fixing live play $$ mess ups...

okay so im starting to play live now. a lot. doing decent, usually coming out ahead.

But i still have some flaws..

Often i sit down to play when i get to the room, play for about 30 mins to an hour, and then way up, either double up or higher. Then thinking I still want to play there for the rest of the night instead of taking the winnings that I basically had set as a goal for myself that trip, I continue to play, and often times lose it back down to my buy in or inbetween.

Whats a good way to force myself to leave? what IS a good average goal I should be looking to hit in a live session? (i play $1/2 NL) I usually aim for double up and a half or triple up. What's a good place to set my nightly objective at?

thanks

Wish I could give you advice, but i'm the same way. I don't know when to walk away from a table. I haven't played any live poker but I have played online cash tables and end up doubling, tripling or even more some times but I stay at the table and up going down to what I started or end up losing all of it.

I would aim at playing quality hours. You don't want to quit a game you can crush because you reached your goal an hour. Plus that short of time is going to hurt you in the long run since you won't be learning anything or gaining the experience you need to be a better player and you'll become the sucker.

Welll. played again tonight. did a LOT better about quitting, even tho i BASICALLY got kicked out kinda.

I played my first table, $60 buy in.. got it a lil more than double. left the table, cashed my profits, and sat down again at a second 1/2 table for $60.. double AGAIN and left the table.. tried to go sit down at a THIRD 1/2 table, and they told me it was "cardroom coutesy" to specifically not do what I was doing.

I figured it was allowed, it followed the written rules.. but oh well. They tried to get me to put my $127 back down at the last table I was at and I told em no thanks, ill see you tomorrow. =]

I hear ya, I have a hard time walking away as well. What I TRY to do is once I hit my goal, play only the money above that goal. Of course if you're playing no limit it's sometimes hard to limit that.

There is no easy way to say it... you have to have get up and leave. there is really no secret/magic to it. Im guilty as anyone of saying to myself, "just one more hand" or "Ill just play till i pass the button" or 100 reasons that one can justify sitting at the table when you know its time to go. I can say though, that once you get in the habit of it, it will get easier, just like anything else. Good luck!

You need to make a gameplan for any particular night and stick to it...if you dont have anything going on the next day and you feel fresh tell yourself you will sit down for x amount of hours, if you are crushing and still feeling great after you've reached your goal, consider staying longer while the fish are still plentiful, and if you are having a rough night don't be afraid to leave early.

The bottom line is there isnt a formula that works for everyone, just set goals for yourself and try and stay disciplined within your gameplan for a particular night.

Great players will stay at a table for 12+ hours if the game is good enough. The problem is most average players aren't keen enough to realise when a game is no longer good.

Just keep grinding and learning and you will develop the skill of knowing when to stay/leave.

i am doing that now basically.. kinda what happened with my last post lol. reached my goal.. bought out, then bought in with just some of my profits from the last table on a new table. initial buying and some profits secured =]

I don't want to sound mean, but I would hate a player like you at my table. First off I'd consider you wasting a seat sitting down at a 1/2 NL table with $60 when in most places you could buy up to $300. Second, you are doubling up and leaving the table, then sitting in a game with $60 again, to me that's going south, if your gonna hit and run, then do just that hit and then go home. Thirdly, money shouldn't be the primary goal at the poker table, it will cloud your judgment. Your primary goal is to make the right decisions. If you make the right decisions, then the money will follow. I'm very unhappy to hear that you used this hit and run tactic, I think it's a bad way to learn poker, your actually cheating yourself. Be a man keep the cheese on the table, make the right decisions and improve your game by seeing more hands.

Gosh, tough. I know when I go to a casino, I want to play slots for 10 hours before I want to leave. Even if I win big in the first 20 minutes, I had no intentions of leaving early. I mean, most of the time it takes over an hour one way to get to a casino. Considering this, I would take my profit and put it in my pocket. Then I would pretend I just got to the casino with my original bankroll. So if I lost all my bankroll, at least the profit is still in the pocket safely put away.

I'm sorry you'd hate me. I'm striving my hardest to improve my game but money IS a bit of a factor right now for me. I'm playing poker now on all winnings I've had over my time playing now from home games, online, and at card rooms/casinos, but losing what I came with when I go to one of those places still takes a toll on my roll. Would it be alright then to perhaps buy in higher, but if i double up at my first time to leave and play at a second.. then securing my original buy in.. and play that table all night and not leave? (also as a note.. i genuinely also didn't like the tables I was playing at, the players on them weren't really my favorite people to play with, especially the first.)

