$2 NLHE Full Ring: Constantly Getting Burned - What Am I Not Seeing

OK, first off, this isn't me whining about a bad beat. I play enough to know and accept they're going to happen, too often unfortunately, and that's poker.

However, hands like this happen too often to me to accept, I have to be doing something wrong or not seeing something I should be seeing. Every day for the past 5 or 6 days there's been several like this.

In the case of this hand, villain and I joined the table about the same time and had about a dozen hands played, so his stats at this time are non-conclusive.

Board wasn't paired, so a FH wasn't possible, straight or a smaller flush was likely, but had that covered, and I was hoping he had that or a set. But the result wasn't anticipated, in fact, I think the odds of this happening again are higher than me winning a lottery.

pokerstars No-Limit Hold'em, $0.02 BB (6 handed) - PokerStars Converter Tool from http://www.flopturnriver.com

MP ($3.80)
CO ($1.21)
Button ($1.71)
SB ($1.98)
Hero (BB) ($2.95)
UTG ($1.64)

Preflop: Hero is BB with A , 8
4 folds, SB raises to $0.06, Hero calls $0.04

Flop: ($0.12) 10 , J , K (2 players)
SB checks, Hero checks

Turn: ($0.12) A (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.02, SB calls $0.02

River: ($0.16) 5 (2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $0.06, SB raises to $0.32, Hero raises to $0.58, SB raises to $1.90 (All-In), Hero calls $1.32

Total pot: $3.96 | Rake: $0.14

Results below:
In around 5 minutes of this hand across 4 tables, I had had P-Ks X 2, P-Qs, P-Js and A-K suited X 2, all with little or no action. So maybe shame on me for slow-playing a flopped nut flush and trying to get someone to play with me. Do I need to forget about slow-playing anything to try to get some hands to play out?

http://www.boomplayer.com/en/poker-hands/Boom/7669830_18D1CF0F1F

Here's another one that happened a couple of days ago. In this case the villain was playing very loose and betting anything and raising everything. But nothing in his play gave me any indication on what he had. Needless to say I was shocked when I saw his hand:

http://www.boomplayer.com/poker-hands/Boom/7647451_430A9A8448

Like I said above, not complaining about bad beats (which the 2nd hand above isn't) but just wondering what I'm doing wrong or not seeing. I'm starting to get gun-shy and afraid to bet on anything

As a note, here's a graph of what I did today in ~ 300 hands. I did pretty good to claw back from that early 100+ bb drop, but I'm getting frustrated of always having to climb out of a hole.

VPIP - 11.11
PFR - 6.73
WSTD % - 30.95
WSD - 76.92



Thoughts, comments or advice are greatly appreciated.

Yuck on that hand just uber unlucky really.

I can't see the picture but are those your stats you have there, wow are you playing tight for 6max, probably just the small sample perhaps but that is uber nit stat on 6max which would possibly explain getting little to no action when your raising it up with a big hand.

BluffMeAllIn said:

Yuck on that hand just uber unlucky really.

I can't see the picture but are those your stats you have there, wow are you playing tight for 6max, probably just the small sample perhaps but that is uber nit stat on 6max which would possibly explain getting little to no action when your raising it up with a big hand.

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No, it was full ring, 1 empty seat and must have been 2 sitting out.

Yes, I was playing NITTY as like I said above, I'm getting gun-shy. Lots of hands are shyte like J-5, K-rag, etc OOP, and very playable hands in late position like middle pairs or A-K, I'm getting 3 or 4 bets before it even gets to me and obviously not calling or raising with that.

ah ok, just saw the six players fig it was 6max. not so bad given its full and if being pretty much card dead. Hopefully it turns around, sounds like a pretty loose table hopefully you can sit down and smash them in a session yet

Ouch! The first hand there isn't much you can do about...checking the flop is fine there however on the turn I don't really get your min bet....would likely bet a little more from that spot to try and build a pot.....the river you played fine and just got the bad news that your 2nd nuts was beat..its just one of those hands where your bound to go broke...As for the 99 hand that's just a cooler..however looking at that and your other BOOM hands it seems your limping too much...At a cash table your standard raise should be 3x or 3.5x...in MTTs it should be 2x or 2.5x limping is just a weak play and that's a habit you need to break....pot control is key and its what you get by raising preflop....With a hand like 99 at a cash table...the last thing you want there is others to limp behind for a cheap price...Hope you run better

SeaRun said:

OK, first off, this isn't me whining about a bad beat. I play enough to know and accept they're going to happen, too often unfortunately, and that's poker.

However, hands like this happen too often to me to accept, I have to be doing something wrong or not seeing something I should be seeing. Every day for the past 5 or 6 days there's been several like this.

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Those two statements don't fit together. If you really did accept these situations, you wouldn't be posting this whining. No offense honestly, but you are whining. We've all been there, and it sucks when you run bad. However, spots like this where you're only beat by a straight flush are going to happen. You're never folding this hand ever... so is the issue that you are just running bad and need to vent?

John A said:

Those two statements don't fit together. If you really did accept these situations, you wouldn't be posting this whining. No offense honestly, but you are whining. We've all been there, and it sucks when you run bad. However, spots like this where you're only beat by a straight flush are going to happen. You're never folding this hand ever... so is the issue that you are just running bad and need to vent?

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+1



Also just analyse your other losing hands... Where else are you losing money? OOP or IP ? Blinds? ... Just keep chipping away and trim the fat and you'll find these coolers are a dip but longterm you should see an improvement but if not... You just need to work harder.

It's 2nl. Why is it so important to try to play tricky? Checking the flop isn't awful, but neither is betting. But .02 on the turn? What can possibly explain that except FPS?

