Losing Streak

[thepokerkid123]

My sessions tend to be between 24 and 48 hours, so the level of variance is greatly reduced (variance due to luck is reduced, variance due to skill is increased) for each individual session.
I get a very good idea of how I’m playing by my results, if I’ve played well then I almost always win, if I’ve played badly then I lose.

Earlier this year I kept going into every session thinking that if I did get extremely unlucky and lose, it was probably fair because I’d only had a couple of small losing sessions in a long time and sooner or later I had to catch a really bad run of cards. Didn’t really believe it, figured my edge from skill was overcoming the variance and I could get big hands cracked and win anyway.

So now I’ve racked up about 15 sessions where I just can’t manage a win, I might be up a little after 15 hours some of the time but after 20 hours or so I’m trying dig myself out of the hole I’ve dug. I don’t think that’s fatigue, my play doesn’t suffer in fact it usually improves, I think it’s actually the rake catching up with me as most of my losses seem to average out in the general area of the rake I pay (playing live, that’s a very significant number after 40 hours). But I haven’t had a significant win in 15 sessions... people keep telling me that it’s bad luck... I don’t know.

Here’s what I do know:
1)The range of hands that I stack off with is significantly less than my opponents (it’s rare that I lose in a hand over hand situation where I’m not certain my opponent would have lost their stack to me were the cards reversed).
2)I make calls and bluffs that most people wouldn’t based on reads, sometimes I’m wrong. I think this is still in the positive column but it’s one of those common leaks you’ve got to consider. I make more big folds than calls/bluffs, but those are wrong probably less than 5% of the time, so that doesn’t count.
3)I’m playing a lot more aggressively... but it doesn’t seem to be where I’m losing the money, it’s the by-the-book play that I’ve always done that’s getting me into trouble.
4)I’m having trouble with big hand vs big hand situations. It’s not my ability to read this, I get away from most of them (and since it’s live, often my opponents will show their cards if I muck a monster face up, so I know they’re not bad folds), it’s just I’m on the wrong end of it. To counter this I’ve reduced my playing range to premium cards, figuring that makes it more likely that I’m on the right end of a hand over hand situation. Hasn’t helped me.
5)I bet into hands a lot. Say I’m not sure if my kicker is good or not, but it’s close, I tend to bet and many times this has resulted in me putting a large chunk of my stack in the middle by the river when I’m outkicked (if their kicker was an ace I wouldn’t do this unless mine was a king or if say it’s a Q against a T kicker, then I don’t know who’s ahead most of the time. Basically any time they don’t know if they’re ahead and my hand is marginal I don’t know if I’m ahead, I go off their confidence in their hand).

Those seem to be the most significant potential leaks; I wonder can anyone diagnose what I’m doing wrong all of a sudden?
Don’t tell me that this is variance though, dumping 3/4 of your roll isn’t variance, its bad play. What am I doing wrong?

 

[slycbnew]

Are you getting paid off w your monsters?

I've had problems (live and online) where I tighten my range to the point that 1) nobody will pay me off cuz they know I'm playing premiums and 2) I don't bet marginal hands enough to get sufficient value out of them (kinda the fgators syndrome). But you say you're still agg, so maybe not an issue.

I know you don't want to hear it, but variance can be much bigger than you would ever think it could be. Miller et. al. recommend 100bi's for your br cuz they think it's possible to be a very good player (one of the authors, in fact, did) to run -50bi's in a single downswing. Not sure what 3/4 of your roll is in relationship to this.

 

[thepokerkid123]

20 buy in bankroll.
-3/4 = can't play live anymore and have had to go online where I lose most of my edge. *sigh*

I've thought a lot about whether or not I'm extracting as much value out of hands as my opponents seem to be against me.
The thing is that even when I tighten up to playing 15-20% of my hands, people still consider me a bluffer/aggressive player. I tighten up pre-flop, but few people are more aggressive post-flop than me.
I do bet strongly to get rid of draws, which means I must be losing some value. I'm having some trouble with fish and implied odds, they make the wrong call on the flop but if that convinces me that they don't have the draw and I pay them off, they've usually got implied odds for it (whether they know it or not), hence the betting to fold the draws rather than induce a bad call.

My aggression means that my opponents get paid off when I don't read the situation correctly so they do get some value out of me. Come to think of it, maybe that is part of my problem, too high a percentage of the hands I play turn into big pots... kind of the opposite of small ball.


As for whether or not it's variance, yeah variance is playing a role.
I could play drunk and blindfolded and still have edge at any of the tables I've played at in the last month but variance cannot be the only factor, there are serious leaks in my game because these losses have been too consistant.