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Hi, Need some advice...

I'm playing a mix of 50nl/100nl

I've been break-even over a long stretch of 70k hands / 2 months.

It's really crushing my motivation to hit the tables everyday. It's hard to play when you're not feeling like a winner.

I've attached some graphs to show my story.
http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww55/motlybia/allhands.jpg
http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww55/motlybia/last120.jpg
http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww55/motlybia/last60.jpg


I've been getting coaching and diligently working on several leaks we found i.e.

-not value betting thinly enough
-calling a passive fish when he's showing strength
-3 bet bluffing the wrong villains in the wrong situations
-not stopping when tilted


I haven't been running god awful, but i'm losing way more than my share of pots where the money goes in when i'm a 70% favorite...


Anyway, part of me wants to just go back to 25nl for a while just to rebuild my confidence and have stress free sessions.

My coach says i can beat 100nl, and i should stay there, deal with it and put the hands in.

Part of me thinks just cut the 100nl out again, and part of me says take a few days off, just hang in there, don't tilt, and the variance will sort itself out, just need to get on a nice run-good stretch. Bankroll is plenty for 100nl.


*have watched eptpe

im not a coach or anything. but i think ur idea of moving down for a confidence build sounds like a great idea. having confidence is huge in poker. take my advice for whats its worth have a great day gl at tables

Moving down for a little breather is never a bad idea per say. However if you are really looking over your sessions and know your decisions to be +EV then I say tough it out.

who is your coach?

who is your coach?

He's a coach from a different site actually. He's a solid winning player.

What site do you play on? If you play on stars I could review a vid for you if you make a member vid (I just say stars cuz I'm reasonably familiar with most of the 100nl regs, but I'd review another site aswell.)

maybe just play 50nl exclusively until your confidence is back?

My coach says i can beat 100nl, and i should stay there, deal with it and put the hands in.

This actually may be the right thing to do, assuming that:

1. You are focusing on playing on your A game as often as possible. I feel this is better than saying "don't tilt" since tilt is so subtle and nuanced.
2. You are properly rolled.

It seems to me as though the downswing is effecting you enough that you may not be on your A game at 100.

What you should realise is that you can have a downswing like this without making huge mistakes. For example, I have 2 students who came to me aproximately a year ago and they were both NL50 regulars at the time. They are both intelligent and highly motivated and both capable of being solid winners and are both focusing on trying to play full-time. I would say their skill level is comparable. One of them is just starting to crush at NL400 and the other is still at NL100 - because he ran into a large wave of variance. Having played over 2 million hands myself I can confirm that I've had a few long streaks of unfavourable variance and I do remember it being difficult to deal with in the beginning. Once you've come through one of two of these stretches it becomes easier, to the point where it shouldn't effect you at all.

Your all time win rate appears to be in the region of 3 big blinds per 100 hands. This is very nice to have of course but it is too low for a player like you who obviously has aspirations. The fact that you have a coach and take the time to post here means that you take this game seriously. Winning at 3BB while nice, is well below the level that should be expected at these stakes by a serious "professional".

Poker involves chance and as such we can never be absolutely sure what your "real" win rate is even over the 794K hands your graph shows.

You do not mention your standard deviation or whether this is 6 max or full ring. Let's assume a SD of 90 BB per 100 hands which should not be totally out of line and gives us something to work with.

The figures following are crude but they may give you an idea. Even over 794K hands there is 0.5% chance that you are only a breakeven player. Equally, there is 0.5% chance that you are a 6BB winner who has been unlucky. There is a 2.5% chance that you are above 5 or below 1.

In other words even over 794K hands we cannot be sure whether your results are a fair reflection of your skill or whether you are being lucky/unlucky.

Your 2 month graph of 81k hands has $ instead of Big Blinds but in any case it is breakeven. Over such a small sample there is a 2.5% chance you could be a 6BB winner who got unlucky or a 2.5% chance you are a 6BB loser who has had a good run.

The nearer you are to a breakeven player the longer and more frequent these ugly runs will be. I have been playing this game for 6 years now and I have had a few downswings that tested my confidence despite the fact that my win rate remains at over 8BB even at $400NL and was higher at lower stakes.

If you look at your long term graph you will see downswings that lasted a similar length of time. 250k - 330K; 350k - 495k; 630k - 690k.

These bad runs are all part of the game. They cripple confidence but one of our skills as professionals is to get through them intact. Leatherass who has made a LOT of money at this game has had frequent 100K breakeven stretches.

Your decision as to whether to move down should be bankroll led in the first instance which is why I suspect your coach is advising you stay where you are. However, often, when we are in a bad run, dropping down to stakes where the money means less allows us to concentrate a little more on playing well rather than being fearful of yet another stacking. However, thsi only works if we take the lower limit seriously and try 100% to play well. I have moved down in the past from time to time just to re-focus. It is very much a personal thing.

I emphasise to my students that it is "process not results" that matter. All we can ever do is make the "best possible decision" at the time. Strangely that may not be the "best decision possible" because we can't see his cards and we do not know with 100% certainty what our opponent's ranges and tendencies are. All we can do is work it out as best as we can and do that! Once we have done that there is nothing else left than to wait for the poker Gods to decide.

To reduce the frequency and length of these bad runs you need to win at a higher rate; make better decisions; don't stop when tilted - NEVER Tilt! If you Tilt you are focussing on results not process. If I get it all-in with AA against KK and he spikes his K then this is 100% irrelevant. If you think it matters you have a mental problem right there that you need to address with some urgency.

