Bankroll - small gains, big losses?

Hi all - I am new to this forum and inevitably am asking a question about my own game. That said, I hope to do my bit here too.

I reckon to be a half decent player (don't we all!) both live and online, but for the past year of online play (10c/25c and $10 SnG) my bankroll follows the same pattern. When things are 'normal' I'll go from say $200 to $250 in a few days - I'm making good decisions based on the maths of situations and the style of other players. Then I hit a bad run and the bankroll plummets to $170 in one day. I grind it back to $220 and it freefalls to £150 ... and so on.

The bad times involve endless suckouts and bad beats, having my bluffs called by pocket 2s, having second best hand, draws not completing etc etc. The latest beat (that prompted this post) was heads-up holding K9o in BB against a decent player, I called a preflop raise. Flop is K93 rainbow. I shove 4 times pot to represent a steal or semi-bluff (A9 or QJ) hoping for a call with AK, AA, QQ etc. Sure, the villain has KK.

I feel my decisions are situationally good and I just don't know where to look in my game to make the good times withstand the bad or reduce the losses when I get sucked out.

Does this sound familiar? Any ideas?

Thanks - The Pup.

Bank Roll Management

Over betting the pot like that you are only going to get called by a hand that is beating you. Other wise he is going to fold.

correct, however my "strategy" in situations when I think that 2 pairs on the flop should make me a winner of the hand is bet 1/3 or maximum 1/2 pot cause the situation si like TriggaLos said.....if i`m called ...i go for the turn...if i`m raised 2x, 3x my bet i fold if there is a chance that a greater hand can be on the table...

This. In regards to the small gains big losses, are you referring to sessions or hands? If this is for sessions, you are most likely chasing losses trying to "break even" or "be in the green" for any given session. This is generally -EV as you should generally be playing longer when you are winning rather than losing because chances are, you are playing better (unless you are completely tilt free of course).

You're getting stacked here no matter what but this generally doesn't work very well.

If you are ahead, you get the money in. You can not fear getting sucked out on to reduce losses. If you are, you are playing scared money and need to move down limits.

Sounds like you're putting your money in with the worse hand too often.


"Endless suckouts and bad beats"
Are you playing your hands aggressively? It's only a bad beat if you put all of your chips in the middle before your opponent had the pot odds to call. Also, are you paying people off after they outdraw you?
If you are playing your hands aggressively and adequately protecting your hand then bad beats will still happen, in fact they'll happen more because almost every time the chips go into the middle you will be ahead and there will be more opportunities to get outdrawn. The wins will more than make up for it though.

"having my bluffs called by pocket 2s"
That's your fault, not bad luck. The other night I called an all in shove on the river with unimproved pocket 2's, I don't consider my opponent unlucky; I consider him bad at bluffing. Not saying you're the same as him, just saying that bluffing and calling bluffs is skill based, if you're getting called too much then you've got to improve at it rather than consider it bad luck. Possibly drop it altogether for a while, I think it often costs a lot more money than it gains at low stakes anyway.

"having second best hand"
That's the fastest way to go broke, when you keep getting dealt good cards but someone else keeps getting better cards. Sometimes there's nothing you can do but take the losses until things turn around, but you need to learn to make a big fold to reduce your losses. It's probably harder to do that online with fewer tells available to you, but you can always restrict your starting hand requirements a bit so that in hand over hand situations you have the better end of it more often than not.

"draws not completing"
If you're priced in, you've got to go with it.
Not much you can do.
If however it's the result of semi-bluffs gone bad, then stop semi-bluffing and just check-call.

K9 vs KK is hard to get away from, you can't be blamed for stacking off with it but that doesn't mean it's not possible to get away from it and that you should accept it as beyond your control.


Losses happen, that's part of poker. Sometimes it's just dumb luck but more often than not it's a skill error rather than a luck issue that's at fault, always try to put the blame on yourself before anything else and see if there is anything you can change to either reduce the variance or even gain an advantage in a situation where you'd been putting yourself at a disadvantage.

Thanks for taking the time to reply guys - some good thinking out there.

I agree with just about everything said so far, the ideas expressed so well by Pokerkid is about where I'm at. The pattern of my 'winnings' graph over the last year (steadily climbing up a hill, then falling off a cliff) is so consistent that it must be my skill level as there have been enough hands for luck to even things out.

