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Server Time: 2/13/2012 10:05:08 PM PACIFIC |
 What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 22. Nov 2003 06:37 | ||
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| This is going to sound like a bad beat complaint thread but I am posting it here because it's really a request for advice on psychology and method of play. For reference, the number of hands covered in this post is around 17,000 over the last several weeks and a couple thousand over the last few days, all online. Not an enormous sample, I know, but it's not like I am complaining about fluctuations over the course of 400-500 hands. I have been suffering an incredible series of beats the last few weeks. No matter what I do, I get beat. It doesn't matter what plays I make, nothing works out in my favor. I'm down a couple hundred big bets (averaged across different limits and NL games) with no end in site. It started with a bad night at the Excalibur a few weeks ago and has just gotten worse and worse. For instance, I dropped $55 into PartyPoker a few weeks ago and ran it up to well over $600 just by going in with my best game every time at the low limit and no limit tables. Now I am down to just a little over $400 and there doesn't seem to be any break on the horizon. Here are just a FEW highlights from the last two days (remember it has been going on like this for weeks, now): I had AA, AK, AA and KK all in a row. Sounds good, right? The first AA goes down to someone playing J4o and catching running Jacks on the turn and river. The AK wins me the blinds. AA goes down to pocket 8s (this person stayed in despite my betting and overcards) with an eight on the river. KK goes down to pocket 8s, same situaion. In NONE of the three beats I took in this series of hands was the person drawing getting anything even approaching proper odds to draw to their puny outs. The person with J4o cold-called three bets pre-flop. I had KK go down to 35o with 35 on the turn and river. I had AA go down to J7 when the person rivered a third seven which he drew for despite the presence of a ten and a King on the board. AKs loses to A4o with two fours (turn and river of course) after a flop of AKX. AA loses to KK when four flush cards hit for his hand (I had an AMAZING number of AA, KK, QQ and JJ pockets lose to underpairs in the past two weeks). KK loses to 56s when the turn and river drop two more of his suit (this happened over and over and over, I have never seen so many turns and rivers make flushes for my opponents in such a short period of time). AQ made two pair on the flop and my opponent paid FOURTEEN DOLLARS (pot size bet) to see another card which was 9 and made his set of nines. I flopped a full house only to have runner-runner Xs (I forget rank) make quads for my opponent. I flopped the nut straight three or four times and lost EVERY SINGLE TIME. I flopped the nut flush only to lose to a full house (this was the ONLY nut flush I flopped in literally hundreds of hands with AKs, AQs, AJs and AXs depending on position). I flopped the second nut flush (KQs) and I was certain my opponent was on a big pair so I bet as hard as I could to get rid of him but he saw the river which brought a fourth spade and made his AA into the nut flush (this may not be all that unusual but it is indicative of the way things have been running for me). I can't even count the number of times my trips went down to a four-straight or four-flush falling on the board. I sat down at a no limit $25 table tonight and ran it up to about $80 and was rivered on in four consecutive hands. Not out-flopped and not out-played, it was the river card all four times against people who had NO business being in the hand. That was pretty much it for my $80. I sat down at another no limit $25 table and got AA my first hand, right next to the button. I raise a bit, one person comes in. The flop is non-threatening, I make a healthy bet and get called. The turn is a seven, I make another pot-size bet and get called. The river is a seven, my opponent bets and I know I'm beat but at this point there's a huge pile of money on the table and I've only got like $1.75 left so I call and he turns over some complete trash like 73o. In the last hand I played tonight my pocket Aces were beaten by QXo (X was something small, I don't remember exact rank) being played way out of position with a Queen on the flop and a Queen on the turn. Despite a King on the flop and a heavy bet from me, he paid