+++ May Cash Game Thread +++

[WVHillbilly]

I walked right into that one...

Okay, I'll keep it brief: I'd like to not be 30 BI's below EV, please. I'd especially like it if this monster of an epic bad run didn't start the very day I moved back up to 2/4.

That's all.

What is it about moving up that makes everyone run bad (as far as AIEV)? Seriously, it seems that the most common time to be WAY under AIEV is when you first move up in limits. Has to be something to the way most of us adjust to the move up rather that just bad timing. Maybe we're too aggressive (I know sacrilege) and are too willing to get AI? I don't know but it's just way too common to be standard variance.

Best of luck turning it around FP.

 

[Pascal-lf]

Does anyone ever run above EV for long periods of time? I never have (well, I've run like 0.5BI over EV for 100 hands, but that's it)

 

[F Paulsson]

There's no style that lends itself to running below EV. You can play a game with more or less variance, of course, and get into more or less all-in spots, but the outcome of the flips still have an EV = 0 (well, you know what I mean).

Pascal: I've run over EV in the past, at least for stretches. I don't actually know how this stacks up to my lifetime graph. I suppose I could check. Maybe it's Karma.

 

[BelgoSuisse]

Fredrik, you know that EV luck is only a tiny little bit of total poker luck, don't you? Obviously the easiest one to monitor, but slightly irrelevant nevertheless.

Also, post graph, obviously.

 

[KerouacsDog]

anyone else get a free $20 from FullTilt today/yesterday? I just checked my account, noticed it was up, so went to transaction history, and saw that FT had given me $20 yesterday, for no apparent reason, ie bonus or anything?
Anyone know why????? (Not that Im complaining!)

 

[jewboy07]

some players were in violation of terms and services so some people got refunds yesterday so it could have been that.

 

[F Paulsson]

Fredrik, you know that EV luck is only a tiny little bit of total poker luck, don't you? Obviously the easiest one to monitor, but slightly irrelevant nevertheless.

Well, yes. I wasn't actually aware of how badly I had been running in all-in spots until just today, which was the first time I even checked. But it's not like I'm running hot besides the all-in situations - I'm just running bad overall, EV is one of the ways it's happening. It's gotten to the point where it's affecting my game and I've become sloppy, which is even worse. I'm working on fixing that, though.

Also, post graph, obviously.

Yessir.

Not all of it is actually 400NL; I moved down to 200NL to lick my wounds and that makes up about a third of the downswing in terms of EV big blinds (but obviously not in terms of dollars).

 

[BenLZ]

L08 - Never again.

 

[Hisx1ncPS]

Hands like these make me glad that I am grinding a roll at 5nl.

poker stars $0.02/$0.05 No Limit Hold'em - 5 players - View hand 720219
The Official DeucesCracked.com Hand History Converter

BTN: $3.49
SB: $2.57
BB: $4.26
UTG: $2.85
Hero (CO): $6.18

Pre Flop: ($0.07) Hero is CO with T ♠ T ♦
UTG calls $0.05, Hero raises to $0.20, BTN calls $0.20, 2 folds, UTG calls $0.15

Flop: ($0.67) J ♥ 5 ♠ T ♣ (3 players)
UTG checks, Hero bets $0.40, BTN calls $0.40, UTG folds

Turn: ($1.47) 4 ♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $1, BTN calls $1

River: ($3.47) 5 ♣ (2 players)
Hero bets $1.95, BTN calls $1.89 all in

Final Pot: $7.25
BTN shows 5 ♦ 5 ♥ (four of a kind, Fives)
Hero shows T ♠ T ♦ (a full house, Tens full of Fives)
BTN wins $6.90
(Rake: $0.35)

 

[c9h13no3]

Am I the only one who gives out more detailed/less dickish responses in learning poker section? That section should really be titled "If you don't want C9 to be an ass to you when he finds your post boring, post here."

 

[brank]

You have like every leak possible.

you mean posts like this?

heh. JK. you've helped me a lot before.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

Am I the only one who gives out more detailed/less dickish responses in learning poker section? That section should really be titled "If you don't want C9 to be an ass to you when he finds your post boring, post here."

To be honest, this is why I quit posting questions about poker strategy and hands I had played.

I just don't feel like taking the abuse anymore. Yeah, I am a little tender soul.

I like poker, and I like this community, but I learned to cover my nakedness - so to speak - after being poked in the balls a few times.

I am OK with it though... let those who dig that arena enjoy it.

