my biggest factor is tilt, I constantly find myself making stupid calls when its obvious I've been drawn out or am facing a set and it is so much easier to spew money away in frustration that it is to collect yourself and play well and make it back. When I can keep it together and stay calm I generally do well. I actually did try to start over on my own from lower stakes a month ago but didn't keep it up. Here is the 20k hands of NL25 on pokerstars I played (and ran well - probably why I didn't tilt). before moving back up and spewing it all away.

http://imgur.com/Tw4yP4K

I will try again to drop down to 10 or 25nl and this time two instead of four table zoom. I will set a limit of four buy ins after which I will leave for the session and after any bad beat I will sit out all tables and take a 5minute break. Would I be able to start a thread where I can post a few hands every day to discuss and update and if so, which forum would be the place for this?

Thank you all for humoring my stupidity.

That graph looks great, if you have such great success I would stick there and just keep crushing that for however long you want. It's good to have some plan or idea to move up or down (IE once your BR has xx BI's move up, if you ever drop below xx BI's move back down, rinse and repeat)

This is Goals & Challenges forum, might be a good idea to get your poker mindset back on track: http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/17...mp-challenges/

Good luck OP and stop tilting ever poker player has to overcome this hurdle.