Losing player or just variance?

Hey there poker community,

as this is my first post I thought I just give some insight about my poker journey, and wanted to ask if I could get some guidance on where to head, or just to stop, or how to improve my game:

I started out as a hobby player when I was about 18 and was invited to several home games with friends. Right from the beginning I really liked the game as it is, the different dynamics within different games etc.

Shorty after I started my first steps, online. Loaded up 150$ but basically lost it all in the next months. Since then I have gained and lost interest several times, only to find myself losing interest again after a massive downsing (I mostly grindend 0.50-1.50$ SNGs).

I gave it another shot this time and have noticed that my game and the understanding of ranges and moves has got way better, but I'm still nowhere near where I want to be (I still punt it off lightly sometimes when I tilted, when I lost a 60-40 flip etc).

Just wanted to know if there is anyone who was in the same situation and has some guidance for me?

I recently started analyzing my game using hud and holdem manager, but I feel like I still don't get the full potential of this software and how it can help my game.

Also started to mix it up with some zoom and cash-game in between and was able to deny some of the mtt and sng variance with it.

But I still don't know, whether Im just a losing player, super unlucky player etc. I know that my pre- and postflop play definitely has some room for improvement, but I still feel like I shouldn't get crushed so badly in these micro SNGs

This is why I recently started playing more time tourneys and mtts and feel like I excel there, rather than these SNGs and I get tilted quickly there.

Also wanted to ask if it's possible to share my sharkscope/propokerlabs in here (yard47)
Or if someone could anaylze my game in-depth (I would also be willing to pay)

There's always room for improvement. I don't think anybody will tell you to stop (we all want fish to keep playing) and there are many legitimate online clubs where you can take courses to get better. Before you do those, I would suggest maybe looking into BlackRain79 and reading some of his free material. It may get you enough information to start becoming profitable. Beyond that, there are clubs like Run It Once or Upswing Poker for more serious players. I suspect that the biggest issue for you may be tilt control and patience.

Thanks for the reply and you mentioning the guide of BlackRain79,

altough I seem to already implemented most of the strategies mentioned I realize that I still tend to fail executing them with the continuation of my sessions. Usually doing great in the beginning but it seems that I have to learn a lot in the part of controlling my emotions and quitting for the day if the emotions get a hold of me and thus blur my vision for good decision making.

And yes, after reading this I understand the gratidude of fish needing to keep p(l)aying the game ;D

Keep it up man..

Maybe try focusing more on cash games than sng I was in the same boat but this helped me a lot and with the far less variance I’m now a winning cash game player at least

My advice...

First of all, i like your post, it was honest and its good to see players willing to look at themselves and their play.

My first question would be - what tournaments do you like playing the most and what are those buy ins?

I would then ask, knowledge wise - how confident do you feel playing online, managing you bankroll and also of the maths/strategy side of poker with probabilities, hand ranges, pot odds, position etc etc?

I think that if you have identified areas you have improved on - thats great, keep doing what you are doing but make subtle changes and tweaks to areas you are not doing so well on - it may be simply changing what you play as much as how you play it.

What resources do you use? You have mentioned Huds and other but do you use Twitch and observe others playing, read other strategy articles and picks out ways you can improve, there is a wealth of guidance out there.

Variance is a funny old thing no matter how good you are, you can play really good poker and variance will unhinge that, i can play quite nitty and sensible, strong consistent poker but sometimes being aggressive more is a skill (its something i am working on myself).

Take heart from what you have achieved and credit yourself with progress, set yourself a small target each week, something that relates to part of your game that you would like to change and work from there is my first initial advice.

Best of luck and keep us posted, I am interested to see how you develop.

Pirateglenn

Poker has variance, but you have to be on top when all in. For example, in SNG, you want to be the guy with the higher percentage when all in; AK is behind pocket 66; in this example you want to be the guy with 66 when all in. In SNG, you have to take advantage of people pushing too many medium suited hands by developing calling range vs their shoving range. A2 is better than KQs, you want to have A2 vs KQ when all in.

I have only one tip to learn and practice a lot in the game. I myself am very poorly versed in the game, but I try to read all the materials available to me, I do hand analysis. It is very good that you are inquisitive, go in one direction, and everything will be fine with you, and we will learn about the new champion.

I don't think it's a good idea to mix up so many game types. Just focus on what you are the most confident in and try to get your tilts in control.

yard47 said:

Thanks for the reply and you mentioning the guide of BlackRain79,

altough I seem to already implemented most of the strategies mentioned I realize that I still tend to fail executing them with the continuation of my sessions. Usually doing great in the beginning but it seems that I have to learn a lot in the part of controlling my emotions and quitting for the day if the emotions get a hold of me and thus blur my vision for good decision making.

And yes, after reading this I understand the gratidude of fish needing to keep p(l)aying the game ;D

Click to expand...

I know that oh too well. I think it is the part of our brain that makes us addicted, too.
The frontal cortex tells you to wait, but lust center and amygdala yearn for adrenaline, and when this part gets bored, it wants action - be it you triple your stack or you crash.

