working it out and trying to build it up

At the beginning of the year I told myself I was gonna try and turn 15 dollars into a 1000 so I mad the deposit and started playing micro sitngoes I built it up to 413 dollars and then all the way back down to 150 dollars. Then I made a nice final table at a 2.20 mtt for 190 dollars and also had a little bit of good luck at the sitngoes so my BR was at 403 and now I'm losing again I am at 340 and consistently dropping. I am having a hard time breaking that 400 dollar mark for some reason. The really bad part is I feel like I am playing great poker but I always seem to lose to the river card. I would really just appreciate some advice on how to power on through to a higher level of poker. Thanks everyone in advance

This is happening to me too so I have finaly taken the plunge and ordered Poker Tracker (the sample size on the trial just isnt big enough). Hopefully I will be able to identify where Im going wrong, leaks, over valueing cards etc.

I would suggest downloading the trial version of both Poker Tracker and HoldEm Manager and giving them a try.

Have you been changing stakes as you plod along? I think that once you get close to the $400 mark you need to think about moving up a level.
As far as being stiffed on the river - well, bad spells in poker will always come when you least need them! Seems as if the bad beats just knock your confidence slightly. When that happens, drop a level and steamroll some $1 and $2 SnG's to pick yourself up, then once you have your rhythm back, get back up to the $3, $4 and $5 games.
A poker tracker would be advised if your serious about the $1000 mark though.
Best of luck.

What site are you playing on?

Maybe you should try to go for the cash tables with smaller stacks and then build them up, i've done that before turned 5$ to 437 with just playing cashtables for SB 0.05$ BB0.10$ this method worked well for me

im playing on pokerstars and mostly playing the 3.25 45 man sitngoes and usually do failry well but not once i hit that 400 dollar mark it just seems to go down down down.

yeah i just cant get hooked on the cash tables. my style is so much more of a tournament and i havent really played enough cash games to know how to profit off them

BRM, drop down in buy-ins and stop paying strict attention to account window balance and more time to plugging any leaks in strategy and what not.

If you are playing well and improving along the way, things will take care of themselves. The critical thing is to have a good way to analyze your game.

Balance watching is a killer and the law of big numbers slowly catches up, that's why it's more about BRM and filling holes in game/strategy. Cash ring games could be a side strategy, but I'd almost spin off a segment of your BR into a sub BR for that since they can murder you and take up a lot of time, but they are a viable diversification strategy. I am currently working this in reverse myself. I made my initial deposit and grind the limit ring and am trying my hand at freerolls to augment my card playing in off hours. There are times when playing cash games are good and times when you are only putting your children (chips) out in the street to get run over. There are so many controllable factors to poker and its play that too many concentrate on the stuff out of their control. Concentrate very hard on the 25% you can control and the other 75% will do what it will and you should be able to weather the consequences.

Step back and run your game as a business and become a student of the game and you will succeed as long as you stay disciplined and outside factors don't become distractions. Also think about who you are. Are you a Hold'em player or a card player? There are other juicy games out there that not so skilled Hold'em players are slowly trickling into and putting their BR in positions of jeopardy as they climb the new games' learning curves. Just some thoughts...

JMHO

thank you very much this is very good insight and i agree that could be my problem is i sit there and watch my money fluctuate and when it hits the lull of that fluctuation i do get frustrated. i just need to button down and focus.well im at like 225 dollars now so im gonna try and rebuil. i am still doing fairly well for only starting with 15 dollars

just as a thought, this 400 limit could be a mental cap for you... i know when i built my first bankroll from 20 to 1750, i had to overcome 2 mental caps, the first of which was at 100 $ where i would just hit a wall and not seem to get over the 100$ mark, the second wall was at the 1000 mark, where once again it took a very VERY long time to get over that mark and keep it over it...

i find that if you hit a point where you start thinking "i dont want to loose this" and change your play style than you will loose it because you are no longer playing optimal poker.

So, as my little addition to this conversation, there is a possibility that you need to just turn your brain off to the money aspect of the game (i know its hard to think about...)...

Phil Ivey said it best when he said something along the lines of "When you start thinking this is enough money for a car, or a house i could be loosing (or a beer for micro limits), than you are already lost" ..... Essentially you have to look at it as a game to win all the chips, the money will follow... if you concentrate to much on the money aspect and the "Oh man i lost X" than you are already going to loose...


Hopefully this little ramble can be of some help...

2 main points..

1) Try to play consistent poker, that mental block at certain levels will only hurt you

2) Dont think of it as money or "what i could loose", think of it more as a game, where you are trying to collect all of the chips, so you can make the correct calls etc... (Scared money, is lost money... hence the reason for Bank Roll Management)

very good insight thank you very much this is definetly what i will be trying from now on