Losing big pots and winning small ones

I seem to do quite well for a while and spend a few hours building a nice profit only to lose it in one big hand.

One example was today I had a straight 8-queen, the only hand that could beat me was king 10. Should I have got away from the big pot when this player wasn't a tight player and had already lost a lot of money with bad bets and calls?

Other times Iv lost my whole buy in after making a good profit from set over set situations with no straight / flushes possibilities. Another time my whole buy in was lost king high flush to ace high flush.

Basically I lose a lot the the second nuts. Should I be folding these to big bets? I always think what are the odds of them having the only hand that can beat me lol. I'm also quite new to poker!

you would do well to start distinguishing between the absolute strength of your hand (i.e. second nuts) and the relative strength. To give an extreme example, if the board is a 4 flush and we raise a river bet with the flush king and then we are reraised with deep stacks... our absolute hand strength is very good, however depending on previous action and our read on this player, our relative hand strength is likely to be poor if we can put a lot of Ax type hands in his range.

With regard to losing big pots and winning small ones, a good way to approach poker is this. you want to steal the blinds a lot, and put a lot of pressure on your opponent on certain flops and turns, unless you have a reason not to. then you get away from the hand. if you can do this well you win lots of small pots, loose some medium sized pots (when we get away from our hand) and win big pots when you have good relative hand strength and your image begins to pay off.

Once you make a certain amount of profit, in my opinion it’s better to leave the table and lock in the profits. Then rebuy at another table.

In the beginning you always remember your loses longer...three days ago I was in two micro(small) buy-in tournaments. I lost one big hand in each game...both times I had KKK33....lost to KKKK and 3333! But seriously...it sounds like you started with ring games right away....try some small tournaments where you risk little with big rewards! Maybe $2-$5 buy-ins and mind your position....some players fear a value bet more than an allin! I hope I've helped..

thanks for the replies. Todays ive won it all back. After about a week of losing. Maybe I was just getting unlucky. But now im thinking, maybe im just getting lucky today :P. Ive been holding back a bit with sets or better where id usually take them into massive pots. Maybe I just need to be more cautious with anything less than the nuts

Folding a winning hand is a SMALL mistake. Not folding a loser can be a big one. Besides, if you fold you will never know, right ???

Does everyone agree with this? If I am winning at a table because i out play the players should I move to another table full of possible unknowns where i might be beaten?

I see that a lot at Free Poker tables. It seems to me the people who cash and run are always playing Bingo Poker, and their goal in leaving is to leave before they give back their lucky win with their stupid play. If I am winning I much prefer to stay where I am until the good cards or fish run out.

"Locking in a gain" only works if you quit. If you go to another table and buy in again, you are just fooling yourself. Take that perspective from a long-time commodities trader.

The real difference is that you have reduced the amount at risk against an all-in by cutting your stack size. In that respect it may make sense, since you can buy-in more chips, but you can't buy-out part of your winnings (at least on-line).

Its all about money management.

No. It's stupid. Change tables if the bad players leave or a really great player sits down on your left or there are several deep stacks and you're not comfortable playing deep. Never leave a table just because you're up some money.

This... /end thread.

Not yet!

I'd completely agree with WV. The only reasons to leave when you are winning is if there are other deepstacks at the table and you aren't that great at deep stack play, or the bad players at the table leave.

To answer OP questions, with the little bit of info you are giving (Game type, levels, etc would all help) It sounds like you need some work on your deep stack play. If you double up after playing for a while and are sitting at say 450BB deep, you MUST have a new mind set when you play. You can't play SS, normal or deep stacked the same way. There are subtle but very important differences between the three. I bet if you put a little more time on your deep stack game you'd stop loosing those big pots.

To help understand if you played them good or bad, throw a couple that you had some questions about up in the HA section.

start to flat call, you are probably raising with hands that are not hitting and jsut flat calling with hands that are hitting and winning you little pots, start to flat call preflop and this will eliminate the money you llose preflop to all those raises you do preflop.

start to flat call with all your hands instead of rasing with the big ones and flat calling with the rest, your probably losing your money with hands like aq ak and not hitting on the flop jsut flat call from now on until they start to hit again.

I can't see how this is good advice. Flat calling as a general rule is a bad idea. You are going to be putting your self in tons of spots where you aren't sure what to do. You won't have any information on what villain has and will probably be putting your self in tons of multiway pots. The hands that you listed aren't really going to play well multiway. It seems like your thinking is a little results oriented. Changing how you play based on the "feeling" that you aren't going to hit is going to substantially hurt your game.