Epic downswing. Suggestions please

RegHC23

RegHC23

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whats up yall. I have been playing this weekend and went through an epic downswing. I am down 70 dollars playing 4 and 10NL. I know you are probably like how is that possible, but I can tell you i just accomplished this horrible feat. I was just trying to get some opinions on some of the hands I lost and what could i have done better. I am going to post 5 hands and be brutally honest so that i know what i can do better the next time. I was on pretty much a 120 dollar upswing right before it so i guess i am basically averaging it out, but it has been a frustrating weekend and i am going to vegas and oklahoma in the next 3 weeks so I want this game of mine to be really on point. Thanks for you suggestion and be brutally honest I will be fine.
 

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R

RamdeeBen

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I'm no cash game player so someone will likely give you some better advice but just based on the hands I've seen there are some major leaks in your game so I'll give you my opinions on the hands.


Hand 1: Make it 40c pre, I just fold Turn. If he's donk pot betting 3 streets he's never really bluffing and that's all we're beating even on the turn. His semi bluff probably got there on the river or he rivered two pair or worse.

Hand 2: We should 3B AQ here in the blinds..Your flop min raise is horrible. What are you trying to achieve by doing this and your sizing is just so off given our actual hand and a multiway pot. You shouldn't be checking the turn either, just bet it.

Hand 3: Bet bigger on the flop, not much bigger but like 65-70c.Why you just half potting? Is this default? Your sizing should be based on who's in the pot with you and the board textures. Your river sizing again makes no sense, infact there's a bigger chance villain has Tx in this hand rather than the 8x you decided to check/call on the AQ hand rather than betting the turn and a hand that less equity more times than not you take a more aggressive line with?

Hand 4: Just CB this flop even though it's probably good for his calling range we block a lot of straight draw hands and have back door straight draws ourselves. I really don't understand the turn min raise and then call? You made a rod for your own back here, you line makes no sense and your min raise looks weak but when BB raises this big we have to fold now. When he shoves river it's an easy fold.


All in all, your bet sizing and lines really need to be worked on. You seem to value bet incorrectly at the wrong times with worse hands and then take passive lines with your stronger ranges? It seems you have a default of half pot for the most part on every street regardless of action and how the boards are running out and you really need to drop the min raises from your game, they suck for the most part in cash games and don't work very well unless you know exactly why you're doing and what hand ranges you're targeting. It seems you're pressing buttons for the most part unsure of what to do and just bet or call and not thinking of hand ranges of what the other players could have.
 
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Figaroo2

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too passive preflop and flop allowing weak hands to get there

hand1. Raise the flop you have to get some information on his hand strength and normally you are ahead here to a draw or small pair which is probing. As played fold turn he fires 30bb full pot you have only 2nd pair and no idea what you are up against and only a small chance of improving your hand.

Hand 2. The damage is all done preflop. You should 3 bet this and as you are in the sb and going to be oop make it big 80c to 1$. Taking down hands in the sb preflop like this is fine. Having just called lead out a min of 75% for value and to charge draws. Min check raise achieves little other than giving him a fairly cheap look at another card, in fact in the context of this hand was a serious error.
. If you are going to cr make it big. Again you are oop with one pair you should be looking to tid asap.

Hand3. Meh you run into slow played queens dont fire the river you are way behind or way in front.

Hand4 Preflop is fine but the flop is fairly wet and any two pic cards have gutshots to the nuts so you should lead out fairly large again whilst you likely have the best hand and to charge the draws. Once the J arrives AQ and Q9 get there so just get to show down as cheaply as possible thereafter.

Hand5 there is that min raise again...dont like it just call the turn here and see what the river brings.
You reopened the betting and got punished...maybe that will teach you.

The theme running through these hands is that tptk is likely to be good most of the time on the flop but good cash players putting in big bets on the turn or river usually means they can beat 1 pair hands
Therefore especially when oop raise bigger pre and on the flop to price and drive out weaker holdings.
Think about what you are trying to acheive with each and every bet.
Hope these opinions help.
 
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tomnovember

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whats up yall. I have been playing this weekend and went through an epic downswing. I am down 70 dollars playing 4 and 10NL. I know you are probably like how is that possible, but I can tell you i just accomplished this horrible feat. I was just trying to get some opinions on some of the hands I lost and what could i have done better. I am going to post 5 hands and be brutally honest so that i know what i can do better the next time. I was on pretty much a 120 dollar upswing right before it so i guess i am basically averaging it out, but it has been a frustrating weekend and i am going to vegas and oklahoma in the next 3 weeks so I want this game of mine to be really on point. Thanks for you suggestion and be brutally honest I will be fine.