I try not to think about money too when I'm playing, especially live. I buy in for chips, i play for chips, and i want more chips in the end. Once in a while, especially if i hit a goal of doubling up I consider it in terms of money and try to secure my money somehow. I know its not the right thing to do but for now its what I have to do to ensure I can keep playing basically.


yea thats basically what I'm trying to do when i leave after doubling up. I take back basically what I came with, and rebuy as if i still only had the $60. I guess thought i shouldn't do this more than once a night unless i really wanted to move tables for other reasons.

I gotta tell you a guy like you would drive me nuts too, however i understand your dillemma this scenario happens to me over and over again typically what i will do is buy in at 1/2 for 220. i play my first 20.00 extremely tight eventually i will double up or double and half and i will set that money aside on the table seperate from the stack i am playing with, this way i have the insurance of knowing i have my buy in and i am not hit and running from table to table just to try to catch a hand and leave. 60.00 buy at a 1/2 is extremely low when you buy in for that kind of money everyone else at the table already knows for the most part what your game plan is.

I think you can hit and run and people would get mad, but it wouldn't bother them for too long. But hit and running at multiple tables is just very wrong. Most card rooms will allow you to change tables, but your bringing your full stack to the table with you.

Deliberately setting up your stack where one side is profit and the other is original buy in is not a good strategy either. People will pick up on it and exploit it. I know if someone stacked their chips in this manner at my table, I'd be playing hands with this person and pushing them past their profit stack, you'd be amazed at how many people let you have the pot.

I just don't understand the logic behind a hit and run unless you truly don't trust your game enough. If your making $60/hr, why leave the table. I'd wait til that rate starts to drop off to somewhere around $10/hr and then leave. You always want to play as long as you can when you're playing well and if your not playing well, you need to recognize it and get up. Forget the double up goals, focus on making the right plays.

I think that's the crucial point. Maybe buy in with $60 and then endeavour to double up, cash out and then later (having played some blackjack or had a meal in between, so it's not too obvious) buy in at another table with $60, so your initial investment is safely tucked in your pocket.

However once you have doubled up on the second table, why do you need to cash out and go to a third table? Your initial "investment" is already safely in your pocket, so you should continue playing there until you feel that it is no longer profitable, then go home.

Jumping from table to table is bad enough, but to reduce back down to $60 multiple times will inevitably be seen in a bad light. However I see no reason why you shouldn't start with $60 initially and if they don't like it, that's tough.

To secure a a profit, and go for another set of profit. but I see where your all coming from, I'll likely stop doign this after i hit the second table, and if i still feel like i want tos ecure some winnings i will leave and go do something else for a while

Sounds a bit too OCD for my liking

Hey, Your the guy from the other topic that is playing in Tampa now that the limits have changed right? Good to hear your winning. I'm gonna offer a few ideas, take what you want.

First, your style of play is not going to make any friends. Although I would be really upset at the floor for kicking me out, it is not good manners. If you were going from table to table without going back to one you have played I don't think they had a real reason to kick you out. Your not going south if you are switching to different tables but the people see you doing it and are going to remember it next time they sit with you.

Second, in these games if you have won a bit now you should try buying in for the max. They have a 1/2 with $100 max and a 1/3 with $300 max. Play the smaller one until you build up a roll but try buying for the max. If you keep winning they way you are, you will only win more money before feeling that you have to leave.

Third, like the other guys are saying you may find it easier to think of it in terms of time played. Make a goal going in, and try for that. I often plan on going for at least x amount of hours, and if the table is good stay till it changes, if its bad leave early. If you are seated at a great table you want to play as long as possible. Even if you are losing some chips or getting unlucky at the time. You want to rebuy and rebuy until the luck works its self out and your skill advantage can take over. Again, thats only at a table you can dominate. There is no reason to leave.

I often sat down at a table win a hand early and then the table gets super nitty so I leave. I don't enjoy grinding and stealing blinds. I like loose games and bad players. When the game gets nitty if I have won a bit, I don't try to stay and grind, I'll take what I have and either go to a different table or leave.


Lastly, not really related but....

Ignore this. There is no other reason to play the game. A "right" decision as you say is one in which you make the most money. If money is not the only reason to play poker you are playing the wrong game.

I'll be blunt. You're a ratholing POS (a 30bb one at that) and I hope your card room bans you and all others like you. Sit down with you're money and play until you're ready to get up, cash out, and go home. If you want to be a ratholing POS please play online where at least there are thousands of you.

