Bit of a rut

[waisichy]

Hit a bit of a rut in my play. I haven’t had as much time to play so a bit out of practice which has affected my game. I could blame variance but in truth I’ve also made some decisions on reflection I don’t feel I would usually make. I’ve rinsed through 25% of my bank roll so want to take stock and get back to winning ways.

Any tips on taking a break and how to get your head back in the game?

 

[YLAN]

Don't force yourself to play & only play when you feel like it. Give your bankroll a rest. Play the Cardschat freerolls while you get back in the groove.

 

[Rost]

I think the main thing is to take your time. Start gradually, step by step, consistently increasing the number of hours of play every day. Even I think, in order to recover your form, it is better to start with freerolls, or with tournaments with micro buy-ins.

 

[hardongear]

Depends on how big a rut and how long it's been going on. Personally 25% lose of bankroll I would take 2-3 months off away from playing completely. I wouldn't worry about staying in practice or keeping the rust off. Poker is like riding a bike you never forget how and in about 5k-7k hands played once your back it'll be like you never left. You could maybe just play the CC freerolls and other freerolls you can find when you feel like playing.

What I would do rather then play over them 2-3 months would be studying and hand reviews. Do a bit each day maybe 1-2 hours worth. It's time find out how far off course, how big the rut is as you said yourself you can't blame variance completely. That means you gotta dig into your game, figure out/find out where it's off track and fix it. The only way to do that is by reviewing hands and studying. This will also keep your mind sharp and kinda in poker mode.

The only question left then after studying, finding where the problems are and fixing them is when to come back and start playing? This is a personal feeling/thing so I can't advise you on when to come back....no one really can. You'll just know it's time. Maybe you'll need more then a few months mentally idk. When I went thru this I just knew mentally when I was ready to return. I then gave it an extra 1-2 weeks by then I was dying to come back and play.

I'd also personally start at a bit lower stakes then you currently played when you come back. As Rost said above just ease back into it and don't over do it and play for long periods of time. It's also worth considering playing a few less tables if you multi-table.

Good luck on the journey.

Cheers!!!

 

[waisichy]

Thanks for the advice everyone. I think a break and easing back into free rolls is best! Hopefully I can get the feeling back. Also I’ll review my hands as suggested.

 

[eberetta1]

It is getting tougher and tougher to increase thebankroll compared to days past.

Even recently, Cardschat freerolls that I am used to playing, used to have about 40 players and pay the top 4 to win an easy $10. Well, now it averages 120 players. So I cannnot yell at myself that I do not make $10 as often as before.

Playing 120 players also requires a change in my play to come in the top 4 than with 40 players.

You are playing as much as your body wants to. Trust it. Listen to it.

 

[PsychoVas]

Review the bad decisions you made. This way you will isolate the bad moves and remember not to repeat them. I don't suggest a break. Play free-rolls, play-money games, the lowest stakes. Start again!

 

[TeUnit]

Play less, study more, review your hands after play, and post hands you have questions about.

If you are playing tourneys use a icm tool to evaluate your past play.

 

[eetenor]

Hit a bit of a rut in my play. I haven’t had as much time to play so a bit out of practice which has affected my game. I could blame variance but in truth I’ve also made some decisions on reflection I don’t feel I would usually make. I’ve rinsed through 25% of my bank roll so want to take stock and get back to winning ways.

Any tips on taking a break and how to get your head back in the game?

Study then rest- study rest repeat until you cannot stop yourself from wanting to implement what you have learned---not that you want to get back into the gamble just that u r excited for new strategies

 

[fundiver199]

What are the main games, you are playing? Your profile only show a user name on pokerstars, and according to sharkscope you have not had much of a downtrend there. On the countrary you are near your all-time high and profitable in your main game, which is $2 6-man SnGs. You have played 282 of these with a profit of $50,64 for a 9% ROI. Which is a fine result, although the sample is still small and subject to high variance.

You have had a small dip of around $35 in february, but this is mainly because, you have played 4 $5 SnGs and 3 satellites with no cashes. This has cost you $24,5 out of a total loss of around $35. If those 35$ was 25% of your bankroll, then it peeked at $140 at the end of january, which mean, you were nowhere near being properly bankrolled for $5 SnGs, since the bare minimum for single table games is 50 BIs ($250).