to see the turn, got his Queen and took down a large pot. It's not just the dramatic beats, either, it's all the subtle little crappy beats. For instance, I had at least six occasions in the last two days where I was drawing to both an open-ended straight AND a flush with (one time, I was drawing to an open-ended straight flush) and I didn't get there on ANY of them. I had tons of draws at open-ended straights and made it only once or twice. Not only could I not get a little lucky and flop flushes with my suited Aces, I couldn't even flop a flush draw more than 1:20 times or so by my notes (this goes back for the last two weeks, not just the last two days). When I have flopped the draw, I've gotten there less than 1 time out of 10. That seems insanely bad. I don't have exact notes on flops where I've made two pair but I know there have been quite a lot of them and I think it only stood up once and that was with bottom two pair; top two didn't make it a single time. When I go in with pocket pairs I am flopping my set only about 1/15 of the time and in the last three days I flopped sets ZERO times with AA, KK, QQ or JJ which I saw quite a few of. When I first started running bad a few weeks ago, I did have four occasions where I flopped a third Ace with my AA and lost every single time. This is just a small sampling from the last two days. This has been going on session after session, day after day. I know bad beats and crappy luck are part of the game but this has all been condensed into such a short time period. I have had literally DOZENS of AA and KK pockets in the last few weeks (I've played quite a lot on PartyPoker in that time) and had no more than 3-4 of them stand up even when I manage to eliminate most of the players pre-flop or before the turn. I can't communicate the utter hopelessness of the situation on a message board. I know you've all had crappy runs but unless you're in the middle of one right now, you can't fully appreciate how much of a downer this is; time fades the memories, I think. I know that a lot of you will say, "Ah, $200 down on a bad run isn't so terrible," but please understand that it is only epic self-discipline and some really brilliant pot-building and nice steals that have kept the situation from being even worse. That may sound conceited but I think I can afford to stroke my own ego just a little when the entire rest of Creation is doing its best to humble me. It also happens to be true. Up until the last two games I played tonight, I really felt like I was playing very well and that my game was as good as its ever been. I've never played high limit poker but I have always been able to beat the lowe limits I do play. What I want to know is: How can I deal with this? My confidence is completely shattered. I go into every hand now KNOWING I am going to lose. I believe I have kept playing my best game despite this and I think the fact that I haven't gone completely broke testifies to that. However, I don't think I can continue to play my best game much longer because this is really starting to get to me. The last game I played tonight (pot limit $25 Hold'Em) I saw myself getting shy about making bets and I did my level best to correct that only to be slapped down by crappy cards against my good hands and finally going out with pocket Aces. Should I just quit? Is this the sort of thing that only happens to bad players who just don't realize that they're bad players? If this doesn't neccesarily reflect on my play, is it something I can fight? Do I have to play through it or will it just go away if I quit for a while? If I choose to play, should I continue to bet aggressively or should I check my way to the river as much as possible "just in case", thus decreasing my profits but also my losses? Is there anything I can do to regain some of my confidence? Really, I just need to know how to get through something like this. Someone please tell me that this sort of thing does not go on forever. Tell me I am not going to keep hitting my sets only 1 time out of 15. Tell me that when I do hit a set it won't get beaten by a flush or straight 60% of the time. Tell me the turn and river river won't ALWAYS be a runner-runner beat for my best hands. Tell me pocket Aces really can win an occasional pot. I desperately need advice on how to play when it seems the universe itself is stacking the deck against me. Do I tighten up further? Do I continue to show aggression? Do I only go into pots with AA, KK and AK? Do I simply quit playing