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[Closed] RahXephon1 - Now playing NL50 with 100BB - Force of Will

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hi mate i am sure your luck will turn around again soon :)

good luck!

edit: oh and btw (i know its a tad late) grats on diamond!


Seems I'm on the road to bustoland.

Really don't know what to do, I can't win a hand. If I reraise someone I'm always against the top of their range. I reraise a 60/40 player and he has aces. I push against some limpers, someone wakes up after me with a monster. When I squeeze I get calle with 22 when I have Aq and with KQ when I have JJ.

I'm 130 Buyins under EV in my last 100k hands. I know I can still improve, but I don't know where to start. I just can't continue this way.


1.11.2009

Time for the end of month balance. Off course a pretty terrible month but hopefully next one. I really put alot of volume this month which makes my results suck even more

Total hands: 70 000

Total profit (with rakeback included): 400$ :f_cry:

Total playing time: 100 hours

Current Bankroll: 1356$

Withdraw total: 1600$


Tim64
Joined: 03.11.2008

Hey RahX,

I'm sorry, man. Let me be the first to commiserate. I really thought that 100k hands was enough to play through any downswing for a winning player. Guess not.

That's a sick difference between your EV and your winnings and you have the right to feel totally crushed.

2 things to think about:

1. Your EV line means you're doing the right thing, so don't despair.

2. rakeback makes it a positive month overall - you have to look for the silver lining at times like these. When you consider that 95% of all poker players are losing players you're ahead of the game even when you don't have the luck of the cards.

Next month you'll be wiping the floor with them, once again.

Good luck friend.
Tim


Tnx Tim you always cheer me up _biggrin:

Hopefully it will really get better this month. I wish you good luck on the 22$ turbos.


Hey dude,
Sad to hear a fellow SSS player is struggling for an extended ammount of time, guess u just have to tank it and hopefully you will oneday have a month which u are 2k above EV to cancel it out.

Hope ur badrun ends today!


No change for the the beginning of the month, already lost 300$, still heavily under EV, still not capable f winning a pot. Soon I won't be bankrolled for NL100 anymore, which is crazy given I was on a 200 BI bankroll. I have no intention of moving down limits though if my luck doesn't turn I'm done with poker.


Tim64
Joined: 03.11.2008

Hey RahXephon,

It's a sick beating you're taking, that's true.

But, if I have understood you, you are not playing poker as your main or only source of income. If that's the case, you can afford to take a break and regroup.

You said before that you enjoyed playing NL SH. If I can make a suggestion, stop playing SSS for a few of days. None of us is immune to tilt - not even those with the most self control.

Have a look back at your blog; on 22 September you seemed really upbeat. Poker is a game that can change in an instant. But you have to try to look long term. To say something like "if my luck doesn't change, I'm quitting" seems such a shame because of all the hard work you have put in.

The problem is that you can't say for certain when your luck will change - only that it will change, eventually. However - it seems to me that you have stopped enjoying poker. When you play, you are just waiting for the next bad beat - and sure enough it comes. I have played in that frame of mind and it makes you miserable.

I have played in that same frame of mind where I refused to move down a limit. Partly it's pride (knowing that you already beat the level below) and partly it's a feeling that you want to be on the higher limit when your luck does finally change so you can maximise the recovery. But I just don't think it works that way. Without your confidence, you just can't maximise your EV. SSS is a game of such small margins that you have to believe in yourself totally to be able to play it at midstakes. And it's too hard to maintain that belief when the money is disappearing at such a rate and you're already facing the possibility of having to move down.

Not very coherent, sorry. Just that I've been where you are - not with the same volume - but still losing for month after month. And I'm happy I stuck with poker (though I changed my game) and would hate for you to lose all that you've gained.


Mostly I'm not willing to move down limits, because I don't think I'm willing to frustrate myself with poker for so long. I still have 80 BI's on both sites. I lost around 100BIs in the last week, 20 sessions, 17 loosing and the three that were positive, none is more than 15$+.

So the possibilities are:

-I'm not a winning player on my limit, which also implies I don't understand what I'm doing, which means the most sensible thing for me would be withdrawing the remaining bankroll and call it a day.

