Am I doing something wrong?

[maverykk]

I play tight aggresive and after letting opponents suck out too many times I will now try to take the pot down after the flop or turn rather than trying to get in one more raise. However, lately my profits have gone down to nearly nothing. For example I will play for three to six hours and win only 15.00 and it only takes one bad beat (or read) to nullify my very slow and hard earned winnings. Last night I have pocket 77 and the flop comes 9 7 4 with two clubs and then the turn comes a meaningless 3 of spades so I raise the pot 3 times thinking I don't want anyone hitting their club flush draw. This guy raises and I think he has KK (or other big pair) and I got him with a set. We both go all in and he turns over pocket 56 wins with a double gapped str8!!!
Now all my profits are gone. I play for two more hours and don't lose anymore money but I didn't win either. How can I play for so many hours and not win anything? Am I too tight? should I play loose and bet more, but risk losing much more?
Any ideas out there?

[kentox]

in ring games you will suffer a lot of short term variance..
don't chase losses.. dont let bad beats effect you playing your A game..

the more bad beats the better, this means you are getting the money in good..
in the long term you will win..

[The Professor]

Yes this is just short term variance - in other words - bad luck.

The beats you described above are just unlucky - sounds like you just got sucked out on.

Now this isn't very nice when it happens, but if you are playing correctly and getting your chips in when you are in the lead, then over the long term these bad beats should happen alot less than the number of times that you win the pot.

So with the short term variance, some nights you will win big, some nights you will only win a little / break even, and other nights you might take a hit.

The trick is playing the correct strategy so that the nights that you are up outnumber the nights when you take a hit and hence derive a long term profit.


You shouldn't really change your strategy because of receiving bad beats - as long as you are playing correctly and protecting your hand with bets and making your opponent pay over the odds to see another card - this way he is making the mistake by calling bets that are more than the odds of him hitting his card.