Running Bad, How To Cope

Played 4 tournaments in a row last week and got my money in ahead in all of them and busted out on the turn or river in all of them. What is the best strategy here? Should I sit out and play tomorrow? Should I keep playing because I know eventually getting my money in with the best hand will be profitable? Study up until I can deposit more to pad my BR?

I have a mostly LAG style but often find myself trying to change up the playing style after a couple bad beats and get a little more conservative and I find myself being forced into much more difficult situations then had I played my usual aggro style. I feel like Im just a few small tweaks away from being consistently profitable but sometimes it seems the changes I make are actually hurting my game.

Any advice here would be great

Honestly, it all depends on how you are feeling, and how prone to tilting you are. I would probably sit out, myself, until tomorrow, but if you've got thick skin and things like that don't affect your play...you can keep on playing. Don't change your style because you had a bad beat...if the style is working for you before the beat... why change it?

Styrofoam said:

Don't change your style because you had a bad beat...if the style is working for you before the beat... why change it?

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My thought process sometimes is that if I get sucked out on because I shoved on the turn and someone is calling with a gut shot and hits in on the river then I could have played it more conservative and maybe gotten away from my losing hand after the river hits pending reads and chip utility

Right off the bat a couple of things occur to me.

1. 4 tourneys and not cashing is so normal, and not run bad at all.

2. Post some hands in the HH section. Take the ones you busted on. If you play bovada you cant save them, so do it form memory or try a screen recording.

BovadaReg said:

My thought process sometimes is that if I get sucked out on because I shoved on the turn and someone is calling with a gut shot and hits in on the river then I could have played it more conservative and maybe gotten away from my losing hand after the river hits pending reads and chip utility

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Just read this. If you make your bet big enough with a good hand and someone calls with a GS and hits, than so be it. You WANT them to call a turn shove with a GS, as long as your hand is best when the GS misses - which it will mostly do.

As Fletch said.... 4 losses don't equal running bad.

Take a quick break, an hour, a day, a week...whatever works for you.

And as Styro said, if your style works then don't change it BUT.....
a good player develops a style and works it, a great player knows when to change gears.

BovadaReg said:

My thought process sometimes is that if I get sucked out on because I shoved on the turn and someone is calling with a gut shot and hits in on the river then I could have played it more conservative and maybe gotten away from my losing hand after the river hits pending reads and chip utility

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If they have 4 cards that make their hand and 1 card to come, they are roughly 4/46 or about 9% to make their hand... if they are only 2:1 on their money and no money behind for implied odds...they are making a mistake. More often than not you are going to rake those chips right in....and if you don't you still made the right play. Think of it this way...

You have 100 chips.... 10 times you push all in against the gut shot guy and get called each time.. you win 9 times and lose once. you make 900$, (not counting what is already in the pot) and lose 100 for a net profit of 800$ by pushing...

if you bet 40 on the turn, and he calls with his gut shot every time, he makes his hand the same number of times, but you're only netting 320 chips... and moreover, you're allowing him to draw cheaper with mroe implied odds AND you give him fold equity on your hand if a different card comes (still scary to your hand) and you fold the better hand if he bluffs. Its best to get all your chips in when you're a big favorite. To think of it one more way, you wouldn't change the way you played if:

You hold AcAd, you raise and get reraised by a donkey for half your stack, you push all in and he calls and turns over 7s2h, and flops a full house.... its the same concept.

Leo 50 said:

As Fletch said.... 4 losses don't equal running bad.

Take a quick break, an hour, a day, a week...whatever works for you.

And as Styro said, if your style works then don't change it BUT.....
a good player develops a style and works it, a great player knows when to change gears.

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Right, change your gears at the table and play the table.. but don't change your entire style just because you lost some tournaments or big hands.

Four times? You will have to deal with a LOT worse than that, like 10 times worse.

By the way if your LAG your swings are likely to be worse in the long run.

How to deal with it? I'm not 100% sure on this myself yet, I still struggle with taking bad beats...I guess it comes in time but the most normal one is just to stay away for a day because the last thing you want to do is tilt away your roll.

Worked up a good 2:1 chip lead HeadsUp today.
Got it in good AQ against A2, they sucked a 2 okay thats poker.
Couple hands later get it allin again AJsuited against A8off, this time flops an 8 and another 8 on the river. I was fuming.
Time to visit the rigged thread.

How to cope? Quit playing on such rigged sites and read through the cardschat forum for some calming.
Clearly still isn't working.

Just have to take the hits and drop down to lower buyins until the luck and bankroll improve.

