In 2nl I have gone from 20 dollars to 70... to 20... I am begging for help

[texasfoldem]

I am at the end of my rope. I worked out how to play and win over time. Now I am just bleeding money and have done for a few days. I simply cannot win:

I simply do not know what to say. I simply cannot win anything now. I am now playing with VPIP of 20... every good hand I get is losing. I am being beaten at every hand (ok not EVERY hand obviously!) I am winning with good hands but the bad beats TOTALLY out-weigh anything I win. I am playing sensibly... I am not betting on rubbish but nothing that I originally did in the 8000 hands of winning is working. Is this really variance? Do bad beats really last for days on end for 1000s of hands? ...and cost 20 buy-ins?

 

[fundiver199]

20 BI swings are not that common but they do happen. Also if you go though those 7k or whatever hands, where it happened, you will surely find some bad beats or coolers. But you will also find hands, where you made (tilted) mistakes. And those are the ones, which are costing you long term.

Also, and I have to be brutally honest with you now. That graph indicate, you are a breakeven rather than winning player. So if you want to become a winning player, you need to work more on your strategy. Which poker site is this, and how much rake do they charge for 2NL?

 

[fundiver199]

What I will do, if I have a run like this, is to go into my PT4 database and filter for the hands, I played during the downswing. Then I will sort the 7k or whatever hands based on money won and review all my largest losing pots.

Some will be standard coolers. Like you got KK all in preflop, and your opponent had AA. Those you just gloss over quickly. But all the other hands you ask yourself, if every decision was correct. And try to be as honest about it as possible. Those hands, you are most unsure about, you can share to the hand review forum here and get the opinion of others.

If you use PT4, you should also perform a LeakTracker analysis, if you have not done so already. And when you have around 100k hands you can start to run some filters and look for more specific leaks. Like maybe you are losing money with suited connectors and small pairs, like I was.

Improving in poker is hard work and takes a lot of time. And even then you will have samples of 50k or even 100k hands, where you run significantly above or below your long term results. So it also require a lot of patience as well.

 

[ramignis]

some people lose much more than 20 stacks . and then that you did everything perfectly right. in any case, you made some mistakes. so don't worry, just work on the game.

 

[texasfoldem]

...

Also, and I have to be brutally honest with you now. That graph indicate, you are a breakeven rather than winning player. So if you want to become a winning player, you need to work more on your strategy. Which poker site is this, and how much rake do they charge for 2NL?

Breakeven?? No, that cannot be right. Where did you get that figure from? The chart from 4000 to 12000 is $1 for every 160 hands (maybe slightly more). That is the stated amount of money expected for a good player at 2nl. I have a source which says $0.60 per hour is expected. My rate is even higher than that! It is about $0.625. I am trusting a source but I have no particular reason to think that person is incorrect. BlackRain79 - the guy at the top of Google. He focuses on micros.

The figures from 0 to 4000 are worthless and mean nothing. I was playing wrong during that period of time. You can even see a spike vertically downwards where I tilted badly. It was from 4000 hands that I learnt properly how to play.

The figures for the past few days went insane it just suddenly goes completely downhill. I would usually play for a while till I got by a reasonable amount. Now I am NEVER up... within a few minutes I will go down sharply due to playing a good hand. It then goes down again and again and again... everything that I learnt in those 8000 hands from 4000-12000 simply does not work. It is as if the laws of statistics have just irrevocably altered against me, DRASTICALLY.

 

[fundiver199]

Breakeven?? No, that cannot be right.

You have lost 10 BIs over 17.558 hands, and your graph is hovering up and down along the zero line. The kindest possible interpretation of this is, that your true long term winrate is around 0, and it is more likely to be negative than positive.

 

[texasfoldem]

You have lost 10 BIs over 17.558 hands, and your graph is hovering up and down along the zero line. The kindest possible interpretation of this is, that your true long term winrate is around 0, and it is more likely to be negative than positive.

For crying out loud... didn't you read anything that I wrote? Obviously it has all gone wrong... that is what this entire post is about!!! You DO NOT LOOK at graphs like that - you look at the patterns. The patterns are obvious to me because I am mathematically minded. I don't care about the first 4000 hands! I was playing like an idiot so I learned how to play. The point I started playing well was AFTER 4000 hands.

From 4000 hands to 12000 hands I have made a consistent $0.625 per hour for 8000 hands. All of a sudden things irrevocably changed. Nothing that I had learned in those 8000 hands was working anymore and for every good win I made, it was countered a short time later with a loss that was larger. This has been happening persistently for days now.

8000 hands is not nothing. The downward slope is either because I have inadvertently started doing something radically different or something else has altered. I am trying to work that out!

 

[gupiel0k69]

How your expected value line is looking like? Not telling the whole story but can show you a little bit if you're getting it in good.

 

[texasfoldem]

How your Expected value line is looking like? Not telling the whole story but can show you a little bit if you're getting it in good.

What you have mentioned there is something that I probably already do. There are so many names to things and different concepts that it is not always possible to keep up with them. It is not so much the issue - my main concern now is to try to minimize losses.

What you are saying there indicates something very much related to trying to get as much out of opponents as possible. If you believe you have the best hand then work out if there is a way you can maximize the pot size.

As I have probably mentioned before, I am aware that this is most likely an issue with me. Some kind of bad habit has creeped into my play most likely. I do not think think that value betting is the problem. I could be overvaluing hands more than I was before though.

 

[kozong]

fundiver199 advice above are a good start to plug your leaks
8k hands are not a good indicator for a profitable play, thats only like 8 hrs 4 tabling zoom or 16hrs if you're 2 tabling (IIRC zoom rates per table are 250-300 hands/hrs)

 

[texasfoldem]

fundiver199 advice above are a good start to plug your leaks
8k hands are not a good indicator for a profitable play, thats only like 8 hrs 4 tabling zoom or 16hrs if you're 2 tabling (IIRC zoom rates per table are 250-300 hands/hrs)

I know I should not be so brash. I have actually now sent an apology private message to fundiver199 on here.

I do recognize that larger data sets are preferable. However, people who are mathematically minded can work with much smaller data sets than 8000. I worked with just 4000 and completely changed my win-rate to what is visible on the chart from 4000 onward. It is a clear V shape (of which I was very proud). I should have changed it much earlier than 4000 but I was being pigheaded and didn't read enough solid information on how to play effectively until I got desperate at the 4000 point.

I am being realistic with this now and pulling the chart apart in PokerTracker and I believe I am seeing a bad habit that has crept in. I think that what has happened is that I have increased the amount of money I am investing in things like top pair. Yes, top pair often wins but it seems that I have overdone it.