Please help me

I'm so frustrated. I used to play poker a while back at a level far beyond what I could afford. Not surprisingly I lost. I took a long break, and came back at micro level sit and gos. I use tools (SNG Wiz), read articles, analyzed my game, and had 30x buy ins. I built it up to 40x buy ins and things were going well.
Since then everything has crashed, and I'm down to 7x buy in. It started with AA getting cracked 4x in a row. I kept my cool. Then AK losing to AQ; AJ losing to A10 etc..., I lost my cool a bit, but didn't go on tilt. Then I lost 8 races in meaningful situations. Then every decision I made was wrong. I push with K10, they have KJ. I push with AQ they have AK. Finally, I've lost the last 15 60/40 splits in a row. I get that pushing with KQ may result in a loss, but if it's done at the right time it is fine. Now I freely admit I haven't been playing the best poker, but I haven't been playing nearly as bad as the results seem to indicate. I've lost with overpairs, I've lost with higher kickers, I've lost with lower kickers, live cards are useless, and on the bubble when a stack shorter then my goes all in they inevitably get doubled up.

Someone please help me!!!

Losing 60/40's and 80/20's is variance, not much you can do there. Kinda hard to tell you if your play is lacking in any way, we would need to see some hands. Post some hands in the Hand Analysis section. In these SNG's you need to keep track of your M and your stack in relation to your opponent's stack sizes. When you shoved with KQ how big was your stack and what were the blinds? I would rather open shove with any two cards with an M of 10 or 12 than shove KQ suited with an M of 7.

I am a cash player so, I have no specific sit n go advice. But, my general advice is this:

1.) Variance: Its a stone cold bitch. Variance only rights itself over extremely large sample sizes...thus the bank roll management principles.

2.) Tilt: You admitted that you were not playing your best poker. You may not think you are fully tilted because you aren't going all in with 72o...but, a bad variance swing combined with a little tilt can make things spiral out of control = huge tilt/massive spew.

3.) Take a Break: Walk away from the monitor...don't play again until you feel like playing. Do not play trying to get even. Do not play trying to break even. Play every hand and every situation to the best of your ability with no thought about the past or future. Remember, this game is 100% skill and 100% luck.

you need 100 buy ins to be safe in sng, a loss of 30-40 is going to happen at some stage if you play a lot no matter who you are

I play sng's as well and am having a bad run too. Luckily I have a coach to keep me focused and in line. He helps me review a lot of my hands and we are doing a little bit of tweaking - but the bottom line is that we are finding I am not making many mistakes - I am just having a bad run. We will all have these and just have to work through them.

He did make a good suggestion - that I take one day a week and make it my study day. On that day I won't play any sng's - I will review hands, review my lessons, watch videos, read books - all of the things I currently struggle with making time for. Then the next day I can dig back in to playing again.

dakota-xx said:

He did make a good suggestion - that I take one day a week and make it my study day. On that day I won't play any sng's - I will review hands, review my lessons, watch videos, read books - all of the things I currently struggle with making time for. Then the next day I can dig back in to playing again.

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that is an awesome idea and I'm going to steal it.

You know, it's interesting that the one thing I've learned is not to worry about losing money. Just enjoy poker for what it is. Whenever I get stressed about how I lost the last 3 SnGs I start playing badly and play like I want to win the SnG right now. So, I have a tendency to get more reckless and make stupid decisions. So, rather than worrying about losing instead just try to focus on the game you're currently in and making the best decisions and focusing on how the other players play to get reads on them.

Absolutely great advice listed above. I see your post count is still at 1, I hope you stick around because you have found the best site on the web to help you learn and grow as a poker player! Best of luck & welcome to CC!

Variance is a b!tch when it kicks in. But keep ya head up and stay focused!

Post some hand history's in the Tournament Hand Analysis section for people to have a look at what ur doing wrong?

Hmm

Perhaps you need a mentor to help you along.If you really want to move up.Id pick someone alot better than myself tho,lol.With all the info you stated,perhaps ya might be over analyzing your game,I dunno.Theres alot of very very good players here.I hope you can get things movin the right direction.

there's not much you can do about this, its just the variance of poker. everyone goes on bad runs here and there. I've worked my bankroll up from $0 to $500, only to lose it all. Right now i have $3.60, but who knows, maybe that will turn into $500 again. Most important thing is to remind yourself that it is just variance, and you'll soon be winning again.

I agree with everything being said, it's all good advice. I find the most difficult thing about hitting a bad run is the self doubt that starts to kick in. As your BR gets smaller we tend to play "scared". These two things actually do change our game. It's always good to take a break when on a bad run. When you come back you will feel that excitement again.

Right my advice to you as a micro SnG player i had $40 which gave me roughkly about 30 buy ins to $1.20 sit and goes and hell i go over the top and start playing high stakes. DUMB! but anyway so i am down to $4 and currently 3 weeks later (havnt been playing much) I have $30 what you need to do is when running bad is seriously sit back and cool it. There is so many donkeys online that your nice hands will get cracked. Only play AA AK AQ possibly KK QQ or JJ the problem is you need to wait. However when it comes down to it you will usually get into the top 3. I recommend $1.20 9 handed turbo They get people out faster buy the blinds are at about 50/10 or 100/200 u should be in the cash Good luck