I need help!!!

Ok, ive been reading this forum alot and most of you guys seem to know what you are talking about alot of the time so im seeking your help.

I learned to play poker 2 years ago, i fell in love with the game and quickly became the expert in my group of friends, once i actually won 8 times in a row. We play small tourneys, 5-6 guys and the first price is often about 50-100 bucks.

Then i went to look for other games with higer stakes and found a group of guys who play cash games and bigger tourneys and joined them with mixed succsess. They where mutch more skilled than my friends that I played with before. But to make a long story short i quit playing with them.

My life long study of the game had started and 7 months ago i started playing on the internet. Thats where my problem lies. I have spent about 700 bucks every month for the last 7 months, and during that time I have learned alot.

These 700 dollars a month are not my problem, i have learned so mutch during this time and i consider myself a really good player now after reading, watching and playing poker for the last half a year or so.
You might think "this guy is loosing 700 a month and he still thinks hes good" But i make more right decisions at the table than wrong.

So here is my problem,game selection and bankroll management! Probably the best example of my terrible bankroll management is when i deposited 50 bucks on fulltilt 3 months ago. In 24 hours I went from 50, to 1000. 48 hours later, it was zero,0! I know, big ass tilt, but this is really the story of my poker carrier so far. I win more heads up games than i loose, i do realy well at single table sit and gos and im a good cash game player.
This happenes alot, I make a deposit, my bankroll grows, 50%, 100%, 200%, 500% whatever. But i always blow it. There is always so mutch going on on these sites, i might win 8 out of 10, 20$ heads up matches, and then i see a MTT with 150 dollar buy in and 50 grand guaranteed. I join that tourney, and bust because of a 3 outer suckout bad beat on the river. Then i say to myself, this is not fair, and try to win it all back in one heads up match for 200$ or somtheng like that. I meet a hugely skilled player there and there we go, a loss of 350$ in a hour.

I have no doupt i have what it takes to be a "winning" player and make alot of money playing online poker. Whenever i try to pace myself and try to control my bankroll a little i make money. I once started with 60 bucks and played heads up 6 dollar matches and i was up to 400 in a week. the same with single table sit and gos, i started with 80 and in 4 days i was up to 600. But i always blow it away in some crazy fashion like the one above.

So my question is, how do you dicipline yourself, what advice would you give me and next month, what should i play for my 700 bucks.
I realy need help because i know i have the skills to make money, im just too mutch of a moron to make use of it because i take these crazy downswings when i play way out of my limit and loose it all at once.

How do you motivate yourself to play only in games you can afford?

Sorry my grammar,
cheers, karohin

1st of all tell us how you went from 50 bucks to 1000 in 24 hours? We need to know what you were doing.. Cash games? Tournys? SNG's?


2nd of all, you kinda already answered your main question. You have problems with managing your bank.. So just set up limits.. Just keep setting limits every single day. Once you meet that goal or Limit... Don't play poker, just do anything but don't play poker

Possible options:
Have a meal, and not at the computer.

Have sex

Jack off to porn

Do some exercise (lift weights)


Anything that uses your mind with the hope that it clears your head of poker for the short term.

Then after your break, go back to cashing big

"Anything that uses your mind with the hope that it clears your head of poker for the short term."

Thats good, just put up a boxing bag in my apartment, might be a use for it now.

What prevents you from breaking your own limits when you have bad spells? Practice?

I won these 1000 dollars mostly playing heads up and single tables. Ran pretty good that day

just operate it like a business.... lets say you want to win 100 bucks... once you reach the 100 bucks, you take a break.... and after the break you come back fresh to make another 100

2

I think you started out too high.You might shoulda started playing freerolls and earning your way up.This way you learn as you go.In your situation its hard to tell you how to bankroll.I would set a limit on how much you lose to start with..i hope this helps some.

bankroll management is the key, I have been on both ends. REad Fergusons blog on full tilt.

the best motivation to play the affordable limits is to realize that you'll still have a br when you play the next week....that feeling of not having a br sucks, and that feeling should be your motivation.

Also if you can affor to lose 700$ a month then BRM should not be a problem at higher limits since the way i play is that you play mtts with 2% of your br and cash games(max buyin) at 5% of your br......so 700$ deposit I'm playing 14$ mtts and sngs and playing 25nl cash games.....that should be high enough to releive your high stakes, but maybe you need more and that's a problem.

Another good way to stay motivated is that if you play brm(bank roll management) eventually you'll move up in limits and sustain a br at those high limits you like without busting you br.....so eventually you could get there with hard work!

edit: search this forum through its search engine...key words bank roll management...good articles everywhere...also search the tilt articles, tons of ways to not go on a rampage tilt spending spree

nightmoves44 said:

I think you started out too high.You might shoulda started playing freerolls and earning your way up.This way you learn as you go.In your situation its hard to tell you how to bankroll.I would set a limit on how much you lose to start with..i hope this helps some.

Click to expand...

well i would'nt recomend starting with freerolls donkfests based more on luck than poker skills and it might make you think that you should actually play that way and you will end up loosing when you start playing cash

One thing I found when I started was that I could do well on tournaments, but put me on a ring table with the money I had won and it disappeared quicker than a nuns virginity in a brothel..

After severak months of winning it with one hand then blowing it away with the other I then disciplined myself to stay away from where I was losing the majority of what I won on other games.

Instead of taking $30 to a ring table I would play 10 $3 sit and gos, and I found that out of those 10 I maybe cashed in 6 winning at least 2. That put me in profit and kept my interest going because my challenge was to cash in 10 out of the 10. The best I ever managed was cashing in 8.

So to cut it short, find out which game suits you, whether it be limit, NL, SNG, MTT whatever, and work on that. Stick to what you find comfortable and can cash in on. Stay away from the game that costs you money

thx for the answers guys, ist all about pacing yourself in my case. Thank you for helping me realise that

karohin, enter br management in the search engine here(or google, I guess!) for real solid advice, and GL!

karohin said:

thx for the answers guys, ist all about pacing yourself in my case. Thank you for helping me realise that

Click to expand...

Its not just about pacing yourself. It is to become aware of yourself in relation to the game. You say you are a "winner". You havent proven that yet. All you have done is basically "lose". Sorry to be so blunt but if you want to correct these problems you have to face them head on and be honest.
No winning poker player builds his BR 2000% and then loses it all. Thats a gambler. And a gambler is not in it for the money but the action itself. A gambler not only becomes a burden to himself but to those around him. A winning poker player builds and fortifies his gains.
Learning how to win is a difficult proposition. This takes more than 2 years of playing poker.
Pacing yourself is only part of it. It is understanding the math. Chris Ferguson says that you should bet only 2% of your BR in tournament fees. Some say you should have 200 BB. If you are betting $150 per event, you should have $7500 in your BR.
It is seeing as Sklansky says not just one hand or one session or one day. But poker is a long term affair. It is how you do at the end of the year. You have to read, study, observe the good players, ask questions, manage money, and commit yourself to the rigors of the game. Without this all your attempts will end in loss.