20 Buy-in downswing in 8 hours, how to deal with it?

What really sucks was I played optimal poker for the first 5 hours, and then tilt took control for the next 3 hours.

How can I play optimal poker and lose 20 BUY-INS IN A SINGLE DAY?

Good question.

I’m not going to entertain you with video replays of the BS hands I went through but here’s an idea, all hands are allin hands…

AK vs AQ – He flops the Q
JJ vs 77 – He flops a 7
AA vs AKs – He runner runners flush
A9 vs A2 – He rivers a 2
Heres one of my favourites for the night……
3 way pot, my AK vs QQ vs A5…..
Board….. A J 2 5 5

You can see where this is going.

I know what your already thinking, took some bad beats, get over it and get on with it. I’m not denying that for 1 second. But 8 hours of this repetitive garbage, seriously wtf?

I’m to seasoned to know PokerStars doesn’t “have it in for me” nor am I going to say that’s it’s all rigged.

What I’m pleading for at this stage is just advice, how the hell do you deal with poker when the cards treat you like that over and over and over again?

I know the swings and variance associated with SnGs and accepted that a long time ago. I’ve just never seen a consistently harsh set of outcomes dealt to me

What to do???????

FYI - this is all on $16 9man turbos at PokerStars

ok first off your playing turbos. turbos have a lot more variance than regular sit n gos, no matter how well you play.

second i would suggest taking a break for now on if u go 9 games without cashing . . . which is not uncommon for sit n go turb regs.

stay away from the turbs is my advice

sometimes you just need a day off, if I find I go down 5+ buy-ins in a day, I ussually just call it for the day and watch t.v or read some poker books, that way, even if I play the next day I only loose 5 more buy ins, but it is over 2 days so it's not as painful.

Studying poker is important I would recommend for every hour you play, another hour is spent studying poker.(Reading books,watching videos, I even watch poker after dark and consider it "study" time.)

Why in the hell are you playing for 8 hrs. to begin with? I mean you know it's just a negative variance but there is NO WAY you can honestly think you're playing as well in your 7th hour of poker as you are in your 1st.

Oh Billy, I totally agree don't worry about that. Once I was ~12-13 BI down emiotions took over for sure. What shat me up the wall was I have been and was playing near perfect (not a brag!) to begin with and just watching hand after hand after hand get smashed.

Maybe its just a vent, i dunno, but f**k me I saw some horrible beats happen last night. Starting that stop/loss rate I've been crtapping on about for ages.

Just what happened to me last night is like one of Icemonkeys unlucky bad beat vent posts x1000000

dont play with emotions

shorter sessions are usually more profitable

stop playing when u start spewing

stop playing sngs, 20 buy ins downswing (even in only 8 hours) is nothing fwiw

i play almost exclusivley heads up nl cash games. the variance is huge in these also. i have been on days where ill drop 10 buy ins within a couple to a few hours of play. i just find that i take a break, sometimes only 30 min or so and then come back after im calmed down. somtimes it takes a day or 2 or 3 to come back from these downfalls but i always do.

Cheers

how many tables do u play?

5 at once, generally 2-4 sessions per day

It was a 19buyin downswing that but the brakes on my sit and go career. Its all part of the variance that comes with playing this format, variance will eventually bite you in the ass.

8 hours of straight play is not a good idea at any stage, unless your very deep in an MTT. After losing the first 8 or so games, even though you make think you are playing optimal poker, trust me your not. Learning to recgonise when tilt is creeping in is essential, we dont always spot it.

What to do ? Take a break from it, play a different game for a while, or just drop to the micro's for a few days.

I share your pain. I've been on a similar bender for the past few weeks. It gets to the point where you don't even want to see another KK or AK or AA because you can already feel the bad beat happening. When it gets to this point, my advice (like many others') is to take a break.

That's how I know that I need a break: I look down at KK and instead of feeling happy, I feel fear. That's when I know that as soon as I'm done with that tourney, I have to give it a rest for at least a few hours, if not a couple of days, before I get back on the horse. Otherwise you're not playing optimal poker, and what's worse you don't even realize it. Then it all just comes crashing down and if you're not careful you end up hating poker, and yourself.

So take it easy, your luck WILL change, and just try and think of all the times your hand did hold up and you won your tournament, or the time you sucked out as a small stack to come back and win big. Variance happens to all of us, and as long as we're sharp and playing solid, the bad won't be as bad, and the good will be that much better.

Best of luck, T.

I know others have said it, but 8 HOURS!?!?! My god... the easiest way to deal with this is to walk away, exercise, relax and read a book, do anything but play more poker!

There's no way you'll be playing without some emotion or lack of focus after that session.

-SNG variance can account for much bigger swings
-this was obviously in part due to tilt
-had you quit when you realized tilt was starting to settle in, you'd only be down those first 13-14 buyins
-filter your db for longer sessions. If you're like me, you'll find that most of your longer sessions tend to be you either chasing losses (and therefore most likely playing poorly and losing tons), or playing so long that your A game has deteriorated to your D game, no 'tilt' involved.
-learn to quit. It's a skill, believe me.

It doesn't sound like it, but if you already have the willpower to stop yourself when you approach that tilt phase, then DO IT.

If you don't have the willpower, then learn to quit. You can do so by quitting, or at least taking small breaks, frequently, and BEFORE you've reached that tilt point of no return. The more you practice quitting, the easier it is when you're tilting since you've actually done it a bunch of times and can truly pull yourself off the tables.

Just reminded me of this:
YouTube - Oh billy

BTW listen to ChuckTs advice. Learn to quit. Practice it.