altogether and come back later? If so, how long a break should I take? If you actually plowed through this whole thing, thanks. Writing it was cathartic but I really do need advice on weathering this sort of ridiculous card storm. I love the game of poker but I am simply too competetive to pretend that I like it as much when I am losing. I want to win again but it seems that no matter what cards I play, they aren't good enough. Right now, I honestly would not expect to win a pot if I flopped quads. Also, I know you want to say, "I'd LOVE to have those players at my table every day," or, "Email me the site and table number next time someone chases 35o against your Aces," but please don't. If you want these people at your tables, fine, but as far as I am concerned they can all rot in you-know-where. Theoretically, they will start to lose to me eventually but so far I don't see any evidence of this. To top it all off, while I was writing this my chair broke right out from under me and spilled me on my head. SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, galadriel, 22. Nov 2003 07:32 | ||
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| The burning question is: Why are all these opponents getting to the river? -- Sorry, but I'm seeing a common theme to these hands. | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 23. Nov 2003 23:15 | ||
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| You're right, there is a common thread of opponents making it to the river. It sure as heck isn't because I am giving away free cards, though. It's also not because they have odds to draw to two-card outs so you tell me why they keep getting that far. SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, noiseboy, 24. Nov 2003 08:44 | ||
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| It's because they have no idea how to play. Streaks of several weeks can happen, I'm coming off of one that lasted nearly a month where EVERYBODY was drawing out on me. Anyway, these are the same people who will be paying you off when you aren't running bad, which I know is small consolation at the moment. Keep making good decisions and the money will come long term. | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 24. Nov 2003 09:29 | ||
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| Thanks, noiseboy. I agree with you, it's because they don't know how to play. The question in my reply above is rhetorical. Galadriel seemed to assume it was some flaw in my play allowing my opponents to get to the river so often but I don't give away free cards when I am ahead (unless I am _taking_ a free card that I really need) and I do everything I can to make it expensive for junk hands and draws to play against me. SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, Woody, 22. Nov 2003 12:25 | ||
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| Just remember that the cards have no memory, and that past bad luck does not influence the future. Keep trying to play your best game. | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 23. Nov 2003 23:16 | ||
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| Thanks, that's what I've been trying to do. It's pretty tough when you sit for an hour waiting for a playable hand and get AA KK one after the other and get busted on both of them to wildly inferior hands. The problem isn't the cards having memory, it's the fact that I have memory :) SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, Frank Grimes, 23. Nov 2003 08:00 | ||
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| SpaceAce: Under the category of "Easier Said Than Done". . . I think the important thing to focus on is whether you played each of these hands optimally. If the answer is yes, then the best thing you can do is to let it go. Think of it this way: How many times would you have to play a hand in which you were a monster favorite before you played it differently? 100? 1000? The fact is, you are going to, and always should, get your money in when you have the best of it. So why dwell on it? That's treading over old ground and you have nothing to learn from it. IMHO, you should forget the bad beats and focus on finding and plugging your leaks. Everyone has them; one difference between mediocre players and good players is the refusal to find them and do something about it. Read Lee Jones' "Winning Low Limit Hold 'Em." If you've read it before, re-read it. Forget about focusing on the long run. 170,000 hands sounds like a lot and, frankly, it is, but it barely approaches a true "long run." Read Lou Krieger's column from PokerPages on this topic: http://www.pokerpages.com/articles/archives/krieger17.htm Finally, unless you're risking the rent money, keep playing and keep learning, both about the game and about your own play. A losing session in which you have at least learned something is not a completely wasted session. Good luck. | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 23. Nov 2003 23:57 | ||