For me, it's rarely playing too tight and being scared but playing too loose and losing control. This part takes over and says "Well, if I lose, it's okay, too." Then you lose and get angry because you could still be in the game and maybe even in the money soon. It's a very basic kind of process, and somewhat awkward to admit it happens, but it does, and to intelligent people, too.

Thanks for the many replies and helpful insights, I'm really glad there are people actually caring and sharing their experiences This gives me extra motivation to work on my game!

After reading BlackRain's Guide again and again I feel my game has already improved quite drastically. Also because I stopped grinding these SNGs I absolutely didn't enjoy playing them for 3-4 hours straight and only losing.

I played 2-3 of them since and have cashed all of them, so I think that shows me that I can't push myself to play something if I don't really want to.

Due to one tip in here I started playing more cash and zoom game on the side, while still playing the occasional SNG, Timetoruney or MTT.
Cash game and Zoom definitely have restored the fun in poker for me once again, after I felt really depressed in these SNGs..

I thought I'd also share the development of my graph and winnings (some data is skewed a little down, because nearly 600 hands of yesterday weren't fully imported somehow - which was probably +10bb/100 and an additional 17$ - I already tried a new database, but it seems the hands are gone)

https://imgur.com/FyZAJWA
https://imgur.com/TDEDm1F

I also managed to get into the top 5% in the hotter 2.20$ (11$ profit) and top 10% in the hotter 1.10$ (4$ profit) and these were the only MTTs that I played, so I feel quite good about where this is heading now

By the way, there was some awesome answer in this thread regarding Pokerb(v)logs, Books etc. At the moment I am following mostly Youtube channels like (Brad Owen, PokerVIP - for their cash and zoom videos - helped me a lot), watching twitch streams on the side while playing. I also ordered a book regarding Poker mathematics and would be willing to take additional recommendations into consideration, if anyone had something really useful they want to share

P.S. Thanks again for the help guys, really means a lot to me!

I think you may need to take some poker courses, there are several online poker schools. Play more and study more and seek to understand what the variance is and what the long term means in poker

webwiser said:

I think you may need to take some poker courses, there are several online poker schools. Play more and study more and seek to understand what the variance is and what the long term means in poker

Click to expand...

Thanks for the answer, I already thought about this a lot and decided I'll be willing to invest 300-8000$ into a poker course / coaching etc.

Do you guys have any insights on what the bests coaches are if I plan to mainly play Cash/Zoom/MTTs? (I thought about this offer here https://carrotcorner.com/coaching/ - I used to watch his coaching sessions and they helped me a ton starting out playing cash and zoom)

Also another 2 quick questions:

After I recently played quite well in cash and zoom, I am somehow afraid to get going again (haven't played the alst 2 days because I had to less sleep anyways). Did anyone ever have this?

I just think that I might have ran too well and now too afraid for the backlash of some good old variance

Another major problem I discovered is my graph:

https://imgur.com/a/b9NxI4b

It seems like my non-showdown winnings are exponentially exceeding my showdown winnings..I guess that's a bad sign and I might be playing too aggressive at some spots, rather than only going to showdown when I want and need to?

Also I hope it's no problem if I make some sort of log of this thread, just to write down some of my thoughts and results, so I can get some insights from others?

***** Hand History for Game 1111111111 ***** (pokerstars)
$5.00 USD NL Holdem - Thursday, November 29, 02:24:54 ET 2018
Table Donati (real money)
Seat 1 is the button
Seat 1: Player1 ( $5.00 USD ) - (20.0 / 20.0 / - / 5)
Seat 2: Player2 ( $7.16 USD ) - (- / - / - / 2)
Seat 3: Hero ( $6.47 USD ) - (15.72 / 12.03 / 5.24 / 4.8k)
Seat 4: Player4 ( $6.91 USD ) - (- / - / - / 9)
Seat 5: Player5 ( $7.04 USD ) - (66.67 / 66.67 / - / 3)
Seat 6: Player6 ( $6.10 USD ) - (- / - / - / 2)
Player2 posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
Hero posts big blind [$0.05 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to Player2 [ Ad Kh ]
Player4 folds
Player5 folds
Player6 folds
Player1 raises [$0.15 USD]
Player2 folds
Hero raises [$0.45 USD]
Player1 calls [$0.30 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ As, Kd, 7s ]
Hero bets [$0.46 USD]
Player1 calls [$0.46 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]
Hero bets [$0.92 USD]
Player1 calls [$0.92 USD]
** Dealing River ** [ 3d ]
Hero bets [$4.64 USD]
Player1 folds
Hero returned $4.64 USD
Hero wins $3.53 USD


Any tips on how I could have played this better? Thought that an overbet on the river might induce him to call his weaker aces or kings, maybe even a missed straight draw..

But I might be wrong there

Well atleast now I know why my red-line is that high if villains mostly fold to my bets..

Is this the wrong section of the forum for such things? I'm just wondering because no one is answering