 

[c9h13no3]

Yeah, I don't mean to be mean, its just that if you're going to post something like "I suck at poker, tell me everything I need to know to be good" or some BBV thread with a very misleading title that makes me think your thread might be interesting, you're gonna get a smart-ass reply. I like legit discussion threads, and I like newbie questions that might prompt a discussion. But no one is going to provide you a ridiculous amount of free coaching unless there's some interesting discussion going on at the same time.

Sucks that people who don't suck at posting like Caps stop posting strategy threads tho because of abuse. I think my skin is a little too thick sometimes, since I probably come from the more "hard knock" part of the internet, where this forum is considered "roflcopter tame".

[/bitchfest]

 

[F Paulsson]

please kill me now

 

[cAPSLOCK]

Uh oh.. what's wrong Fredrik? More runbad?

 

[F Paulsson]

Short session. Lost five buy-ins. Got stacked four consecutive times with KK. Once by AA. The other three times by... Other hands. Other fun hands include nut flush vs straight flush. Downswing from top to bottom is now 35 buy-ins. Incidentally also what my below-EV is, now that I've started tracking it for shits and giggles. This year is now officially in the red.

I'll fight my way out of it.

I think.

I hope.

Jesus.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

Sucks that people who don't suck at posting like Caps stop posting strategy threads tho because of abuse. I think my skin is a little too thick sometimes, since I probably come from the more "hard knock" part of the internet, where this forum is considered "roflcopter tame".

[/bitchfest]

I hear you. I have been a net denizen since the 80s when gopher was a bigger resource than the WWW. It's funny. Now that I look back on it my skin used to be much much thicker. I used to hang out and post in the comp.os.xxxx.advocacy forums.

I used to get kicks out of arguments in places like alt.animals.ethics.vegetarian.

I am not sure what, over time, caused my tolerance for twits, trolls and idiots to drop so far.

You have inspired me. I will put my toe back in the water sometime later.

 

[cAPSLOCK]

I'll fight my way out of it.

I think.

I hope.

Jesus.

Meh. I don't presume to know 10% of what you do about this game, and I play penny stakes mostly for fun. But I do know THIS situation you are in very well.

Well wait a moment. I do NOT know the -35 BI situation, but I do not play at stakes where that is terribly likely.

I am a low volume player compared to most here. So a normal stretch of bad results can span a long ass amount of time. For me recently something like 40k hands takes me months. And the last 40k hands has been kinda crummy. At least at holdem.

The thing I notice is this feeling where you start to think a little bit crookedly, and tilt seeps in just enough to be like a low grade fever.

My play might not be overtly screwed up (more than normal at least) but I begin to notice odd attitude things. Like I get dealt kings and wince instantly. Like every fantastic opportunity is really just a disaster in waiting.

I remember reading about this study they did with dogs where they would put food on the other side of an electrified floor or something like that. Not every time, but frequently they would turn the floor "on" and the dog would be zapped on the way to his food. (sounds like a terrible experiment actually) Thing was over time the dog would begin to just go without food. Even though it wasn't always shocked eventually it gave up and began to starve itself.

Poker sometimes reminds me of this experiment.

You get it in in a situation where you are way ahead and you get zapped. Once this happens frequently enough, and obviously we all know it does, our thinking and mindset can change subtly or even extremely. Problem is, like our friend the pooch sometimes we choose to do something even more destructive than the electrified floor (getting it in ahead and losing). We sabotage ourselves, even without knowing it.

Thus the time honored advice. Take a break. Play some stud or PLO8. Come play some 2nl with me for a while. Try out some tourneys, especially in a format you haven't before.

Obviously you already know all this. Good luck man... you say you THINK you will turn it around.

I KNOW you will. (so do you)

 

[F Paulsson]

Although I'm not a big tilter, I'd be lying if I said I had been playing my absolute A-game for the last month. I've made some calldowns I probably shouldn't have ("he can't possibly have it AGAIN!") and I've made some loose calls followed by necessary folds that I could have avoided. After a quick sweat with Taylor the other day, I think I got most of that under control and am now back to playing Really Well (tm). In some sense, that makes it feel even MORE unfair that I dropped another 8 buy-ins (yesterday and today) because I feel like "goddammit, poker gods, I made an effort here! What the hell do you want from me?" but it's a fleeting feeling.

All-in-all, I'm looking - or, honestly, trying to look - at this as a learning experience. What kind of tendencies did I start to show when things went rough? Did I feel angry at the reg who kept stacking me? Was I trying to exact revenge on him instead of focusing on the fish? Did I play longer sessions than I should have? Did I quit while ahead immediately? Etc.

I'm way ahead of you in terms of break, btw, I'm taking June off. Not entirely off, in all likelyhood, but I'm not going to shoot for any volume related goal for June. I'll play when I feel like it and when I have time for it, and just kick back and enjoy the summer the rest of the month.