So assuming, that you are talking about these tournament results on PokerStars, then the issue is simply lack of bankroll management. This is something, nearly all poker players have experienced, and it can have a very negative effect on your mental game, even though the monetary loss is insignificant as in this case. My main advice therefore is to be much more serious with bankroll management.

Stop spending money on satellites, and always have at least 50 BIs for a STT and 100 buyins for an MTT, you want to play. Wanting to move up is understandable, and you also get a lower rake in the $5 SnGs. But then you need to deposit another $200, so that you start with a $300 bankroll rather than just $140. And if this is not an option, then stick with $1-$2 games for the foreseeable future. There are other formats than 6-man, if you want to try something else.

 

[waisichy]

What are the main games, you are playing? Your profile only show a user name on PokerStars, and according to Sharkscope you have not had much of a downtrend there. On the countrary you are near your all-time high and profitable in your main game, which is $2 6-man SnGs. You have played 282 of these with a profit of $50,64 for a 9% ROI. Which is a fine result, although the sample is still small and subject to high variance.

You have had a small dip of around $35 in february, but this is mainly because, you have played 4 $5 SnGs and 3 satellites with no cashes. This has cost you $24,5 out of a total loss of around $35. If those 35$ was 25% of your bankroll, then it peeked at $140 at the end of january, which mean, you were nowhere near being properly bankrolled for $5 SnGs, since the bare minimum for single table games is 50 BIs ($250).

So assuming, that you are talking about these tournament results on PokerStars, then the issue is simply lack of bankroll management. This is something, nearly all poker players have experienced, and it can have a very negative effect on your mental game, even though the monetary loss is insignificant as in this case. My main advice therefore is to be much more serious with bankroll management.

Stop spending money on satellites, and always have at least 50 BIs for a STT and 100 buyins for an MTT, you want to play. Wanting to move up is understandable, and you also get a lower rake in the $5 SnGs. But then you need to deposit another $200, so that you start with a $300 bankroll rather than just $140. And if this is not an option, then stick with $1-$2 games for the foreseeable future. There are other formats than 6-man, if you want to try something else.

Thanks, this is a good point. I think the $5 “treats” as I would call them are the cause and have affected my overall play. I guess if they were just the $2 games as normal it would be more like 10% of my bankroll. I’ve not spent any money on satellites but sharkscope counts the power path tickets as spends which is why they keep coming up. Bit annoying because they skew the figures but also the power path got me to cash in Sunday millions so not all bad!

 

[dreamer13]

Losing money means losing confidence, pride, motivation, security, time, pleasure and freedom. Some players hate losing, believing that losing means they made a mistake, and they hate making mistakes.Losing sucks, but how you lose is important.You can learn a more objective way to evaluate your skill. By being more aware of how you play, you can deal with short-term losses much better.

 

[fundiver199]

Basically there are two healthy ways to play poker, which is to either play with a budget (recreationally) or with a bankroll (for profit). If you play with a budget, then its completely fine to play, whatever you want. But then you cant get "married" to the money in your poker account and feel bad about it, if you lose 25% or for that matter 100% of it. The fact, you talk about "rinsing through 25% of my bank roll" mean, that at least mentally you considered it a bankroll, and then you need to use bankroll management.

When I got serious about online poker back in 2016, I deposited $100 on PokerStars and purchased PT4. I knew about the rules for bankroll management, but my thinking was, that I did not need to have my entire bankroll sitting in the poker account, since its very fast and easy to make another deposit if needed. So I started playing 5NL and 10NL cash knowing perfectly well, that $100 is not a sufficient bankroll for that.

Initially it went well, and I grew it to around $160. But then I lost $60 in a disastrously bad 10NL Zoom session, and this caused me to go on massive tilt and take a week long break. And when I came back, I decided, that I was going to manage the $100 as my poker bankroll. So I moved down to 2NL and stayed there for 30.000 hands, or whatever it was, until I had $150. Then I moved to 5NL and later to 10NL, where I got a bit bored and decided to try tournaments.

