Confused

[shipitfish]

I am so confused by poker at this point, I wonder if it is even possible to have a mathematical certainty to win -- even over the long haul. I'm playing at the lowest limits, at 1/2, 2/4, and some 3/6 on Party Poker. I have lost every single night for the five nights I've played; a full $300! At one point, I actually got good starting hands for five hands in a row, flopped the best hand, value bet all the way, and was rivered by three outers every time (in one pot, a guy capped on the flop, turn and river with me when he was drawing to six outs. And he hit). But, the details of the beats don't matter. The sheer volume in a compressed time span is the only curious part. The volume just amazes me.

This game cannot be won without luck. And, frankly, I believe the bankroll levels that you actually need to ride out unlucky years are substantially greater than suggested in any literature. 300 big bets is surely not enough for Limit HE.

I frankly have a hard time understanding the players whom I've met who say they have never had a extended bad run. Save one lucky night at Greg's game in Boston in February, I have not had serious wins this entire calendar year. My game has not radically changed. I avoid playing with "scared money" by dropping down limits. I am playing tight-aggressive poker. I reread chapters in poker books every night. I keep logs.

In fact, when I am losing like this, I look constantly over and over again at my play, much more carefully than I am winning. Indeed, I think my biggest EV losses come when I'm winning a lot. I get careless, feeling invincible, and I play looser than I should.

When I am this deep into losses, I find myself looking at single bets, convincing myself somehow that saving one big bet here or there would have made the difference. But, then I realized that tiny edge of skill can't make a real difference. Luck always makes the real difference. I'd have to find a dozen situations where I could save one bet before I can make up for one lucky 2-outer that someone caught on the river.

Anyway, instead of asking you to listen to more of my bad run rantings, I'd like to hear two things from my readers that would be a big help to me:

• What's the worst run of BBs in limit you've ever had in a row, how long was it, and how long before your bankroll recovered?
• Where online are the best limit games at the lower end right now (I'd like to optimize game selection to the maximum if I can)?

I'd appreciate your help.

Comments

from Katie

[(Anonymous)]

Bradley – From reading your recent entries, I think that you are definitely letting a relatively short bad run of poker depress you, which is probably affecting your game, no matter how sure you are that you are playing solidly. You’re questioning whether or not poker can be won – but you know that it can. Take a week or two off if you haven’t already done that. $300 is only 50 BB at 3/6, so nowhere near the 300 BB you are talking about as not being a big enough bankroll. I’m not sure about how bad the rest of the year has been for you, though.

The people you are talking about who claim they have never had big downswings may just have a different definition of the big downswing – I’m looking at my stats right now, and if I divide my play into multiple chunks of roughly 250 hours each of online play over the last 18 months (god I play too much poker, I’m surprised I still have a job), I haven’t had a losing chunk. Of course, within those chunks I’ve had lots of ups and downs, but that’s variance. I can’t really divide it into BBs & tell you my worst downswing, because I (a) played a lot of limit SNGs in the latter half of last year, and (b) changed limit levels dramatically and regularly based on how things were going; I just didn’t keep good enough records last year. Changing limits regularly is not certainly the best way to maximize my winnings (since I should just stick to whatever limit gives me the maximum profit), but I’ve found it is necessary for me to avoid a depression associated with a losing streak.

I used to have the problem you described, where when my visible bankroll on Pacific swung up above some arbitrary value, I’d feel good about my poker and start playing marginal hands for “fun”. I’ve solved this problem by taking advantage of Pacific’s horrendous cashout process, which involves holding your cashouts for processing for a couple of days before finally spitting them into Firepay. I immediately cash out when I have >$1K visible, and drop my Pacific cash to $500. Then, if I have to reverse the cashout (which you can do until Pacific processes it), I have to endure unbearable mental anguish, and so I play tightly to avoid going through that. It still happens, of course, but I think that it forces me to remember that it is real money. I have found that this is something that can be hard to remember on the internet, in contrast to live play where you have a tangible representation of your cash.

You know where I think the best games are – Pacific. But maybe Pacific isn’t the best place for you when you are in this mental state. You seem to imply that people drawing to their two-outers are breaking you (a ridiculously common occurrence on Pacific, certainly), but you know better than that. Those people drawing to their two-outers are throwing their money at you over time, since you win significantly bigger pots when they don’t hit them than you would if they just folded as the odds dictate.

Good luck...things will turn around!