Haemorraging chips!

[Common_Man]

Although I don't want to knock the course which obviously works for some people, I think I need to report honestly on my own experience.

I have been doing the course for exactly one month (I started with $25 in Hollywood Poker & $40 in Party Poker). For the first 3 weeks my bankroll diminished gradually in both accounts, but not by any significant amount..at the same rate of loss I could've probably continued playing for another month or two, without having to deposit any more money. Meanwhile, I was happy just accumulating experience through playing and trying to adjust my game to the tables.

Then this happened: a few nights ago I lost half my bankroll in Hollywood Poker in the space of about 15 minutes (the curse of the Pocket Aces!). I joined another table with my remaining $8.60, had a miserable time with my dealt hands, hit no flops at all, finally get dealt a decent starting hand (Pocket Jacks, after waiting for 1 hour) end up going all-in on the turn (because I couldn't shake the other player off) and get beat by a pair of Queens on the river.

I decided not to deposit any more into Hollywood Poker as I never really felt comfortable with the interface anyway ..all a bit cramped and confusing to follow.

Then two nights ago, playing in Party Poker, exactly the same thing happened when I was dealt pocket Aces about 15 minutes into the game. As usual, everyone folded after my (very) small raise of x2 BB, the only taker being the game's Calling Station (who was in front of me) whose stack was going up and down like a yo-yo according to the luck of the draw (he called just about every raise made by anyone during the game, but never raised himself). I lost the remaining 75% of my stack to his full house of nines made on the river.

Trying to be philosophical, I joined another table with $10, thinking that my luck would change eventually. Over the next 90 minutes I was dealt rags and then some, trying to make the most of few marginal hands that came my way but consistently beaten at the showdown. Then the pocket aces came again..aaaargh!! Again I lost my remaining stack to a full house made on the river! Its not that I'm incapable of folding pocket aces, but with the irrational and unpredicatable betting patterns you get from players on these low stakes tables (who just check, check, check even if they hit trips on the flop) what can you do? So again, I found myself kissing goodbye to $10.00.

Now, it must be said that my playing style does deviate somewhat from the core PP strategy (which is something I discussed with the PP in the earlier thread). I don't follow the starting chart because back in the beginning when I did this I found that I lost chips quite quickly for a variety of reasons. Instead i prefer to play the type of hands you might expect to see played on a shorthand table, so i get a lot more action, steal a lot of pots after the flop with marginal or non-existent hands, and create a stronger table image. Playing like this, I am able to recoup chips I lose with decent starting hands that are overtaken on the board and have to be folded, or that I lose at the showdown. Of course, this also ups my ability to improve hands with the cards on the board.The other day, I managed to win 8 hands in a row, taking down the pot after the flop or turn with nothing, and risking very little, so I guess I must be doing something right? By contrast, the problem I seem to have is with good starting hands, ie: the ones that I should play strongly according to the starting chart. With these I either win a pot of nothing or lose a pile. It is just too random, and i seem to have tried evey possible variation in betting strategy to overcome this, but to no avail.

Okay, so i know that I've been suffering a bad streak lately, but these sort of losses at 05/.10 tables are quite significant aren't they? Doubting myself, I thought that maybe this had been an inevitable outcome of my personalised strategy all along, but that just hadn't manifested itself until now. So I decided to try again, but stick rigidly to the PP starting chart strategy. But it soon became apparent that I was losing chips at the same rate as I would normally, but without the counterbalancing effect of frequently winning small pots with marginal hands, and the stronger table image.

Oh, and now my heart sinks whenever I dealt pocket aces...I think i am going to be folding them very early from now on!!

[LuckyNumberD]

Hey Common Man,

Though problems there..

at first,Question #1 How long you been playing poker?
I'll try to give my opinion and Advice on some problems you mentioned.
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In my opinion It's not good to play short-handed hands in a full-ring game. There's a reason those tables require different strategies.
In short-handed games, Card values go up because with less people, there's less chance your opponents have a good hand.
Wich is definitly not the case in a Full-Ring game.