-I ran bad, which means I still have a healthy bankroll and will be able to recover.

-the variance with SSS is so big that you cannot be sure it won't kill you and your bankroll sometime, which makes me think it's better to quit anyways.

Please don't think I'm arrogant, I know my game is far from perfect or even far from good, but I put everything I got into it, lots of time and effort and I'm still willing to embrace every bit of knowledge comming my way. I review most of my sessions, I check some other players play.

Also the games on FT NL100 in the evening hours are mostly so soft, people with 50-60% VPIP, one or two on each table, this should be a dreamland for any poker player. If I can't beat those games, then I can't beat none so I'm better not playing anyway.

I apologize for yet another of those posts, but this is everything I can write right now.


i feel really bad for you and i can only imagine how hard it must be for you as i have never been that unlucky.

but keep in mind that you are running way below ev.

so you are beating the tables.

like Tim says your luck will change at some point so just hang in there.

try and stay mentally strong and stay at your limit.

looking at your graph i cant help wondering if you perhaps started tilting a bit around 90k hands? if that might be the case maybe a short break wouldnt be a bad idea either.

anyway i know you are a winning player so dont give up!


Tnx for the kind words Raun.

Would you be willing to do a sweat session sometimes, maybe you can plug a hole or two :).

Also I'm doing some work with steal ranges and would like to discuss it with some fellow SSSers to see if I'm on the right track.


Originally posted by RahXephon1
Tnx for the kind words Raun.

Would you be willing to do a sweat session sometimes, maybe you can plug a hole or two :).

Also I'm doing some work with steal ranges and would like to discuss it with some fellow SSSers to see if I'm on the right track.

you're welcome

sure i'd like to try and help if i can. i dont have a mic though and i havent really done any real sweatsessions before + i play a very different style than you.
its also been a long while since i played with a hud.
so i dont really know if im the right man for the job.
but if u want me to i can try.


That's what I would mostly like to see, some different playstiles, since with classic SSS I can mostly analyze play by myself with a couple of equations, also all the articles here mostly advise raising or folding, but I see some people have success with calling a lot IP and so on.

I always thought you still played with a hud, which kind of makes me even more interested, since one of my leaks can be that I blindly play according to HUD numbers and I believe they are not always to be taken 100%. Also against someone that for example plays on tables while they fill up, would have insanely loose stats built up from playing shorthanded and would probably benefit a lot by tightening up when he table fills up.

It's a shame you don't have a mic, but hopefully we can still manage to discuss, since a different perspective could be the thing I really need to see the bigger picture.

Well my contact is andrej.rizner@gmail.com and its the same for gmail chat, skype and msn.


HannesNL
Joined: 19.11.2008

Hey, sat with you last afternoon on a table. You should tableselect, or even better... Learn BSS! NL100/NL200 is CROWDED with sss'ers


Was it on stars or FT, I have pretty good tableselection on FT, but on stars is a new account and my telescope is giving me troubles, so I can't table select at all for the time being.

Well stars surely seems tight and full of SSS to me , but on FT in the evenings tables are usually great and in the weekends are great for sure.


Rah,imo a break for 2-3-4-5-6-7 days is a must atm.as tim said even the strongest players aint immune to tilt,and i don't mean tilt as u shove A2s but tilt as when ur all in with AA u expect to lose,and it happens.

Stop for a bit,relax,forget about all the bs,and then when one day ur in the mood to go and kill the tables go and do it

Wish u best of luck,and hope ur downer ends as soon as possible but i think a break is a must now


RockEye
Joined: 12.08.2008

Hi!

I've read you whole blog and as i understand, you have studied and played a lot.
But still i think you were on an upswing. Your win rate was great.
Either variance hit you or you are doing something wrong. You said you had a sweat session with Gerv. Did he found any leaks in your play other then playing too many tables?