There are a ton of valuable lessons to be learned from downswings. One is to understand why they effect me emotionally. I get depressed (not clinically; I mean it in the "sad" way) and feel like I have no energy to do stuff. I feel... I guess the closest thing I can describe the feeling to is "deserted" but I couldn't say by what or whom. That feeling almost certainly boils down to the fact that I had set myself a lofty goal for the year, and was doing really well on my way to reaching it, and now it's squashed, I'm halfway through the year and I'm back where I started.

I might deposit a small amount on FTP and play with Rush. I've heard that I'm supposed to at least try it. One thing I decidedly will NOT do is take you up on your suggestion to play tournaments. Jebus, are you TRYING to make me kill myself?

 

[BelgoSuisse]

A run of bad luck will screw your game in a subtle way. Even if you don't tilt, your persception of villains' ranges becomes skewed by your experience, and little by little you start to make decisions that are worse and worse.

I'm not aware of any really good way to prevent this.

 

[F Paulsson]

Right. In fact, starting to develop bad ideas about people's ranges will happen at any time where you've had an extended run that's out of the norm. It's a danger of a good run, too, in other words, it's just that running hotter than the sun is much less of a problem. Some, in fact, wouldn't refer to it as a problem at all.

 

[F Paulsson]

A a sidenote, I bought a subscription to DC almost entirely because I wanted to watch Tommy Angelo's series there as a way to deal with it. I'm expecting Good Things to come from this.

 

[WVHillbilly]

A a sidenote, I bought a subscription to DC almost entirely because I wanted to watch Tommy Angelo's series there as a way to deal with it. I'm expecting Good Things to come from this.

I started my subscription to DC a year? ago for this exact same reason. I'm still there. They do some excellent videos.

Also, Rush poker is the devil and should not be played by anyone.

 

[dmorris68]

FP, I'm with Caps in that while I don't come close to your game, I've been where you are, including the -35BI swing. I know mine has far more to do with leaks than yours, but there was enough cold deck, run bad variance in there too.

I feel like I'm a "student of the game" in that I have a large and constantly growing collection of books, a hard drive full of ebooks and videos, and I try and soak up bits of knowledge from the experts like you and Belgo and WVH all the time. At times I'll run good and think it must be because I'm learning and getting better, only to be slapped in the face again. The result is that I'm pretty sure I doomswitch myself from that point on. Instead of continuing to play through it, I very subtly tilt and convince myself that I must be doing something wrong, therefore I should CHANGE AND CHANGE NOW! I start tweaking parts of my game that I shouldn't touch, which makes things worse. Rinse, repeat, and it snowballs from there.

I've been on the -30+BI swing maybe 3 times in my online poker playing career. After the first time, I ditched cash and played tourneys, where I actually did very well -- made several times over my cash downswing, withdrawing most but leaving a nice online BR to take a shot at cash again. I did well for a month or two, only to experience another dark slide. This time I dug in and tried to fight it. I got WVH to sweat me and took his advice to heart, and my graph took off northward again. I thought I'd figured this thing out finally, and for weeks my graph barely dipped. I was putting in huge volume (for me, with a full-time job and family) 9-12 tabling 50NL, made Iron level once and Silver & Bronze several times. Then I started bragging in the monthly cash threads and posting graphs -- which was the kiss of death apparently, LOL. April and May were major losers again, and after draining all the profits I had earned back over the previous couple months, I just melted down.

So I took a break. Forgot about Ironman and trying to top last week's RB payout. Just play when I feel like it. I joined the CC Spring League on a whim and have had a blast with it, it made me want to play tourneys again. So that's what I'm doing now, and while I've yet to be hugely profitable at it like last year, I'm doing okay and it's a helluva lot more fun for me now. I'm sure I'll take a stab at cash again -- maybe on Stars as a change of scenery -- but for now I'm just relaxing at it. Mid-year Ironman bonus at FT is starting in a couple days, and even though it's free money, I'm not even sure I'll chase it -- I've lost far more than that bonus amount over the last couple months, so the bonus wouldn't come close to replenishing it and I'm likely to just tilt off even more.

Nothing there in the way of advice I could offer you, just some commiseration from someone else who knows what a -35BI swing feels like. Although your BI's are quite a bit larger than mine.

 

[F Paulsson]

I started my subscription to DC a year? ago for this exact same reason. I'm still there. They do some excellent videos.

I'm pretty happy about what I've seen so far, yeah.

Also, Rush poker is the devil and should not be played by anyone.

Weeeeell. I gotta try it.