Ofcourse you get a lot of action this way. But the downside to playing like this is that you're faced with a lot of though decicions after the flop:

-Is my middle/bottom pair good enough?
-Is my kicker good enough?

Wich is exactly why a Tight style is recommended to any beginning poker player. It limits though decisions.
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Also, If you play at 0.05/0.10 FORGET about creating a table image. Most players don't even pay attention to that. They just play their own two cards.
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About the stealing:
... you mentioned that you won 8 pots in a row with [nothing].

That means that you been bluffing almost an entire round of blinds.. from Early, Middle and Late position alike.
Position is VERY important. Consider this:

If you raise from early position with 7 players behind you, someone might re-raise or call.
If he raises, you lose money on a steal that had little chance of working in the first place.
If he calls behind you.. you have to make a move FIRST on every street after that.
YOU have to give away information about your hand first. If you raised with nothing pre-flop, it's likely you have nothing on the flop. and you have to make a continuation bet into someone who called your raise, from early position.. according to the GAP-concept it's unlikely he's in there with a worse hand than you.
Especially if you take into account that most bad players on 0.05/0.10 Can't lay down AK even if they hit nothing.

So you should really slow down with this.Try to Limit your steals to Late position with no Limpers.
Besides... it doesn't matter how many pots you win. It's about how much money you win. Winning $8,- from 1 pot is better than winning $6.30 from 8 pots in a row, for example.
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Premium hands that win a little, but lose a lot?
I think poker is a weird game. Because It's all about winning money. But greed will KILL you.
All I can say is that not every AA,KK,AK,AQ is going to make big bucks for you.
Just be glad to win a small-sized pot rather than letting your opponents outdraw you.

Wich brings me to another problem you mentioned:...
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It's never fun to lose with AA or any premium hand. But hey.... they're just good cards pre-flop. Never get married to a hand. And If you get outdrawn then that's bad luck.

But I'm guessing you just minimum raise or limp with AA? (because you wanna win a big pot mentioned in your post)

Well as an example:

You get dealt AA on the button and just Call with already 2 limpers in the pot. You just call because you don't want all the players to fold pre-flop.(It would be a waste to "only" win maybe 5BB with AA right?)
The SB and BB call/Check.

And the son-of-a-#$%^ hit his straight with 58o on a 467 flop..... THAT is bad play. You shoud've raise pre-flop to get those speculative hands out of the pot. (Not minimum raise to 0.20 for example.. but 3BB+1BB per limper is a good rule)

I'm not saying you play AA that bad as mentioned above. It's just an example to point out the difference. No offence good man!
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Checking Trips may or may not be all that bad. It depends on the situation. And honestly...
I'd check Trips against a player like you as well. From what I hear from you you're betting a lot of pots. So a check-raise against you has much better chance of succeeding.

Against a Calling-station I'd just bet out.
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I'm also a bit concerned about you mentioning that you been dealt rags for 1.5 hour and you tried to make some marginal hands work... but lost on the showdown.
Especially in Loose games where people call you down to the river with any pair. you gotta be in there with a good holding.

You can't just enter a pot and try to win it with any pair. Especially if you play with marginal hands.
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All-in-all reading your post I'm guessing you're an action player. You like to play and bluff right?
A good player will just wait for a good hand against you. And let you do the betting, and check-raise/check-call you then show down a solid hand.

Everything taken together My advice would be:

-Stick to the Tight starting hands at first. (you can always loosen up with more experience.)
-Take your time, folding bad hands is just as good as betting AA.
-Don't try to steal EVERY pot from EVERY position. Pick the best opportunity's to do so..(i.e late position, no callers.)
-It's GREAT to win a big pot, but be happy with a small pot. It's better than giving a freecard.
-Bad Beats happen, but ask yourself what you did wrong first. Slowplay increases the risk of being outdrawn.
-Don't try to force things to happen. If you try to win pots with marginal hands because it's been 1 hour since your last premium hand. you're in for some beats. Patience pays, especially in poker.