But it seems I go into freefall despite making good decisions - I guess these decisions aren't as good as I think! So, here is the K9 hand in context: I am playing $10 heads up SnG. The previous hand I lost a decent, though not crippling, amount when threes on turn and river matched his K3 and beat my TPTK. I have 1000 chips, villain 2000. So, when my K9 hits K93 the next hand I shove into 200 pot based on the idea his calling range is very wide - he might think I'm tilting and stealing with just about anything. To me the shove screams weak hand. I'm looking at the cards, the situation and the other player - it looks like a good move to me.

This is only one hand and it's fair enough I ran into a monster, but should I stand by the decision? I do make the odd dumb play (like try a bluff on a player I have just noted is a calling station) but these are rare, and getting rarer. But the vast majority of the time I am playing as you guys suggest - not paying when I am outdrawn, laying down a good hand if necessary, picking my battles, working out pot odds and implied odds etc.

When I have a spell (say 5 sessions over a week) of leaking big time my decisions are still solid - with AA to a A95 flop, who isn't getting money in the pot or check raising? Depending on the situation, I am looking to get a call from AK or shut out the draw, induce a bluff or just take it down there. But it is exactly this situation that knackers me. I know the maths says if I get my cash in 80/20 ahead I win long term - it just doesn't seem that way, because I'm not!

Thanks again - The Pup.

How is that a beat? You were never ahead at any stage in that hand. Just sounds like bad play to me.

I just read your original post. The biggest problem with the K9 hand isnt how you played after the flop. I mean, most people are going to get stacked there. Everyone is going to get stacked sometime, it just happens.

The problem is this...you were in the BB and you called a pre-flop raise with K9o out of position? Unless you had a great read on the raiser or it was a min raise and you could get in for real cheap...why wouldnt you just give up the BB here?

I just noticed you said this was "heads up". Was this HU as in a 1-1 game, as in just the two of you after all the pre flop raising, or HU as in the end of a SNG? If this wasnt a 1 on 1...if this was full ring or even 6max, i just can't see calling a raise from the BB with K9o.

This was a two player SnG, $10 plus fee entry, winner takes all. You are dead right, shootwillus, K9 is not a hand to call out of position in any other setup. I see people get into a load of bother with this hand in ring games - it looks promising but it is often outkicked or loses money chasing draws. Except for special occasions it goes in the muck

In a heads up match it isn't bad to call a standard raise with. In the particular game I referred to earlier (as in many heads up games) the villain would raise from SB with J7 and better. Also the call cost me something like 60 chips from my stack of 850.

What I find interesting about the hand is the 'faking tilt' play; that is, having had a bad beat the previous hand I overbet the flop with an excellent hand, as if I am frustrated, in order to induce a call from a very wide range of hands, of which very few beat me. Coincidentally, I had a related situation last night in a heads-up Sng. The villain represented a made draw on the river and put out a small bet - I had good reason to think it was probably a bluff and called his bet. My pair beat his pair. In the next hand he is OTB/SB and goes all-in preflop. I call holding A6s. Here is my reasoning for the call: I've got him covered 5:1 in chips. The previous hand was the first time he'd tried anything tricksy or even slightly imaginative and his whole game was very level 1 thinking. The all-in reeked of tilt. I got it right, he turned over 9To.

Ya, in a Heads Up SNG situation, K9o is an ok hand to play, and hitting two pair on the flop is a great hand. Just bad luck, nothing could be done.

maybe you're not quite as good as you might think you are? (also very common as I'm sure you're aware of).
Grinding SNG's, one quickly becomes aware that even if you're getting it in good the majority of the time, is no guarantee that you won't suffer badswings (incidentally.. .shoving for 4xPot in the spot you described isn't what I'm referring to.... I'm talking about when you get it in as an 80/20 pre and villain's underpr. hits a set... << stuff like that).

Depending upon the situation (stack sizes, blind levels, player reads, my own image, how many left on table, etc.)... K9o in BB is going into the muck the majority of the time preflop for me. It's always situational though, obviously.

You know things are bad when your bankroll switches currencies on you!

LOL, sorry I couldn't resist. But seriously, it looks like you've gotten some good advice from others. I would just reinforce a couple of points.