Don't just quit now because you've been unlucky for a short period. Just work on your game. Don't think about loosing - winning sessions. If you are doing it right money will come sooner then later.
I also think that you are too impatient and you want to jump through the limits in big steps. Just take it easy. I saw your plan is to withdraw 500$ every month.
Man!! I saw you've ordered Poker Mindset book. Don't play any poker untill you've read it twice. Reading your blog i've discovered so many flaws in your mindset that this book will surely help you a lot.

For conclusion, i am also playing SSS for the last 14 months and i've had so many downswings that i can't count on my all fingers i have on my body. But i am still here, confident i can become a good player. From all those downswings, bad beats, suckouts learned a lot about my play and my emotions too. I am getting better and better but nothing happens over night.

Just please read Poker Mindset and the whole new horizont will be opened to you.

I hope i wasn't rude as that wasn't my intention, but i had to remind you about your possible errors.

Good bye and good luck from a fellow Slovenian :f_biggrin:


5.11.2009

First of all, I really need to thanks the PS community, for all the kind words, offers of help and simpathy towards me. It surely helped me to put things back into perspective. The main problem I have while dealing with my downswing, is that I never ran really good in my life, so I just experience the ugly side of variance, off course some of it translated in my play also worsening a little and this off course can lead to a downward spiral.

I feel much better now, even if I don't really know how will I react on my next session, since it has the same possibility to go down as if I never experienced all this beats.

@Rockeye: It's really hard to talk of an upswing, since I never ran above EV in my short poker carrier, my lifetime graph is a story of running bad. As for the Poker mindset I almost finished the book, but I must confess that I don't think it had any really profound impact on me, as on a rational level I'm thinking in the way the authors do on most of the topics covered, poker is also not the first card game I played and Magic has an ever higher variance level since you can't play that much as in poker. If was a winning player in that game online but never had any real results in live important tournaments. Was because of bad luck or because of a wrong mindset or missing live skills, I do not know and I stopped playing mostly because I wasn't able to make more progress.

So like I'm saying, the things in that book were sculpted in my mind before reading it, the doubt that devours me is the empirical evidence pointing the other way and the really incredible lenght of all this.

Hopefully all of this will strengthen me and will make me improve more, since the getting better part is what I really love about this journey. I always get impressed while I'm watching the videos from the coaches on this sight, not only SSS, mostly other game types. The deepness of the game is incredible. I have been tempted to switch to SH, but what keeps me here is that I want to beat the game with SSS on a good level before that. I want to understand what's going on much better than I do know. I want to know, on what kind of flops I can push profitably, when is better value to c/r instead of cbetting, when is better to call than to raise. I'm just taking glances at the surface of all those topics and hopefully when I'll open the doors it will be a whole new and exciting experience.

This post became pretty messy, but it's directly from my mind.

Have a nice day everyone!


Tim64
Joined: 03.11.2008

I admire your drive to learn and improve and in the long run you will certainly succeed.

When you return to the tables it's worth, imo, fitting in the occasional 4 table session as well as the 10- or 12-tables. The learning becomes more efficient because not only can you review your sessions but you're more likely to remember your thought process behind the decisions you made, because you had more time to make them at the time.

GL - sounds like mentally you're already over the worst. ;)


RockEye
Joined: 12.08.2008

I understand you. But it depends, why you play poker in general. We can all agree that we play it for the money. It's hard to see your bankroll disappearing, all your hard work gone, but at some level you have to take poker as a game. Maybe the right attitude would be:
"Oh well i am having fun, doing someting i enjoy doing, it makes me feel good that i am good and getting better in someting, better then a lot of ppl and i earn some money in a process"!! It's a win win.

Poker Mindset has took me to higher level of thinking.
Only the fact that setting myself monetary goal is bad, helped me to improve my tilt resistance for 50%. I hardly believe that it didn't have any impact on you.

I must confess, my lifetime graph is i am sure a lot worse then yours. All the money i withdrew (670$ in april 2009) and all the money i have now 916$ is mostly from bonuses and TAF. I know i am a breakeven - losing player for now. But i am learning and i am sure with time and expirience i'll turn into a winning player, nothing can and no one can convince me that i can't or won't.

Just be patient and take it easy, would be my best advice.