***Just play ABC poker.***

pfff... wel a long post. I shure hope this helps a bit. Let me know if you have any questions/comments!!

good luck sir

[Common_Man]

Hi LuckyNumberD,

First, let me say thank you for your input...you have taken a lot of trouble to write a comprehensive reply and I appreciate that!

Whilst you are right in everything you say, I feel you have perhaps misread or misunderstood part of what I said...this could be my fault for making it so long that it was impossible to read without skimming. Also, there is some important background in the thread 'Help Me Catch Fish' which adds to the explanation of why I have deviated from the core strategy.

The essential problem I've been experiencing has been playing the starting hands using the chart....NOT the other hands that I play. This is the area where I've been losing chips fast, recently. As you will know, its very easy to find yourself having put $1.50 - $2.00 (or more) into the pot in a .05/.10c game by the turn or river with a good starting hand that gets beaten at the showdown. Lose the showdown three times in succession and that's over half your chipstack gone already. Then we have all the occassions when you've called to the flop, miss it totally and have to fold. More chip loss. There are also days when every time you get a half - decent starting hand (say, a group C or D) and put in a small raise of x2 or x3 the BB only to have a player go all-in or re-raise with $4.00 and force you to fold. Do this 3 or 4 times and that's another $1 gone from the stack. So you try raising a bit stronger the next time you're on a half-decent starting hand and everyone just folds leaving you with a 15c gain. Recently, all three scenarios have conspired together to beat me down.

I would not say that I am greedy in what i expect from a pot when i have a good hand, but if you wait for 45 minutes to play a great hand that hits the flop and only come away with 50c this doesn't recoup the SB's & BB's you've put in, plus the Group C-D hands that you called and were forced to fold after the flop! Don't forget that I'm not saying that I lose $10 every time I play a table...a fortnight ago I won $20 in one sitting, and I usually place quite well in Sit n Go's (winning once). However, on an average play I will lose a bit - maybe 50c / $1. Last week though, everything crashed around me!

Yes, I did lose a hell of a lot of showdowns..more than usual, but i also folded many hands that missed the flop whenever a raise was made that i couldn't justify calling. I am very aware of the importance of position at a table. Because my post was so long I couldn't go into detail about exactly how I go about stealing pots after the flop, but I should note here that I will do this frequently and successfully from the BB position and late positions. If I get to steal 2 or 3 in a row from these positions I will then continue to try stealing if the flop and the betting of other players allows me to. As I mentioned, i ONLY do this if I can risk little money. I consistenlty make more chips than I lose like this, and I never push it too far, and it enbales me to recoup some of the losses from the 'correct' hands played according to the starting chart.
However, if the flops aren;t permitting then I obviously cannot pursue this stealing strategy. (A lot of it isn't technically stealing anyway when I hit the flop with two-pair or trips or something..)

Also, I must reiterate that I HAVE spent time playing strictly according to the starting chart. I don't have a problem with disciplined play - i am very disciplined in all aspects of my life, so its not really a test for me. But when I play like this the results are always quite poor....I have subsequently adjusted my game to try to ameliorate the problems I was having with the PP strategy, and to a certain extent it has worked and I am learning to read tables and adapt. MY BIG LOSSES would NOT have been avoided by playing tight to the PP strategy because I made the losses on precisely the hands that the starting chart makes you play (this is what I said in my last post).

Like you say LuckyNumberD, playing longhand you need to play tight because with so many other players the possibilities for one of them overtaking you as the hand progresses is high, so you need a higher starting value. However, even the Poker Professsor has conceeded that these low stake tables can be very unpredictable (and indeed are) and with many limpers it can be hard to get any value whatsoever from a good starting hand. I don't know what the answer is, except that I suspect that things get better at higher stakes tables. I just wish i could hit on a strategy that enabled me to increase my bankroll to the point that I can start playing at those tables and put my theory to the test!