#1: You may consider folding on the turn. As almost no BB will bluff in a 4way flop and bet 1x pot on the turn with bluffing hand... If you think AQ is valuable, just reraise the flop and then fold to allin.

#2: Your flop miniraise give your opponents suitable pot odds to call with a middle pair... So, just raise more ($1.00 to $1.20)

#3: You just overplayed your TPTK...Check call on the river may be better.

#4: Bet more on such a dry board. As well, I can see no reason you bet so aggressively on the river.

#5: That is not BB. You shall cbet the flop as you are in position in NL10. Well, when your AQ get 3bet from your opponents, it is impossible that your hand is still ahead. Just fold it.
 
LD1977

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7 buyins is not epic, it is normal.
 
RodneyC86

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7 buyins is not epic, it is normal.

I can vouch for that. By the looks of it, you're probably not the type to go through 10k hands fast either. And that 10k is a drop of water in a bucket.
 
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Weisssound

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All of these hands are suffering from the same problem. I'll give you my take on the first four. My guess is a lot of this has been said.

1) PRE-FLOP

Raise is too light! This will be a reoccurring theme in my analysis. You've got like four people acting behind you! If I'm on the button I'm coming in with suited connectors, low pocket pairs, A-rag suit, all sorts of shit, cause I'm getting a good price to hit a weird hand and rock the boat. Spoiler: That's what happened. Make it 5xBB, maybe more depending on the table.

Flop: Flat call for what!? You have top pair top kicker. You should be raising and re-evaluating your move if you meet resistance with this many people in the hand.

Turn: At this point, dude is still betting into you which means he's either got a small Q, a K, or some kind of two pair/set type of hand. Unfortunately because of the K, there's now more reasonable hands ahead of you than hands behind.

River: Ok, dude is still giving you value sized bets on the river. Middle pair is not going to be good here. This isn't a bluff, and you aren't beating anything else. There's no 72 that's still betting this.
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2.

This call pre-flop is a LEAK A) You're losing significant equity simply by allowing other players in. You want a heads up match where you have very strong equity. (B) You're keeping the relative pot size small with hole cards that have lot's of heads up value but little implied odds. RAISE RAISE RAISE.

Flop: This check, not such a fan. Ok, going for a check raise, that's ok. But that check raise is WAY TOO SMALL. You're basically facing up your hand with this check raise - so you're killing your own action AND giving your villain a great price to see another card AND getting no additional information in the process. Why??? Your check raise should be at the very least $1, since the board is dry. And PS... check raising a dry board? C'mon main.

Turn: That's about the worst card you can see. The only hands betting that dry ass board are Qx and 8x, and maybe 99, TT, JJ (though they'd be raising pre-flop don't ya think?). And you gave both of 'em a pretty price to keep going.

So yeah, no shocker, it's an 8x hand. Can't really be too surprised. DON'T... oh... noooooo.... why are you showing your hand?? Congrats, you just told the whole table you overplay top pair top kicker.
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3.

This hand.. not too shabby. 3xBB from the CO with AT. I can dig it.

Flop: Hey, nice bet. But the call is suspect. Does your villain peel with over cards? Or middle pair? Or is your villain tighter and playing a smaller Tx hand like JT. All in all, the only things we need to worry about are small sets, and slow-played hands like JJ+. Does our villain slow play big pairs?

Turn: I don't like the half pot bet. It doesn't give you any information. I'd rather see a min-bet or check for pot control, or a bigger bet for information.

River: Well, your villain faded two bets so obviously the ten isn't too scary. That pretty much means smaller Tx, or something that beats you, as there weren't many draws out there.

But all in all, you lost with top pair top kicker to someone with a pretty well disguised QQ. It happens. This one gets a pass.
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4.

Pre-flop: C'mon man. The ENTIRE table is acting behind you. At THEE VERY LEAST, 4xBB. I'll just leave it at that.






So in conclusion... without being offensive.. this isn't a downswing. This is misplayed hands. A downswing is when you get it in with a full house on the flop only to have runner runner hit the opponent with a better full house, and then get it in again and lose to a runner runner flush three hands later. That's how you lose over $100 in less than ten minutes. But this... this is a leak in your game. Be more assertive with your betting. Force your opponents to make decisions against their statistical interest and your long term game will be better, occasional downswing and all.
 