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| Hi, thanks for the reply. I do believe that I played my cards as well as I could have. I don't have any regrets about how I played any of the hands I listed but I am obviously not satisfied with the outcomes. As for leaks, I am _always_ looking for ways to improve my game and I am not afraid to see something wrong in my game and fix it. In the past I have identified and corrected many problems with my play and I am definitely a better player for having done that. I am certain that in the future I will find even more ways to improve. I don't believe there is any such thing as a perfect poker player and I know that even if I were to play 1,000 hands per day from now until the day I die I would not have learned everything there is to know about the game. Still, I don't believe I was leaking money until the last two games where my play did begin to deteriorate which is when I stopped playing. I always have Winning Low Limit Hold'Em within arm's reach when I am playing at home. I have been through it twice in the last two weeks alone trying to figure out why I keep losing. All I got from re-reading the book was that I was playing the cards the way I should be. On the one hand, it felt good to examine my plays and be able to say, "Hey, I did the right thing." On the other hand, it's frustrating to realize that there was nothing I could do to change my situation except stop playing. At least if I open the book and see a mistake I made, I can fix that mistake and not make it the next time. I know the right thing to do is take my lumps and move on and I am usually pretty good about that. I don't pout, I don't berate other players who beat me with crappier cards and I very rarely let things effect me to the point of injuring my play (although that DID happen toward the end of my last session of play as I noted above). Like you said, though, forgetting it and moving on is easier said than done. The only reason it overwhelmed me so severely this time is that I was getting beat on _every single decent hand I made_. It's very hard to express in one message board post but I had almost NOTHING stand up during the last week I covered in that post. This was not your average, "Ouch! My Aces got cracked," type of thing, this was my Aces, my Kings, my sets, my straights and so on. It was nonstop, one hand after the other with almost no relief. The number of hands I was discussing was only 17,000, not 170,000. I just want to clear that up. I am very well aware that 17,000 hands does not constitute "the long run". I am aware that even 100,000 hands is statistically insignificant given the number of possible outcomes of any hand and the number of hands being played worldwide. Still, I believe 17,000 hands where my wins and losses are wildly off of what the mathermatics of the hands would predict is enough to say that the odds are bending themselves out of my favor to a significant degree. I do realize that at some point in my next 1,000,000 hands there will probably be opportunities for me to win a lot of hands I should lose but I will never seize most of those opportunities because when I believe I am drawing to poor odds I usually just get out of the hand. I'm not playing with the rent money or anything like that. In fact, I am still up quite a lot considering I started with only $55 as my online bankroll. I do my best to learn from every session I play but the only thing I learned from the last couple of weeks of play was that anyone in the hand with me at the turn was going to beat my hand unless I had the absolute stone nuts which is pretty rare when there's still another card to come. Thanks again for the reply. I took a couple of days off and I feel a little better, now. I'm going to put my toe back in the poker water and see how I do. SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, noiseboy, 24. Nov 2003 08:50 | ||