Well, I am sorry if I have repeated much of what I put in my last post, and that in the end it has turned out just as long-winded! But I hope that it serves to clarify my difficulties.

(Thanks again for your assitance LuckyNumberD)..By the way; are you currently paying 05/.10c tables and if so, at what time GMT? As I play evenings from the UK I could be missing the fish?

Cheers,

MB

[LuckyNumberD]

Hey again MB

I never find it long-winded, don't worry It's cool to talk about this sort of stuff!!

I have to admit I misunderstood a couple of things, about the greed and all.. just so you know, no offense mate!
It was late so, I kinda missed the fact that you were losing Because of the PP stategy.
My apoligies!

I must say I have the same feeling.. I'd like to get the BR required to go up in the stakes.
I re-raised an UTG raise with AKs and we still saw a flop with 5 people!! (And I had position on them..from MP1 )

The above hand was played on the 0.10/0.20 Limit. But I usually play the 0.05/0.10
I play mostly the afternoons (Dutch Time) So I really don't know about missing the Fish.

Yeh and those all-ins suck as well, It's annoying when someone goes all-in after a raise Pre-flop. Well.... they'll get whooped when you raise with a real strong holding right

Also A problem is that most bad players will only buy-in for $1 at the 0.5/0.10
I usually just buy-in for $5 and still have 80% of the table covered.

But I don't really know what could be the problem then... maybe you just hit a bad streak? Maybe a bit of steaming? But even if so there's always things that can be improved.
I'd be better if you could post a few hands here related to the problems you mentioned ?

The professor will check this post out soon I hope, so then you're in for some real advice

How long are you playing this course? How long you been playing poker in total? I recognize a few problems you mentioned because I had them myself. But the fact that things went better was all due to this course (Thnks Prof.)

I hope to talk to you again soon MB!

[Common_Man]

Hello again LND!

You are writing from Holland? I'm very impressed with your mastery of English...especially considering the Poker slang used in these forums!

How long have I been playing Texas Hold 'Em? Not that long I guess...about 6 months intermittently, and then I started to play on the internet after xmas, playing with Play Money for about 1 month, then I started to play Party Poker low stakes tables about 6 weeks ago. My early games were reasonably successful in that I would lose a bit then win a bit, but overall I found I was losing. I didn't mind because I was prepared to lose money in order to try diffferent strategies and improve my game through trial and error.

About a week after starting to play Party Poker I came across the Poker Professor website, liked what i saw, and decided to follow the prescribed course strategy, so I opened an account with Hollywood Poker. Since watching the WSOP Women's on TV this year I've been immersing myself in everything Poker-oriented, playing, reading books, using the inetrnet for advice, watching live games, and thinking poker! So, I am taking it quite seriously...not just playing for kicks and hoping to get lucky. I want to learn to play intelligently.

Initially, I probably played about 20 hours of poker sticking strictly and without deviation from the PP course-strategy. During this time, my losses were a little bit more significant than before. So that's when i started to adjust the strategy a bit.

After my terrible sessions last week, I thought "hell.....I think I'll go back to basics!" and tried the strict PP strategy again. But my bad luck was still clinging to me like a bad smell and in fact my losses became even worse! (I wasn't tilting or anything!)

I realise that I've got a lot to learn and am relatively inexperienced. But I am quite analytical and able to assimilate new stuff. I DO like action, but wouldn't call myself an 'Action Player'....I will do whatever I have to do to win chips:...and if that means sittting tight and playing one hand per hour then I'll do that if that's what it takes. I am only interested in positive results, not the experience of playing. If I want to have fun, I'll go and play a sit 'n go with Play Money! On the other hand, if I find that getting in the mix more frequently (ie: action') gives me a net gain of pots, then I'll do that instead. Its a purely rational choice. Obviously something's not quite right with my tight game at the .05/.10c tables, so if anyone can help me out it'd be great and I'll be writing rave reviews about my progress!