Tilt is a killer because it is subtle. Sure, when we throw the mouse it is clear for us and everyone else to see but if we are simmering below the surface we could be making all sorts of decisions that are not "best possible". That hurts our win rate and helps to cause these bad runs.

You must be led by your coach of course because I know nothing about you but I would be concentrating on getting your win rate up to 7BB+ or so. The main focus would be on getting you nto make excellent reads and excellent decisions rather than playing so many hands. You are playing 1000 hands per day which is not a ludicrous amount but, when playing, how long do you take on every decision? Are you ever rushing the decision becaus of time constraints? Do you consider EVERY option in a non-trivial situation?

Do you review your hands every day? Do you pick out hands where you were not sure and ask for advice from your coach?

I think your main focus needs to be on improving your win rate. Go for it!

Good luck - may the flop be with you

T

maybe just play 50nl exclusively until your confidence is back?

This. There is nothing wrong to go down and play some 50NL IMO

maybe just play 50nl exclusively until your confidence is back?

Yeah, as much as i want to beat 100nl, i think this is probably the most sensible, after ending my tilt-spew-o'rama, 50nl has been fairly reasonable for the last 30k hands
http://i705.photobucket.com/albums/ww55/motlybia/last45days50nl.jpg

It seems to me as though the downswing is effecting you enough that you may not be on your A game at 100.

I think this is correct

What you should realise is that you can have a downswing like this without making huge mistakes...

I've had a few long streaks of unfavourable variance ...

I'm sure it's been a combination of both of these for me



Nice post Tjd, still digesting it, some good stuff to think about

TJD heck of a nice post.

3bb/100 over 800k hands is pretty good. Also, having a 70k hand break-even stretch is nothing out of the ordinary. Keep in mind that the standard deviation of poker earnings is outrageously high. Strange things happen.

3bb/100 over 800k hands is pretty good. Also, having a 70k hand break-even stretch is nothing out of the ordinary. Keep in mind that the standard deviation of poker earnings is outrageously high. Strange things happen.

You realise that bb = big blinds not PTBB?

If so, I have some issue with your comment. Of course, any win rate > 0 is nice to have. If we take that and add in rakeback we make a few $$ and that is always good.

I am not looking to ruffle feathers here but I am aware that I may because most "regulars" are not acheiving high win rates.

For the vast majority of players to win at 3 big blinds per 100 hands would be a solid peformance with which they would be pleased. However, much more is available to players who play "really" well. (I am assuming 6 max)

The original poster is clearly taking his game very seriously and I assumed that he wanted to go as far as he could; that is why I said it was "too low"

There are many "pros" out there who make their living mainly from rakeback. This used to be common 4/5 years ago when the games (especially on Party) where very soft even as high as $3/$6 - even $5/$10 had many weak players as well. The "pros" could play fairly badly and still breakeven allowing them to make profit from rakeback alone. Nowadays the games are harder to beat so a "rakeback pro" has to be able to play at least fairly well.

At the mid stakes there are a lot of regulars who play a sh*tload of hands but whose win rates are quite low (even just negative in some cases). Thankfully there are also enough really bad players to allow for a decent living to be made. However, there are also quite a few players who continue to win at a high rate in these games. They are taking the money from the fish the same as the regulars do but the best players nibble a bit off the regulars as well, bringing the regulars back towards breakeven and allowing the highest winning players to acheive their win rate.

Of course, winning is a sign that we are playing well compared to the entire poker population. We have to overcome the rake as well as any better players that are around. I also agree that winning at 3BB is a solid performance. It is certainly a win rate that most players do not reach.

It really depends on what your ambitions are. I would consider that if a student of mine was winning at 3bb/100 we were failing to reach our goals. I suspect that the OP and his coach would also like more.

The play at the lower limits is poor enough that an ambitious pro should be looking to win much more. If they can improve their game to the point that they do, not only will they have fewer bad downswings but they will also be more prepared to face the higher stakes where it is possible to earn a very good living indeed.

My view has always been that I do not want to scrape a living. I don't want to win at an "acceptable" rate. I want to crush the games I am playing. I realise that such a single minded (and vicious) attitude may not seem very "friendly" but poker is war. I want to bring every weapon I have to the table and destroy the opponents.

I would never be satisfied with 3bb/100 because we KNOW there is more available if only we can get to play even better.

I could never say that "3bb/100 over 800k hands is pretty good". I would be annoyed with myself that I was not up there with the big winners. It is simply a question of how good you want to be. At mid stakes, if I look at players with 50K hands over the past few months the average win rate is 1.86bb/100 but there are is a player there winning at less than 1BB over 240K! There is even a player who is losing a very small amount over 328K. Most are winning of course because these are the regulars at this limit. However, there are only a few players winning at 8bb+ (about 5%). The question people need to ask themselves is do they want to be one of those or one of the crowd who win much less.

Its up to the individual to set their own targets. I suspected the OP had high ambitions.

Cheers - may the flop be with you

T

I think TDJ makes a really good post here (again). I personally would never move up when my winrate is just marginal positive; it's a sign that you still have a lot of room for improvement at your current level. It's also a sign that it is very likely that you will be a break even or even a losing player at the next level, and as you have found out by now; that's not fun. Even being a small winner is mentally very hard since swings will be big and common.