I LIKE ... i'm playing live now.. more then online .. i agree wv hillybilly

haha i guess, not OCD.. just very cautious with my poker 'roll i spose..

Yep thats me. Went to tampa all this afternoon and night actually, lost $80 at my first table and laerned a lot of good lessons from it, but played a second table after some time off to eat and rest and played solid earning back and surpassing my money, but ended the night 100% breaking even. Good night of fun poker though, didnt lose money, and learned.

...And I didn't buy in for the minimum at all tonight, but more in the middle/top end.


I'm sorry you feel that way. I really like this forum,the people on it, and the poker conversations and information I'm already trying to be involved in, and it saddens me to see a jerk like yourself here also.

Once you've been here a while you'll discover that you have misjusdged WVH, very direct and no nonsense approach, but not really a jerk.

Bryan, welcome to CC. Your sadden by WVH comments but he is telling you what other people won't. WVH can be rough and blunt but he is correct here. Every card room I know has rules prohibiting what you are doing(it's ratholing plan and simple). You will find that you will get a bad rep in your local card room. If you polled the people you are playing against at your card room they will all say you are the one being a jerk. Wait until someone like WVH is sitting at your table and he starts giving you sh#t. No one there is going to say a thing because they all want to tell you where to go. They will complain to the room manager about you. It ticks people off to no end. When you walk to your car at night be very careful-people do not like angle shooting ratholers and have been know to take out their displeasure.
Go to the tables and sit down and play. If you win, great-get up and leave and go home. Do not put money south and sit down again.

Thanks for the defense guys but I've been called much worse than a jerk (by my wife no less), so no big deal.

Seriously though if you continue to rathole don't be a bit surprised when the poker room manager asks you not to come back. They have the right to refuse anyone and when they hear enough people complain about you, they will. And trust me people will complain, I know I would.

Here's the deal. You are only going to learn short stack poker, you're not going to get a lot of hands in, and once your stack gets to 200 BBs, you're going to have no idea what's going on and a guy like me is going to come in and eat you up. In the fifteen days I was home playing live games I took four or five pots down over 400 BBs because of opponents like you. And when I was learning the game, I made the same mistake.

You are only seeing one facet of poker, short stack poker. If you buy in to a 1/2 with $60, it's basically all-in on the flop at the latest on the first hand you decide to play. If you buy in for the full $200, you have a lot more room, and your big hands are going to get paid off. I won't play in games that have capped buy-ins below 100 BBs if I can help it, 100 BBs is close enough with a few plays and good hands I can be sitting at 200 BBs, and then I enter the profitable realm of deep-stack hunting. Guys who sit with 30 BBs when I have 250 BBs stacked up I'll call with garbage just to get a seat open.

Now, as for your behavior - it is common courtesy (and in a lot of card rooms, a house rule -) that if you cash out from a limit, and return to the limit in a certain number of time, you are expected to buy-in for the exact amount you left the table with. In online, it's harder to enforce, because one player can (and is authorized to) play ten tables at once, enforcing this is limited to just the table you leave.

The only times you should leave your table are when you find it is no longer profitable, you're not playing well, it's time to go, or the table breaks. If the table is not profitable and you want to play at a different table, you should let the floorperson know you want a table change. That crap you're doing would piss me off. However, I'd be very glad once your seat opened because somebody with more than 30 BBs could fill it.

If money is an issue for you, I would suggest you save up more of a bankroll, you're missing out on the most profitable part of poker by just playing short stack. While you'll still do a fist pump every time you flop middle set against TpTk with 30 BBs, just imagine how glorious that same pot would be with 100 BBs, or 200?

I play 2/3 NL in LA when I'm home, and the level play is far from unbeatable. I almost always know where I stand in the hand (poker intuition), and with my proper bankroll I rarely go on tilt.

If you want to take poker seriously as a way to make money, than I strongly suggest you add facets to your game other than the short stack hit and run. Not only will it make you unpopular, but it's simply not profitable, and makes you an easy target for bad beats. If I raise to 3 BBs, you reraise to 9 BBs, and I flop any draw, you can't bet enough to make me fold, because I get two cards to call your jam, and for all I know I could be ahead. And if I'm sitting with 200+ BBs, then rest assured, I'll be calling your measly bet with just about any draw or pair.

I strongly suggest you google deep stack poker, poker room courtesy (hell, ask a floor person), and implied odds, as all of these are apparently missing from your game currently. Hell, look into bankroll management, as well.