RegHC23

RegHC23

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Thanks for the help. I can see that I am giving people too much of a good price and I am not putting enough pressure on my opponenets. I tried a lot of the stuff i have been reading. It worked great, now i was only down about 3 dollars but the conceopt of what everyone is telling me is working. I need to keep practicing applying this so that I can close up the leak. I am about to grind for a little bit and then i will put more of my hands that confused me for your opinions. Thanks for the real criticism, i needed it.
 
RegHC23

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Now i listened to everything that you have said and i am posting these hands so that you can see that I am applying some of the techniques to plug my leaks. I see now more what a TAG is and I think the whole time i have been playing like a nit and have been i guess just running well. Well check these hands out and let me knwo what yall think
 

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RegHC23

RegHC23

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here are the other 5 hands so it will be 10 hands in all.
 

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Mase31683

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Okay, one dose of brutal honesty coming. I'm pretty good at providing that so let's see what you've got here:

(Edit- This post is freaking long. I read through and typed my thoughts as the hands played out. If my thought process gets broken or difficult to understand point it out and I'll explain better)

First thing, why aren't you topped up? Always have the table maximum, or at least 100bb, whatever you're comfortable with. Personally I always have at least the maximum because I want to make sure if the right hand comes up I can take the most money possible from every player.
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Hand 1)
Raise larger

You should be raising to 3.5-4bb + 1bb per limper (3.5+1 per limper = Bet Pot Button; Live games or no Bet Pot button go with 4bb+1) So here I'd like to see you make it $0.50

That could have helped avoid the massive multiway action which makes things harder. So now BB donks into us for 1/2 pot. He could have played something like 67 getting great odds or could have a random Q, set, maybe just a draw.

I don't hate the call, but then the CO flats behind...that's setting off spidey senses.

Terrible card for our hand turns and BB pots it, I'm done with the hand. I see you call here, I'm crying inside. One other hand squarely in the BB's range (KQ) just pulled ahead of you, as well as any Kx holding he was just bluffing the flop with. Not a draw heavy flop so I'm done at this point.

Turn is the 8, so 45 gets there and villain puts us all in. I honestly don't know what he could hold that we beat, I have to say fold here.

Okay so he did have the 67. I think a larger preflop raise could help get some folds there, but he may elect to play it anyway, and that's fine. Just make sure we're charging him to do so. But where this hand really goes off track is the turn call. Villain donks into us, this can have different meanings for different players, but in general this is more frequently a sign of strength. You do call, as well as another player, however the BB pots the turn. At this point villain should not be bluffing. He got called in two positions, he made this bet expecting (or hoping for the call). This bet sequence really causes me to narrow his range to very strong holdings, and we have to walk away.
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Hand 2)
Depending on villain, I'm going to 3bet this a lot. CO ranges, even among tight players, generally get a bit looser and AQ should have strong hand value against their CO opening range. If 3betting oop I prefer to go to ~4.5x their bet, in position I'll 3b ~3.5x.

So you check, the blind bets 1/4 pot, preflop raiser flats, then you min-raise...I don't mind the raise here. A min-raise preflop leaves lots of random holdings, so there could be 87, 89, 8T, 23, 24, 25 out there which leaves our position unsure with quite a few turn cards. Therefore taking the pot down while we likely have the best hand is fine. However, the min-raise is unlikely to do that. I would prefer you put in a solid raise here around pot. A pot-sized raise includes the amount your would call. Here the pot is $0.80 + $0.20 from CO and BB = $1.20 (Your $0.20 makes the pot $1.40 so a pot-sized raise would be $1.60). That's what I'd like to see, $1.60 to go. Instead we min-raise and of course get two calls, at least more money in the pot right?

Okay, turn peels an 8, that kind of sucks. I would bet/fold this street. Even though a min-raise, we raised the flop. Maintain the image, and bet out here. If you meet resistance give up. The CO bets 1/2 pot, and I'm a little conflicted. I think this might be a great place for a reverse blocker bet. If you check/raise to something like $3 here and he comes over the top, it's an easy fold. If instead he folds, that's fine too. If he flats, then we're check/folding the river because we expect the hands we beat to be afraid of betting again on the river after getting c/r'd on the turn. This saves us some money with a holding as such, because if he has us beat, but we just check/call two streets we don't know how much it's going to cost us. We played passively and may have the best hand, then again we could be beat, we just don't know. By raising the turn we set the maximum we're willing to commit for logical reasons, and can continue the hand with a plan.