John A said:

Those two statements don't fit together. If you really did accept these situations, you wouldn't be posting this whining. No offense honestly, but you are whining. We've all been there, and it sucks when you run bad. However, spots like this where you're only beat by a straight flush are going to happen. You're never folding this hand ever... so is the issue that you are just running bad and need to vent?

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Well, no offense taken, but I don't think I'm whining, and yes, maybe venting, but 3 times in the OP including the subject, I mentioned "what am I not seeing" or "What am I doing wrong".

Now what's really bothering me is how often things like this happen. Besides the hands I posted above over the last few days:

• P-Qs in my hand, flop is K-K-Q, betting goes 'till he's all in and pot is ~ 250 bbs. Turn and River are K & K, he turns over A-J suited, he wins.
• I can't count the number of times I've had TPTK and he's holding an over-pair.
• Numerous times I've flopped a set, only to find out he's flopped a bigger set
• Higher flushes and higher straights are part of the game and betting, but the number of times it happened in the past few days all adds to my frustrations.

We know poker is a game of ups and downs, hence why there is so much BR management preached here, to cover those downs. Now to me, a definition of a "down" is card dead for a while, and some bad beats once in a while or losing a "FEW" hands like above, but this run has been brutal, with almost no bad beats or getting rivered by donks all-in on an inside draw (which is also going to happen).

Like I said, what am I not seeing? Am I blind to something? Is this many shyte hands really a true definition of a cooler?

Aces2w1n said:

+1



Also just analyse your other losing hands... Where else are you losing money? OOP or IP ? Blinds? ... Just keep chipping away and trim the fat and you'll find these coolers are a dip but longterm you should see an improvement but if not... You just need to work harder.

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Losing money everywhere, position hasn't make a difference lately.

Arjonius said:

It's 2nl. Why is it so important to try to play tricky? Checking the flop isn't awful, but neither is betting. But .02 on the turn? What can possibly explain that except FPS?

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I wouldn't say I was trying to play tricky. I think the quote below from the OP pretty well explains the answer to your question.

SeaRun said:

SNIP<<<In around 5 minutes of this hand across 4 tables, I had had P-Ks X 2, P-Qs, P-Js and A-K suited X 2, all with little or no action. So maybe shame on me for slow-playing a flopped nut flush and trying to get someone to play with me. Do I need to forget about slow-playing anything to try to get some hands to play out?>>>>SNIP

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What were your reasons for checking the flop? And what was the plan/what you were hoping to happen.

OldschoolSteinhausen said:

What were your reasons for checking the flop? And what was the plan/what you were hoping to happen.

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If you look above, on good hands, I was getting no action. Any bets at all by me were folded around. So with a monster flop like that, I was hoping the villain was going to hook a set, or a straight, smaller flush, anything to get some action.

SeaRun said:

If you look above, on good hands, I was getting no action. Any bets at all by me were folded around. So with a monster flop like that, I was hoping the villain was going to hook a set, or a straight, smaller flush, anything to get some action.

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Ok I see what you are saying. Since you didn't think you'd get action a check on the surface seems like the right play.

Consider this view point....

Digging deeper into the situation, it seems you felt like your image is tight and you weren't going to get any action because of it.

Although people aren't giving you much action (probably because of your image), if you take a free card you are not going to earn much extra from these guys neways. You'll be lucky to earn maybe one turn bet by a brave stabber. If you are hoping that the free card will help someone catch up...its true, they will. However the board will look so nasty that you still won't earn much action.

Your best bet is to build a pot and bet flop, fully knowing they are going to fold alot. Fully knowing that when they don't fold, you can likely build a decent sized pot.


One the other hand, if you think they were playing tight for the sake of playing tight and that it has nothing to do with you, checking could be the right thing to do. IN this scenario they will conceivably bet the turn alot more often, and if you were to raise them, they may play along.

Whats funny about this hand is that the results are so far from normal that it should be completely disregarded. I know it hurts, I know... ALso, I'd advise that you play more hands pre and bluff postflop more. Post a hand that you get caught, and we'll analyze it.

your playing too tight and going to showdown too often.

you have probably convinced yourself your "better" hands deserve to win more often. problem is when people play back at a super tight player to showdown they often have you beat.

widen your range a little and don't commit yourself to your premium hands.

I have had multi-month downswings, and major downswing's where my EV was seperated from my results by 5 standard deviations. bad beats happen.

I suffered a similar bad run over Christmas. Couldn't win a hand, always running into the nuts, actually started feeling sick. Its called entitlement tilt, you've paid off their good hands and now no one is paying off your good cards and you are gettingfrustrated/ tilted about it.
My bad run has hardened me not to post anymore bad beat stories and to just get on with it. Its variance, I made good poker decisions. I recently read a Mike Caro snippet in which he equates your cards like the weather. Sometimes its sunny and plain sailing other times its stormy battern down and deal with it. You cannot change the weather or run of the cards so move on and wait for the clouds to lift.

SeaRun said:

I wouldn't say I was trying to play tricky.

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The ABC play is to bet since you likely have the better hand. Anything else is tricky. The question is just to what degree.

pretty lol villain risked you checking back the river

Usually when your opponent show weakness on both flop and turn then suddenly raise big on river it is likely that he holds the nuts. Your posted hand is just a set up, it is very tough not to lose your whole stack in this situation. But given your opponent move all-in on river after several raise-reraises, what do you put your opponent on? If he is a serious regular player would he move all in with less than Ace high flush? (If he had other normal flush he would have bet earlier to protect his hand from being outdrawn by an Ace of diamond).
It is like folding Kings preflop when you put your opponent on Aces. If you have good read on your opponent you can let your monster hands go profitably when you are sure your opponent can only hold the nuts!