New to Poker and going bust

Hi, I started playing poker around 7 months ago and I have gradually got more and more into it. After an initial couple of months of learning the basics and having some good wins.

Unfortunatly because I have been reading more and more into poker stratergy, I have been tending to do worse...in home games, casino and online.

After a break I decided to concentrate on online (As the casino was very fishy and people would tend to throw cash at the table in the rebuys, one guy rebrought £120 in 60 mins only for me to knock him out 5 mins into end of rebuys.) But now I have recently been running really rubbish online and cant seem to find any form.

Has anyone else found this similar patten of generally going bad when they first started??

Jarb,

What type of player are you? Given your post I am going to guess as you became more serious about "learning the basics" you became a nut peddler for awhile. Lot's of players, including myself have gone through the ultra-tight phase.

As you read more about poker styles, various plays, strategies, and tactics you have to loosen up a bit. Inevitably with becoming a better player your swings will be larger. You will also starting questioning your own play more, because you are actually having to play the game. It is easy to play AA or 72 offsuit. Your not going to question as often if you made the right play. It's not so easy to figure out if your J9 is good on a QJ2 flop.

My best guess, you are just going through growing pains of learning how to play. Don't focus so much on winning or losing, instead focus on if you made the correct decision.

You will sometimes reach a point where you feel like you were better off when you didn't know anything, and just played by the seat of your pants. This usually comes from an overload, trying to work too much into your game too fast. Keep studying, keep playing, and it will pass. Knowledge is a wonderful thing, but experience is the best teacher.

First and foremost advice to almost any player at any level: Be more selective in your starting hand requirements; play fewer hands. Always look for a reason to fold out of position; search for reasons to be aggressive in position.

just keep playing and if you're losing a lot of $$, maybe consider either playing freerolls, play money or very cheap $$ games until you get better.. you can really only read so much, it all comes down to what you decide to do when you're at the tables.

Thats how poker is,up n down.A person can have too much info and get thrown off.Id just start playing like you did at first,if thats possible.

The first thing I urge you to do is to stick within bankroll limits. If you are within these limits then going broke will mean you have a severe flaw in your game. However, you seem to want to study the game and must be at least a decent player so this could just be a very bad downswing. Stick to good bankroll management and your luck will change.

As for the reading making your game worse, go back and read these theories a second time. It may be that you misread an idea or are using it in the wrong situations. I know I certainly tried out some new techniques for my game that I hadn't understood and ended up not playing well as a result.

I forgot which pro it was, but one pro's tip was to read everything you can and then forget everything you read at the tables.

I find the same thing - after reading something and trying to incorporate it into my play, there are some growing pains...

if ur makin good decisions an gettin bad beats fine if ur makin lottsa bad decisions an losin its not unusual if u think ur better than u r then u have a problem

The thing to do is analyze why you are losing, are you making bad plays or getting bad beats-remember online is a different game, people call with anything, try to bluff alot and are basically donks. So play tight-aggressive, try to get a read on the players at the table; what patterns can you see from different players, eventually you will develop your own style of play and win pots based on your good decisions and the other players bad decisions. One way to limit losing is to play a limited number of starting hand in certain positions, raise when you have strong hands. Make expensive for the caller to see the next card when you are ahead.

Yea i think you need to have a good think about why you are losing money rather than attributing it to simply running bad. It's kinda hard to know what you are asking...personally i never ran bad when i started, and playing online was the first poker experience i'd ever had. I actually made alot of money the first month i ever played. There are just alot of very bad poker players out there. Take a break/maybe change poker sites, try a new type of game etc. to try and get some confidence back if you think that might work. I find sometimes if i'm running bad on a particular site that taking a day off then playing on another site helps somewhat because you don't tend to have the same negative association with the bad past day/s. Like many things, alot of poker is about confidence so it is a good idea to stop playing if your confidence is shot at that particular time. What stakes are you playing?

Also if the casino is fishy just play there if you aren't making money online :S