Not cashing 4 times is nothing, I am taking part in a Bankroll challenge on poker stars and I am playing 45 man SNG's, I started yesterday and I have played 18 SNG's and not cashed in one, thats poker and it happens to us all.
The natural thing to do when this happens is to get either ultra conservative or become a maniac, both of which are deadly.
I have suffered some horrendous bad beats but you have just got to keep playing your normal game, it is very hard but the key to getting through these bad runs is to keep playing your normal game but as others have said 4 without cashing is not a bad run, even my run of 18 is not the worst.
Luckily i have been through bad runs and good runs often enough to know that neither lasts forever

BovadaReg said:

My thought process sometimes is that if I get sucked out on because I shoved on the turn and someone is calling with a gut shot and hits in on the river then I could have played it more conservative and maybe gotten away from my losing hand after the river hits pending reads and chip utility

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This ^ is exactly how you don't want to be thinking.

Also, just curious but you're saying you're getting yourself in tough spots when you're not playing LAG style? I would think it'd be the opposite as 'good' LAG play requires one to be a competent postflop player. Unless you mean when you're not playing your LAG style you're actually playing passive. (prob better off playing TAG imo).

Also, 4 beats is REALLY NOTHING! Seriously.. if you're going to continue to play MTTs I'd suggest getting used to it now. As others have said (& will say).. '4 is nothing'... there'll be times on a single day when you're getting crushed dozens of times while playing great in MTTs. It's the nature of the game... they can be pretty brutal to the mind set.
After awhile you'll be happy when an 80/20 aipf holds.. or better yet, won't even watch the screen to see the showdown as you'll be too occupied moving on to your next decision on another table.

4 tourneys? Serious misunderstanding of variance. I haven't had a decent cash in well over a hundred tourneys this year. It's what a MTT player should expect.

I feel like Im just a few small tweaks away from being consistently profitable but sometimes it seems the changes I make are actually hurting my game.

I find that often times the changes I make hurt me in the short run as I am not really experienced in the nuances of them (in poker and golf) but after a while they tend to be useful as I get more experience with them i'm able to properly apply them in the different situations. I have to agree with the other posters 4 games + LAG is not even the begining of a meaningful run history.

Yeah 4 tournaments is a very small sample, even the top tournament players do not cash that high a percent but when they do, they usually make it deep

When you ask yourself how you could have won a hand where you lost big due to a suckout, or even how you could have lost less, that's counter-productive; i.e you're asking yourself a question you shouldn't be. Basically, when someone is drawing thin against you, you want the pot to be as large as possible because it maximizes your EV. Yes, you lose more when the opponent hit, but as already pointed out, you end up doing far better due to winning the max the majority of times when your hand holds up.

And 4 tournaments is a negligible non-cashing streak. If you're talking MTTs, a lot pay about 10% of the field; i.e. the straight mathematical expectation is cashing 1 time in 10, In any block of 10 where you cash once, it's impossible not to have at least 5 consecutive non-cashes.

of course variance is going to happen over way larger sample size then 4 games my point was to just illustrate how getting sucked out a couple of tournaments in a row can throw you off your game and how to cope with that. I wasnt trying to make it a pissing contest of who has had worse runs. thanks for the advice to those who gave it

I've come to the conclusion that bad beats and your opponent catching river magic is the norm when it comes to internet poker. I'm under the impression that this is a big part of the online game.

I used to think it was happening to me so often that it was a way for the game sites tolevel the playing field, but I learned that this doesn't make sense, and of course the games aren't rigged... I used to feel that way

I'll lose up to 5 or more SnG's and or MTT's before I reach the money in small priced tourneys, and it's all part of playing

Arjonius said:

, In any block of 10 where you cash once, it's impossible not to have at least 5 consecutive non-cashes.

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huh? impossible? why? (one particular tourney that I was playing on a site... with avg. player field ~600entrants, I cashed 5 of 7 times playing it & overall I'm itm 50% in it)

Eddie Leeway said:

I'll lose up to 5 or more SnG's and or MTT's before I reach the money in small priced tourneys, and it's all part of playing

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Sometimes I lose upwards of 30 mtt's in-a-row & one stretch I lost 21 STT-SNG in-a-row.

I had a link before but can't find it...NoahSD of Subject: Poker/2+2 fame did a study using Shaun Deeb's results once. Long story short: Even total sickos have huge downswings that can last for 1,000 games or more very easily. LOL@ running bad for 4 tourneys.

If losing AJ to A8 or something 10 times in a row tilts you, you should not play MTTs. In fact, most people should not play MTTs. Also, if you are only getting it in good then you are not getting it in often enough.

Why are there so many threads about this topic? learn to understand variance and get over it, and if you think you are playing poorly or missing spots, do some more study.

duggs said:

Why are there so many threads about this topic? learn to understand variance and get over it, and if you think you are playing poorly or missing spots, do some more study.

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ask a question, study the responses, improve ur game......

isnt that what this site is for?

no ur right its better just to criticize people who you think are beneath u in skill level... if there were a smiley with a middle finger up this is when i would post it

I'd say buy the minimum rank SNG's till the slump curves...

If you seriously have an issue with losing when ahead 4 times and then get ticked off at someone giving you the correct response, then don't play poker. If you ask questions you better expect answers you don't like sometimes. IF you can't handle criticism then don't ask and definitely don't play poker.

:hahaha: :hahaha: :thefinger :icon_pira