You say you recognise a few of my problems but have managed to use the course to sort them out....can you be a bit more explicit? Maybe there's something that would help me? Do you still play strictly to the PP starting chart, or not? I'm interested to know LNP!

I am also curious to know why you only take $5 to the 05/.10 tables? I always take $10..I don't like to be short-stacked against a strong opponent. Maybe there's something here?

The biggest problem playing v tight on the low stakes tables seems to be that if you are seen to be sitting there for 20 minutes folding every hand and then you call or raise a bet pre-flop, everyone goes.."whooooah..he's got a good hand!" and immediately fold. And that even happens with only a raise of x2 BB! That's why I've found I HAVE to loosen up!

By the way..can you tell me what 'a bit of steaming' is? That's a phrase I haven't heard before.

Thanks for making this thread a lively one!

Cheers,

MB

[LuckyNumberD]

Hi MB,

Thanks! I'll let my English teacher know you said that about my English language

...Yeh the forum is a bit dead, not many people posting things these days.

"a bitu of steaming" is basically another word for saying someone's on Tilt. But you already pointed out that that's clearly not the case. (VERY good, 7 months I tilted my bankroll of $57 off in an hour... Not a prob. anymore now.)
Tilting actually goes away with expirience i realized in my case. Losses i thought were due to bad luck was actually bad play, giving a free card for example.

It's a bit hard to explain exactly why the problems got less bad. I just realized that I basically started out the same as you.
Two classmates were playing the game during recess, I wanted to play along next day. So I read the rules on the internet.. and I also found out there was a strategy for this game!
Then I did the same like you, ordered books, read articles etc.. and took the game serious from the beginning. I been playing tight since my first game

The course actually helped me out a lot, because it explained to me WHY position is important, and how it affects decisions.
Also how much you should bet, Value bet, Probe bet etc.
Mostly it was because it pointed towards a goal I guess. Reaching $1000. Every cent adds up to your goal, so little baby-steps.

My main problem is I was pushing myself too badly.
Now I realize you can read all the books you want, but there's no substitute for Experience, and that kinda takes time. Consider the money lost the learning-curve for poker.
Experience come from bad judgement, I read somewhere, and it's definitly true.

Just the fact that you're posting here, and realizing some things can go better. Makes you a better player than some of my friends that've been playing longer in my opinion.


I'd really like to help you as much as I can. It's cool you're really motivated in poker too
So If you could send some of your hand history files to my E-mail?
I'll check them through and try to give advice based on that.
Because I don't understand what's wrong either. You play a good poker game from what I can read.

I'm no poker pro like Doyle Brunson, But thing is.. you don't have to agree with things written in poker books or told by people. Just seeing things from another perspective is learning already!!

I'll speak to you soon

LND

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EDIT:
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I sit down with just $5,- everytime. Because mostly the players buy-in for just $1-$3. I can sit down with $5 and have them covered anyway.
Besides, I'm still building my bankroll , and with $5 I risk 8% of my bankroll. I don't like the fact that the course usually has 15%+ on the table. I know this is because they want you to go up in stakes quicker, but I don't mind grinding it out slowly at the lower stakes.
This bankroll is meant to stay

[Common_Man]

Hi LND,

I don't usually request hand histories, so I've played a game this afternoon especially for you!! It was perfect as it was typical of one of my poker playing sessions so it will give you a really good idea of how I play. I didn't have the terrible luck that I was suffering last week, in fact I had quite good cards but I finshed down $1.60...as I say, very typical of me! When I have your email address I will send it to you..I look forward to your analysis!

Cheers LND

Marc.

[LuckyNumberD]

Great!
I send my E-mail adress to you in your private inbox.
I'd always save your hand history files. I find it works really good to check up on some key hands before playing just to notice some things that you did wrong/good.

I'll hear from you!