River is a brick, we check, and he bets just over 1/2 pot. I don't think we can fold here, because there are several Qx hands we beat but he could think he's value-betting, so I'm fine with the call. And villain has one of the 8x holdings. Well one good thing is this illustrates my last point of the blocker bet. Had we raised to $3, we would have saved ourselves $0.66 on the hand. I won't type it all out, but think about it. Pretend your in his spot and you hold QJ, QK, T8, how do you react when you get c/r'd on the turn? Then apply that to our side of the hand here.
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Hand 3)
Same as before, top off and 4bb raise + 1bb per limper

I would have played the flop the same! Actually I would have played this whole hand the same. Playing with effective stacks of 47bb and you flop TPTK. At the flop Pot = $1.20 and remaining stacks are $4.44. This is a fine spot to commit with TPTK.

On the turn Pot is $2.80 with $3.64 behind, I like the bet size. 1/2 pot allows those weaker Tx's to come along and sets up another small river bet that commits his stack. He shows up with a better hand this time, moving on
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Hand 4)
I'm wondering what's affecting your flop cbet size. Last hand you bet $0.80 into $1.20 (2/3 pot) on a dry board with TPTK. This hand you bet 1/2 pot on a dry board. I like to stick to cbets of at least 2/3 pot. You're betting because you either want to take the money that's in the middle now or get a worse hand to call. If villain has a hand that he's calling with, he's probably around the same probability to call a 2/3, 3/4, or even pot as he is the 1/2. So do yourself a favor and bet a little more when it's for value.

Turn is a Jack of spades, makes the straight for 89, and puts basically every single other hand with a king in it ahead of us. Notice that now KT, KJ, and AK all are ahead of us, not great. A ten might have called a flop bet, but probably can't stand up to the two overcards on the board plus a double barrel. At this point I don't see a hand worse than ours that will call a bet here, so I say check. Instead hero bets 1/2 pot and MP calls. At this point he's either drawing, or we're behind. The 89 draw made it on the turn, JQ is possible but one Jack is on the board and one Queen in our hand, so unlikely...not seeing many draws, so when he finds a call on our turn bet that's probably not good.

River doesn't really change anything. We go from one to two pair, but KT made the boat, KJ still has better two pair, and AK has same two pair and outkicks us. Also if villain did somehow peel two barrels with a naked Ten, well he just got there. I would check and probably check/fold. Hero 1/2 pots and....oh that sucks he got there on the river. That was my least likely expected hand for him, however the bright side is I'd make a note that villain called 2 1/2pot barrels even when a 2nd overcard hit on the turn and look to exploit later by value betting top pair holdings for three streets.
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Hand 5)
Did you hear me or something? Great job raising a more proper size, you're already improving! Notice how this raise isolated to a heads up pot immediately. Not saying it's solely because you raise a bit larger, but that helps I promise!

Aw, you let me down on the flop. You took the initiative preflop, maintain it. 94J rainbow is fairly devoid of draws, one broadway card on there, great time to cbet 2/3 pot ($0.60) and end the hand probably about 1/2 the time.

Turn spikes our Q, nice. And villain now donks for less than 1/2 pot...less happy about that. I'm flatting here hoping that he's betting a Jack or 9 and hoping my ace high will call his small bet. If I raise now I blow him off these holdings that pay me and leave the things like T8, J9, JQ, 99, 44, JJ, QQ.

Hero instead min-raises, and gets 3bet. Well at least now we got our answer, this is a fold. Unfortunately that message didn't get across and Hero flats, there's nothing good that can happen after this. If he was playing one of those weaker hands we beat, he should have given up even after the min-raise. When he sticks in a 3bet on top of it we have to let it go. This is similar to a Baluga Theorum spot at this point in the hand. I feel like this call here is not based on logic other than "I have TPTK and I think that's better than whatever junk villain has". A line of thinking similar to what I'd typed above as I was reading the hand will lead you to clearer thinking at the table.

I don't know what happens on the river yet, but I'd be quite willing to guess it goes villain bets, Hero calls, villain shows T8 or KT. Yeah, there it is.
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Okay, so my #1 suggestion for you is to really start working on thinking about the other player's holding. It seems like right now you're playing level 1 poker, where you hand has an absolute value in a vacuum.

