Dealing with the ups and downs of 1/3 live 80/120

Been playing the 1/3 game at my local casino in So Cal....I'm wondering if anyone else has had any swings. Like this. In August i went from -$2738 to +$3,789 at one point. I also won a Poker Jackpot for about $4,250. Needless to say I'm now back down at 385$ profit.........It's awful and i feel terrible. I would say my biggest issues is just not leaving the casino after losing a certain amount of money. It's as if i just sit there on tilt and go until i lose 1,000$.....truly just sitting there on Autopilot. What's your guy's opinions as to how much money i should bring to play a 80/120 game 1/3 blinds? Let's say per day?

Aaron Soto said:

Been playing the 1/3 game at my local casino in So Cal....I'm wondering if anyone else has had any swings. Like this. In August i went from -$2738 to +$3,789 at one point. I also won a Poker Jackpot for about $4,250. Needless to say I'm now back down at 385$ profit.........It's awful and i feel terrible. I would say my biggest issues is just not leaving the casino after losing a certain amount of money. It's as if i just sit there on tilt and go until i lose 1,000$.....truly just sitting there on Autopilot. What's your guy's opinions as to how much money i should bring to play a 80/120 game 1/3 blinds? Let's say per day?

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When I play 1/3 which at my casino is Max 300 buy in. If I am up I will stay and play until I feel like I am not making good decisions, or I get cooled in a hand that I feel like will change my emotions without even knowing. If I lose one buy in, I would leave and come back another session.

I usually set my iPod alarm to go off after 4 hours. When it goes off I get up and leave weather I am up or not. This has stopped me from playing to long and getting tired and making mistakes. Since starting this I have had a big change in my loosing sessions as many times I was up I would make a bad play and suddenly had a loosing session because I was tired.

I never bring more than 2 buy ins. If I lose them both I just go home and call it a bad day. If I happen to lose and it a few hours + in I usually don't buy back in. If I lost my stack due to a bad play, I will usually call it a day since I did not play well. If I was unlucky, I will always re buy in unless its getting late.

By doing this I avoid playing to long and avoid tilt issues and limiting my losses.

I might be the right person to give advices as i don't usually play cash, but i read an article about negreanu who told he was using a schedule when he started playing poker with cash games rules. He had rules like play between 12:00 and 20:00 and never broke the rule, no matter how much you're up or how much you're down in money. He said the rule really worked for him as a fixed schedule and also, keeping him from staying too much at the table on winning days or trying to recover the loses on losing days

1) Once you get so high, don't go back down. I start my 1/3 with the max $300. If I go up to $525, I don't go back below $500. Above $650, don't go under $600, etc... It steadied my pace.

2) Don't loose more than half your stack. If you are like this within the first half hour those guys likely have you on tilt. If you are in a big hand and have to call the whole stack, go ahead but don't rebuy. You have no idea whats going on around you.

3) Check your daily average. If point two is something you just can't let yourself follow that day, the least you absolutely have to do is make sure that your days play won't severely hurt your average.

4) Check your style. Big swings happen for me and I realize I'm playing entirely too passive-aggressive. I was playing way too many hands. Tightening up takes patience, but getting yourself in the habit of enjoying big swings is detrimental.

I think its good that you ask that. When I don't play with that discipline, I always eventually end up in the hole.

This is a form of tilt and thus there probably is not one and simple answer to solve it. Having limited funds to stop the losing is not really an optimal solution, why would you donate up willingly money?

You already know what launches the tilt, now you just need to further pinpoint the exact moment and quit just there for starters imo. Then try to find solution. For me the partial answer to autopiloting was a) to give myself a lecture about manning it up and playing a bit more agressive to wake me up and b) not playing when drunk or too tired. But there are multiple different solutions and cases I’m sure, and you just need to find the best one that fits to you.
gl

ken nielson said:

I usually set my iPod alarm to go off after 4 hours. When it goes off I get up and leave weather I am up or not. This has stopped me from playing to long and getting tired and making mistakes. Since starting this I have had a big change in my loosing sessions as many times I was up I would make a bad play and suddenly had a loosing session because I was tired.

I never bring more than 2 buy ins. If I lose them both I just go home and call it a bad day. If I happen to lose and it a few hours + in I usually don't buy back in. If I lost my stack due to a bad play, I will usually call it a day since I did not play well. If I was unlucky, I will always re buy in unless its getting late.

By doing this I avoid playing to long and avoid tilt issues and limiting my losses.

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Good answers. Thanks guys. I' m literally setting goals for myself on the felt now. I'm done going on these massive losses and not even being able to wake up in the morning because I'm too tired or just plain depressed i lost 1,000$....in one day. It is so detrimental to success on the felt. I think this answer works great. My new thing is just setting goals and playing within a time limit. I just think nobody out there can play poker well on tilt. It's just not worth it. At least for me.