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| Also, one more thing that helped me in loose crazy games. I think of every single hand as a drawing hand, even AA will often need to improve when seven people see a flop and five of them to showdown. Sometimes when people come back at me and I have a premium hand, I know they have my big pair beat with two garbage pairs, then I just look and see if I have odds to continue and outdraw. Your premium hands are still very good in the loose games, but when it gets raised and reraised on the turn, even AAs might belong in the muck. I don't know if you ever play loose game Omaha 8, but holdem starts to resemble that when it gets really loose. Just remember if you are always in there with better hands than them, eventually you MUST win, even though it doesn't seem that way sometimes. | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, SpaceAce, 24. Nov 2003 09:32 | ||
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| I have come to consider most of my hands in low limit games to be drawing hands because often top pair simply does not get the job done. The only problem is that with opponents who play really nutty cards I sometimes can't be sure exactly what I want to be drawing to. Thanks for the encouragement. It really _doesn't_ feel that way at times but I'm still plugging away at it. SpaceAce | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, ADAM THE EXPERT, 25. Nov 2003 05:59 | ||
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| WELL, THERE IS ACTUALLY SOMEONE, WHO WRITES LONGER POSTS, THAT ADAM THE EXPERT!! WILL WONDERS NEVER CEASE. GEEZE, CAN'T THE REST OF YOU IN THE WORLD, GO TO DOUBLE SPACING, IT'S SO MUCH EASIER TO READ. OK, SPACE ACE, NOW FOR THE HARSH REALITIES OF LIFE IN THE POKER WORLD. HERE IS A DIRECT QUOTE, FROM MIKE CARO, THE ONLYH PERSON IN THE WORLD, MORE QUALIFIED TO TALK POKER, THAN ADAM THE EXPERT "SOME PEOPLE NEVER HAVE THEIR SHARE OF LUCK IN POKER, SOME PEOPLE NEVER WILL" EVER HEAR OF THE SAYING "UNLUCKY IN LOVE, LUCKY IN SOMETHING ELSE" WELL, THIS IS NOT JUST A SAYING, BUT A FACT OF LIFE. SOME PEOPLE, JUST DON'T GET THEIR FAIR SHARE OF CARDS, AND NEVER WILL. WANT TO BELIVE IN THE "EVERYONE GETS THEIR FAIR SHARE OF GOOD AND BAD CARDS, IT'S HOW YOU PLAY THEM THAT CO;UNTS" WELL, GO AHEAD, AND WASTE YOUR LIFE. THE FACT IS: PEOPLE WHO ARE LUCKY IN CARDS, HAVE THEIR ACE KINGS HIT WITH SAY 45 PERCENT, INSTEAD OF THE MATHMATICALY NORMAL 32 PERCENT. AND UNLUCKY PEOPLE, WILL ONLY HIT AN ACE OR KING AT SAY, 15 PERCENT. SOUND HOKY!! UNSCIENTIFIC? WELL, WHAT'S GOOD ENOUGH FOR MIKE, IS GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME. NOW, ADAM THE EXPERT DOES NOT JUST TEACH THIS, BECASUE MIKE SAID IT, OH NO, NOT AT ALL. I'VE SEEN IT FOR 17 YEARS, THE CARD \HOLDING PUKES, AND THE PEOPLE WHO ARE JINXED. NOW, BARE IN MIND, THAT YOU ARE PLAYING GAMES, THAT ARE MORE OF A CRAPSHOOT, OR BINGO GAME, THAN A POKER GAME. SMALL LIMIT HOLD EM, AND SMALL LIMIT INTERNET NO LIMIT HOLD EM, ARENT' EXACTLY ROCKET SCIENCE. YOU SHOULD EXPECT BEATS, AND A LOT OF THEM. NOW, I'M NOT SAYING (AS OF YET) THAT YOU ARE JINXED, AS THIS IS NOT QUITE A GOOD ENOUGH SAMPLE. BUT, IT IS LIKELY THAT YOU ARE. AND, THERE'S NOT A DARN THING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT, EXCEPT TO MOVE ON, AND FIND SOMETHING ELSE TO DO. ADAM THE EXPERT HAS MORE THAN HIS SHARE OF THE LUCK, AS DOES ANYONE WHO MAKES MONEY IN THIS BUSINESS. IF YOU DON'T, GET THE HECK OUT I WOULD LSUGGEST THE FOLLOWING. LOG THE RESULTS, FOR THE NEXT 100 POCKET ACES THAT YOU GET. IF YOU DON'T WIN AT LEAST 34 OF THEM ( THE ACCEPTED FIGURE, FOR THE AVERAGE WINNING CHANCES FOR AA) YOU ARE PROBABLY JINXED. THEN, LOG THE RESULTS FOR 100 AK HANDS, IF YOU DON'T FLOP A PAIR, AT LEAST 32 OF THEM. THEN, YOU ARE ALMOST CERTAINLY JINXED, AND NEED TO GET ON WITH YOUR LIFE. THIS IS NOT THAT GREAT OF A SAMPLE, IF YOU REALLY WANT TO BE SURE, TRY A FEW MORE TESTS, SUCH AS: FLUSH DRAWS ON FLOP (SHOULD COMPLETE 35 OUT OF 100) OPEN END STRAIGHT DRAWS (SHOULD COMPLETE 31` OUT OF 100) IF YOU COMPLETE ALL FOUR TESTS, AND FAIL ALL OF THEM. THEN YOU ARE FOR CERTAIN, JINXED GET OOOOOOOOOUT!!!! ADAM | ||
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| Re: What can I do about this garbage?, LJH, 25. Nov 2003 11:17 | ||
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| SPACEACE, THERE IS NO QUESTION ABOUT IT YOU ARE BAMBOOZLED. THE ONLY WAY TO RECOVER IS TO DRINK 3 QTS OF LEMON JUICE, AND TAKE A SWIM IN ICY WATER LIKE THE POLAR BEARS DO. AFTER THAT ANYTHING WILL FEEL GOOD. LJH | ||
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