This is an extremely common thing, especially at uNL. The tendency is to think the other players are all awful, and will call down three streets with any piece of the board. This may have been true in the past, but not really anymore. Players in general are better, and play more soundly than in the past.

Try and understand what ranges people can be on, and how your betting or decision to check can alter that range and what portions the villain will be able to continue in the hand with. This will go a long way towards making better decisions at the table.
 
IPlay

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Hand 1 PFR is too small, fold turn. What are you beating here?

Hand 2 Wtf, flop min raise??

Hand 3 I am probably checking flop or turn since the board is so dry you need to be wondering what villain has here if he has no draws

Hand 4 Not to bad here, I would consider x/c on the river or a smaller blocker bet.

Hand 5 You have to cbet a flop this dry that you miss. As played fold river.
 
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I'd say this is MUCH better playing overall. There's still some things that could be patched up. The hand where you hold KK against AA worked out but you misplayed it a bit. Remember, you have to be putting your opponent on a range. If you 3-bet an UTG raiser, and they return a 4-bet, they've significantly narrowed their range. It's basically KK, AA, AK, and sometimes a 4-bet bluff, but rarely. Since you have KK, it's probably not KK or AK. You're read should be "ok, my opponent has AA". If you think your opponent might not, you still want to be playing for pot control toward the river. In the mean time, KK against AA is no different than 44 vs AA. Now, if I have my opponent on a decided range, I'll get involved simply because I know how to exploit that situation. Losing $10 getting involved with pocket pairs against AA is fine for me if I do hit my set and feel I can get more than $10 out of it. Which I usually can. Make sense? In that situation, stop thinking of KK as KK, and start thinking about it more like 44.

I don't mind betting .30 into .44 against two players leading out the flop in hand 2. Chances are one of them has a smaller A/middle pair, so it's your best chance to get value. They're 20% with strong reverse odds so I think you want one float and then a bigger bet on the turn. But I think you could have made it a little steeper: .36 is probably the right number in this spot.

First hand, your UTG raise is a bit light. Now, I've played many hands exactly the way you set it up. 3x or 3.5xBB with a medium pair from UTG. But, I do this with some contingency. As is, you want to narrow the range that's calling against you, so I'd suggest 4.5xBB or 5xBB. Playing against a predictable range is much better than drawing in 9Ts. Because if over cards hit the flop (which they will), you want it to be less likely someone is holding an 8, 9, or T. And obviously if you do hit your set, the bigger the pot, the more likely you are to get all them chips.

I like the double barrel on the dry board with AK. Remember, it's only bluffing if you are likely behind and repping a hand that's likely ahead. In this case, with a dry flop and turn like that you are very likely ahead with AK. Villain most likely floated with a gut shot and not much else.

With the following AJ hand, I understand the limp. But notice how when the ace comes you get mucks all around? Turning something like AJ into a pure drawing hand can work, but it's a tricky play and can backfire very fast. On the other hand, while it might seem predictable, raising here is your best shot at value. You might get folds around.. but that's exactly what you got on the flop. Raising pre-flop on the other hand might get calls from speculative hands like 89s. These are the hands you want calling you out of position - you profit by your opponent making a mistake. Now, let's say you go for the limp, it checks around to you, you bet, and your BB player raises you. Now what? Exactly.

Your 99 raise on the button - I only like this if your SB/BB is a call station. If you're playing fairly tight, I like 4xBB. If you are playing much loser on the button than 2.5 or 3xBB is better, as you can get it in with speculative hands as well as strong hands. Big raises are intimidating. So are unpredictable ranges.



Anyway, the mistakes that you are making show that you are already playing better, and now you can start to iron out the wrinkles.
 
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By the way, I think the hand you played with AA that lost to a straight on the river is an example of solid playing, even though the results weren't in your favor.

The flop hits with a 6, a 9, and two cards are hearts. So there's a lot of draws out there. .50 into .75 isn't bad, but even a pot sized bet here is good. Either way, getting people to overplay their draws is good.

The K is a blank for you, and I like the big bet if you feel you can get someone to over play 78, or two hearts in the hole.

When the river hits the 5 of hearts - that completes both of the likely draws. So when your opponent checks I like the check back. Even if it was the 2 hearts, or 5 clubs, I would like a check back here. The only thing you get value from on that river is KT/KQ/KJ/AK. Everything else is either folding or beating you. So unless you can narrow your opponent to that range, checking back is the way to go.
 
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to post a hand, click on the blue tick and press cntrl v here
 
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