Jesus Chuck! Have to admit these words hit pretty hard. Thank you for the insight, and without lying, I havent mastered quitting yet, one of these things thats easy to say yet hard to master.

I suppouse this particalur post, along with my absense from cardschast recenlty in actually a combination of this years performance. Last year I went from $100-$2400. This year, I'm up about $80, and I've tried so hard and put so much time in and spent so much money on buyins. My passion is there, yet my results are not reflective of that.

Overall just frustrated and probably ranting. Everyone always says "at least your not losing" but that provides little relief for me, I'm trying despertaly, not to be the best, but certainly to learn how to make some decent money of poker.

But thank you for that message, much appricated and I WILL take it on board respectifully.

TY Billy, whether its words or videos, at least you make me LMAO.

Cheers

This is a big factor. As soon as you realize you're not playing your A-game, stop.

Biggest thing I try to do is when I'm having one of those days like you (happens once a week) Take a 3 hour break and find something to take your mind off of the beats. As soon as you let it affect your play your finished

For the record my friend I haven't posted anything like this since April. So don't post tilt rants lest you want your friends to pigeon hole you as a tilter unfairly for the rest of your life apparently. Did I just rant?

lol ... Anyways bud take a step back, I put it on your blog too, but the only and best thing you can do is remove yourself from the game until you *know* you've calmned down. Then go through your hands and take notes and honestly see where you made mistakes and where you didn't mistakes. Find out if you did your job (making the best move) right each time. It should not matter if it didn't come out in the end "profitably" or not ... if you did your job, then you did your job. The end.

You think that's bad?

Today I entered a tourney, in only the 3rd hand I was dealt 4h 3d. Now, I know I should have folded from the off but I also know that sometimes the low hand can beat all the other players that are carefully fondling their picture cards & Aces, and it was still early in the tourney and the blinds were low so I thought I'd at least see the flop. The flop was 5d, 4d & 5s giving me the two pair on the flop and a possible straight flush draw. I bet 235 and was called. The Turn came as 4c giving me the full house 4's over 5's. my opponent went all in for 1155 and for a second I thought he held the five to topple me. My own curiosity lead me to call. His cards were revealed as Ks, 4s giving us both a tied pot. I breathed a sigh of relief as my gamble had paid off, and the pot would be split...

The river came and it was Kd. Giving my opponent the winning hand outright, 4's over K's and knocking me down to 20 chips, just enough to cover the next BB, which happened to be mine.

Did I make a bad call? I personally don't think so, (although I'm sure a lot of you will tell me I did!) and I'm not going to lose sleep over it. Some days you get beat, others you're the one with the big stack. I just have to keep telling myself "That's Poker", but isn't that why we love the game?

What really p**ses me off is the fact that I spent more time waiting for the registration to open, than I did playing!!!

Better luck next time (except if you're playing against me!!!)

That was just an unlucky case of having 2nd best hand, pretty common when you play marginal cards. You both flopped 2P and he had a strong kicker so I don't see him folding there, then the turn sealed it for him as it did you. A full house is a tough hand to get away from, low or not. Some might argue that you put yourself in that 2nd best position by playing those cards.

But despite that outcome, it's not wrong (IMO) to see a few cheap flops when the blinds are low and there's a lot of limping going on. The great pot odds combined with the likelihood of getting a lot of action when a low flop hits, compensate for the weak pre-flop holding. Just don't take it too far, calling down to the river with a mediocre or low pair hand unless you have a very good read, or too deep into a tourney when the blinds are high. Of course there comes a point in a tourney where I virtually NEVER limp/call unless I'm in the BB -- I'm either raising or folding, even from the SB. But early on I consider it a viable strategy to occasionally limp into flops with ATC, you just have to be wary of being outplayed or outlucked as you were.

i think u played this hand horrible. first off what are u doing limping in with 34 early on in a tourny?? honestly sir even if u hit a monster its the beginning of a tourny and ur not going to win the tourny on that hand. so ur first mistake was to call preflop. i really dont know how u do that. second u shouldnt think ur 2 pair on the flop is good . . . sure u had draws along with it but they are runner runner . . . so they are basically nothing . . another huge mistake . . . u played the horribly hopefully after reading this u will understand more. you can not compare that hand at all to a bad beat. you put urself in that situation calling a hand that u easily easily easily easily should have folded.

The major sites have responsible gaming buttons on the menus that allow you to self ban yourself from the site for 24 hours or up to 7 days. I know most people probably don't like the thought of using that because it makes you feel like you are a problem gambler, but I'm not ashamed to admit I used them a few times in order to control my tilt. I think it only takes 3 or 4 clicks and then you are done for 24 hours.

You may find that might help you learn to quit better than just turning it off for the rest of the day or so.

when you are running like that, it is usually best to just cut your losses and take the rest of the day off. 20 buy-ins is a lot to lose in one day. When, i started playing poker on full tilt and i was having a bad day, i made the mistake of not taking any breaks from the game and that resulted in me playing bad poker and going on tilt. I dont know if you were playing bad and taking bad beats, but i learned that when i am having a bad day, i should just take the day off instead of blowing all of my money

take a extra long break and wait for awhile go play on another site if you would like but taking a break from the whole poker for awhile usually helps me out do something that you like to do other then poker that will get you mentally ready for the next session and less of those bad beats will happen i would hope

It's not your fault. You cannot beat the bad trend, only realize it's there and get off as fast as you can. Usually 3-5 buyins lost means trouble. Wait a day, or go back to smaller stakes until your streak is picking up again. Watch out for the trends. Ride the good ones for all their worth and get off when it cools down. Practice those trend spotting skills.

This is a good idea and will prevent you from playing aswell