If your bluff gets called by 22, you're not in there with the best hand, so you can't really complain. Also, for 22 to call your bluff, you may be bluffing a little too often. I don't know since I don't know the full situation, but it's just something to think about.

Also, even when you are getting in there with the best hand, it's not going to hold up every time. A 60/40 winner still loses 40% of the time, which is a lot. But over time, if you get your money in with 60/40 hands, you will make money. But if you average your 60/40 winners with your 10/90 bluffs, then you might be on the losing side of the ledger. Once again, just something to think about.

Good luck to you. I'm still on freerolls myself, so I don't really know much about managing a bankroll. I hope to learn soon!

-Dave

Well spotted, Purg/Dave - I use £ in live games and your $ as poker counters online

The 22 situation was the kind of hand where you raise preflop with AQs the flop comes KJ8 with two of my suits so I continue bet/semi bluff and either fire again or check down to the river and ask how the hell the villain could call any of the bets. Good luck when you get to the hard cash.

And oh yeah, I am good enough to know I'm not as good as I think I am.

Phew! I thought they went and converted it on you!

Oh, I totally understand the semi-bluff in that situation. I do it myself, and I think it's good strategy in the right situation. But when it doesn't work, it doesn't qualify as a bad beat, that's all. I just wanted to point that out in case you were thinking that you should have won. But it sounds like you understand what's going on there. Probably just a little frustrated. Been there before myself!

Thank you. I think I'm getting close. I play strictly MTT games and I'm up to about $75 in freeroll winnings. So I'll probably post a bankroll question soon.

LOL! Hey, that statement didn't come from me, BTW. I have no idea how good anyone is or think they might be. I'm just minding my own business playing me some poker.

Good luck to you!
-Dave

I just realised something I could have made clearer in my original post. I didn't mean the 22 or K9 games or other examples were bad beats - they aren't, they are just getting beat. All I meant was a series of, say, tournaments where I get knocked out holding AA all in preflop against A6; then flop a corker, offer bad odds and get outdrawn; then set someone up for a kill and lose to something weird and so on. It seems these losses always add up to more than the wins, even though I know the decisions are good. As I say, I grind out $50 profit (with ups and downs within that) but then lose a ton to weird stuff.

I wonder if either of these is an option:
1. I am on tilt but don't know it.
2. I am suffering the negative end of normal variance but not winning enough when I have the best hand.

Just a suggestion, but this might have something to do with perception. If you're playing tournaments, as you know, it can take hours to grind through to the money. But you can be knocked out within a few minutes. If you take hours to win, you might just leave it at that and collect your money. But if you lose, you may just start another tourney right away.

So, it becomes statistically possible to lose, say, five tourneys in the same day whereas there's not enough hours in the day to get ITM that many times. Just a thought. From what you post, it sounds like you always build your bankroll back up, so maybe your perception is just that things are worse than they actually are?

Also, it's human nature to remember the bad things over the good. You can kill someone's AA with JJ ten times for it to have the same impact as someone killing your AA with JJ. I would just go by your bankroll: if, month in and month out, it's headed in the right direction, then that seems good.

I'm interested to see what others think as well.

-Dave

So, I am as good as I think I am

I think your psychology is spot on - we do remember going out on the bubble holding AA to A2 but forget the fact we only got to the bubble because it held up the other 9 times in ten. Likewise the loosing streaks seem catastrophic because of what you suggest - if I get paid in a tourney that's probably it for the evening because I've got in my head I'm just playing for an hour before bed; but if I lose early I've got another 50 minutes to fill.

i was going to say SNGs can be brutal. but i hear HU SNGs are even worse. there are tons of showdowns. and you are forse to play lots of weaker hands more aggressively so the swings can be big.

Well, the stakes yuour playing at are fine (maybe a little too big if you wanna be technical) but they are good. Having hands like K9 is just bad luck, theres nothing you can do about it, you just gotta cop that as it is poker. (as hard as it sounds i know)

Also, what cardplayer said about HU having lots of showdowns and therefore having a lot of deckings, maybe you should stick to cash games and big MTT's.

Also, post some hand historys up on this and they will get analysied....thats a good way to improve your game and your results.

as what most of the strategies tell, variance is inevitable... bankroll management is the only solution for this if you really cant handle the swings...

They're not. They're really really not. From the sound of your post, this is not variance, this is your horrible play.