The point here is, that if you mentally consider the money in your poker account as a bankroll, then even a loss, which in monetary terms is insignificant and basically just giving back prior winnings, can be mentally devastating. I currently have $1.150 sitting in my PokerStars account, and therefore it does not affect me much, if I lose $35 or $60 in a session, since its only a small percentage of my bankroll.

Looking at your Sharkscope stats I think, you have a good chance of becoming a long term winning player. So I would advice you to start following strict bankroll management and also consider making some investments. You seem to be playing only one game at a time, and to achieve any sort of volume, you need to multitable. So start playing on a laptop, if you dont do it already, and then play initially 2 tables at a time. And when you are comfortable with that try expanding it to 3 and 4. The next step is investing in software, where I will recommend both PT4 and ICMizer, since you mainly play SnGs.

 

[odonob]

It’s mostly luck. You can play well and hit a lot of bad beats, you can take a rest and come back. But you just need to play until the cards fall your way, unless you are a very bad player in the first place!

 

[fundiver199]

A few more words about variance and bankroll management. OP began playing regularly on Pokerstars in may 2023, and until december 2023 he was a slightly losing to break-even player. Then just before X-mas in december 2023 began a sunrun fueled by some large cashes, which seem to originate from some satellite wins, where he then won some bounties in the target tournments. All in all he won around $220 in 40 days, and have now lost around $35 in the last 15 days.

But its completely normal and expected, that a sunrun always comes to an end. And the "downswing" or "rut" is only around 10 BIs in the SnGs, he mainly play. 4 x $5 and 6 x $2 or something like that. A 10 BI downswing is absolutely nothing and will happen all the time. So this is simply something, we need to be mentally prepared for, weather we play for profit or for fun. There is no reason to feel "down", because this happen, or question your play. Sure its always good to study, but losing 10 BIs over 23 games is not a reason, why now you suddenly need to study more.

As for bankroll management and the 50 BI rule for single table SnGs, the idea is to limit wild swings to our bankroll. Its theoretically possible to avoid "going broke" using more aggressive bankroll management, as long as we move down after losing. But its not ideal to play $10 SnGs one week and then $1 SnGs a few weeks later, because we lost 90% of our roll. We want the process of moving up to be a more steady one, where an attempt to move up might fail, but where we dont need to do more than drop back to the level, we came from.

Lets say, we have $140, as OP apparently did. Then we play $2 SnGs, and its entirely possible to lose 20-25 BIs due to some bad luck. Now we have $90-100, and therefore starting the next session we move down to $1 games , until we are back above $100. This mean, we can now lose a further 45-50 BIs, before we need to move down to $0,5 games, and this is pretty unlikely, if we are a winning player. So the vast majority of the time we will only need to move down to $1 games, and hopefully we are soon back to $2 games again.

 

[waisichy]

Thanks for the advice. I want to try and be a profitable player so will be much stricter with my bankroll management. I think I have what it takes just need to motivate myself to get back on the tables!

 

[SpanRmonka]

One thing to add to the copious amounts of good advice already posted.

When I'm on a bad run or feel I've made mistakes, I just play, play some freerolls, play some very cheap spin n goes, play some 11c sattys, just do it.....cos very quickly you have the opportunity to then forget the bad plays or playing too high or whatever it was that messed with your confidence and your head. Usually maybe I do OK in something, or maybe qualify from the satty, and it just balances me again. I'm still annoyed, but I accept it.

Also the more you play, the more these things happen and therefore the quicker you learn to deal with them. This is totally vital in poker, as we will lose and lose badly, assuming 25% of BR is badly, over and over again.....but the wins can also be great too of course, and the journey is worth it!

 

[ROYALROAD]

It's true that sometimes when you take a break from poker, you suddenly come up with new ways to play.

 

[Gallarado777]

you need to take a break after you come back to play and start with free tournaments, such as freerolls in our tournaments, then collect some money and play the cheapest tournaments at them and try to raise your bankroll again and then go higher and higher

 

[Mr.$t0k]

Take a walk along the street near the lake, spend time with your family, do sports, do something with your own hands