For a seasoned player, the 1/2 NL games are probably weak enough that a regular with half a brain could tear them apart with only 5-10 Buy-ins, but it sounds like you're far from that.

Hopefully you can see that those two statements could be contradictory. By trying to bully somebody into buying in for $200 when they can only really afford $60 you are effectively telling them to throw bankroll management out of the window. It sounds to me as though the OP has a better grasp of bankroll management than you are giving them credit for.

I have to agree with Furries here, don't buy-in for more than you can afford
and study BR management. If you can't afford a decent buy-in maybe you shouldn't be playing.
If you can only play that much, then take that 60 and play till you have made a profit, get tired or lose it.
If you are doubling up and making a profit it won't be long till you can afford a bigger, stronger buy-in.

Getting up and moving around is very annoying and considered VERY disrespectful to the other players in the card room.

You have been warned once by your card room and I can guarantee you they will be watching you the next time you come to play

GL out there

Yea I'm trying to not move around as much.

I've read a tonnn of bankroll management and understand it, but I've also realized that to start applying it you really need quite the sized bankroll (saying its quite sized is relative i spose, for me thats quite a large amount of money), and for now I'm below the amount I need to fully follow any bankroll management. Playing short stacked, or atleast a bit under the max, is my only BRM I can use right now until I am rolled to buy in 100%.

And I'm trying hard to learn deep stack play, it seems to be much mroe complicated. I think I'm really starting to get it but I do realize I could use some work.. every time I DO manage to turn my short stack into a full buy in or more I find it becoming hard to really take down pots sometimes.

I think WVH should be the one to listen to, I share his opinion. Unless it's time for you to get up and go home, don't get up, don't take chips off the table.

And from what I am getting from you is that your a very tight, possibly passive player, so people are probably floating your bets and taking pots away from you, which is probably why you find it difficult to play with a respectable stack, as opposed to having $60 on the table, and that's all you have to play for.

I would say that if you a running well and have recently have doubled up or more there is no need to walk away right away. Card rooms do not like for you to move tables an re-buy as would the players, it is common courtesy to your fellow player. That being said once you have gotten that big stack, don't change your game because of it and you should continue to do well, a bad beat is a poker but if you continue to play as you do then there is no real reason to leave. A better option is to stay for an hour or so then go get dinner or something and sit back down at a new table after that, banking your winnings.

I agree. If you want to do this sort of thing, play online--there are so many tables and so many players that people will hardly notice and rarely care.

If you're going to play live again, please read this thread a few times over before you leave the house. Pay attention...the people responding here know what they're talking about.

played again last night. took a pretty decent hit to my roll. I think I'm going to play more online than live (kinda got hooked to live too early, not enough $$ to play it now being honest with myself)

Get more experience online, play lower limits, and hopefully build a roll correctly and in limits i can afford with BRM.

Short stacking will win you no friends. You may find the regs teaming up on you when you sit down at a table. They will also start reporting you to the floor when you rat hole making it harder for you to do.

Online and live are way different. Just remember $1/$2 NL live is about the same level as $0.10/$0.25 NL or lower online.

yea, i'm not going to be short stacking anymore live.. if i buy in its going to be for the full buy in, or a little below if i need to. and i wont be leaving tables anymore more just to secure profits, but if i do leave its because of the players or gameplay.. but for now im concentrating on online play some more, where i can use some propper BRM =]

The more I play in cash games, the higher I set my goals! Personally, I'm happy with doubling my money, but I'm even more happy when I've tripled it or greater. At the casino I play at, there are a lot of older cowboy types that have no problem shelling out $100 bills to re-buy into the game. And because of this, there are many people that walk away with a lot of cash. The most I've seen someone walk away with at $1/2 was $1,000.

What I try to do when I've doubled my money, is to keep playing consistent poker. It's very easy to want to start to gamble and take more risks when I've acquired more chips, but it has such a negative impact on my game that I don't allow myself to do this. A lot of times, once I'm up and I've been playing for awhile, I will organize my chips into two sections. Playing chips and non-playing chips. Of course, if the situation calls for it, I will have no problem delving into my non-playing chips, but if I've gone card dead or I've lost too many small to medium sized pots, I will walk away with the rest of my chips.

I hope you're doing this division of chips in your head only. We have a guy who literally makes 2 stacks that occasionally plays our home 200nl game. He's the easiest person to push out of a pot once he get to the point you're referring to. He'll just fold everything but the immortal nuts to any bet that might bite into the $$'s he's already set aside as going home money.