Im gonna shoot myself

[ryan_knn]

Im not a beginner but didnt know where to post this as it pertains to both limit and no limit. I think that im just not cut out for poker and that maybe I should just give it up, no matter what I do I win some then I just lose everything. I play within my bankroll, and feel I know the game well enough to be a consistant winner, but just cant do it, When I play limit every hand im in I get rivered by someone that should not have even been in the hand in the first place( I know this is what you want but it never works out in my favor) Then when I play NL I can be playing solid poker and then ill get in a hand and it will all go down the drain over and over again, for example I raised on the button with KQs and get called by the small blind and the flop is 10,J, A rainbow ,I check SB bets, I raise, SB raises allin, I call, SB shows 22, turn and river are twos for four of a kind! Im not trying to make this a bad beat story but I need help, I dont play out of my bankroll(well I dont have one now) but i need suggestions please! Should I just give up or what PLEASE HELP!

[AHiltz]

IF you are playing within your bankroll things will even out and you will make money. Suck it up, keep grinding and reap the rewards. We've all had downswings, and we've overcome them.

The only other point of advice is don't fall in love with your game. It's not as good as you think. Keep reading and learning and it will improve even more, making you even more money.

[swiggidy]

Post hand histories of hands. Maybe you didn't play the hand as good as you think you did. Either you will get solid advice, or re-assurance that you're playing properly and things will turn around.

Maybe try SnG? You get to play more hands with less risk. Plus if you sign-up somewhere like PokerStars, you can often make money just by being patient and playing good hands.

[Pelion]

Your join date is November 2005. If thats about the time you started playing then you are a begginer. That doesnt necessarily mean you are playing badly, but it does mean you have a very small sample size of hands to go by. When i first started my bankroll grew very quickly. I more than doubled it in a week or two but i was playing crap and sooner or later it evened out and i lost my entire roll on Empire. Then i found this site and started reading hand histories and i havnt busted out since. In the begining I still was losing. I took my initial $50 on stars down to $20 by basically playing too aggressivly. That $20 is now $100 which im pretty comfortable on. I make alot of mistakes but my opponents make enough to balence that out. I think the turning point came when i got poker tracker and started analysis my hands. It wasnt long before i realised that alot of my bad beats had actually been me playing hands terribly.
Example.

Me: AA
preflop raise - a few callers.

Flop
Q 2 T

Me potsize bet - viallain calls.

Turn
i potsize bet villain raises and i proceed to pay off his flush and lose my stack by the river.

Yes he shouldnt have been in the hand. Yes he probably shouldnt have called your bet on the flop BUT if you go paying him off every time he outdraws you then you will lose. This was probably my biggest leak in the begining.

If you dont already have pokertracker then get it. At least get the free trial and import some of your bad beats and really look at why they happened. The example you posted you played exactly right and couldnt have played it better. Most of your beats probably wont be like that.


I believe poker is an uphill struggle when you start, until one day something clicks and you start understanding and winning. There is probably another uphill struggle every time you change limits.

Last of all, while you are a losing player move down to the lowest limits you can find. If you can find a $2 buyin game then play it until you can beat it. Just because you have a $1000 bankroll doesnt mean you can beat $50NL games. Start at the bottom and work up.

Goodluck trying to fix your game.

[chardrian]

To be perfectly honest, if you have ever lost your entire roll it probably means you are playing outside your roll. This is not meant to be snide - just the harsh truth from a guy who has lost his roll at least 3 times now... and each time was because I refused to go down in Limits after bad streaks.

[aokrongly]

Look, if you're depositing $50 on a site and playing it to extinction in a couple weeks, that's not really a bankroll anyway. If you're dumping hundreds of dollars a month, then Yea it's a Bankroll issue.

However, to comment on your problem. The example you gave is an extreme example that anyone on the site will take 100 times in a row and bet their paycheck on. 99 times you win with it. The general issue though is that you just need to keep playing and tightening your game up. Keep records of all your hands - good and bad, not just bad beats. analyse your play for each hand based on what you know. Try to imagine different ways you could have played the hands to either win more or to lose less (except extreme bad beats). Alot of new players lose alot of money on bad beats that don't happen like you describe. Most losses occur when someone else "caught up" and then said "Hey I caught up and you're beat now" only to be ignored by the beginning player who then throws good money into a no win situation. That is Very Very Common. Did I say Very Very Common. Because it's Very Very Common.

Step 1, know how to play preflop.
Step 2, know how to play to win the most bets when you are taking the pot.
Step 3, know how to recognize when your opponent either caught up or already has you beat and get the discipline to fold your good hands when you know they are beat.
Step 4, Decide how much "risk management" you want to use. For instance if you have QQ and KNOW your opponent has AK. Let's say he says, "Hey dude I have AK". The risk management question is, "I'm ahead but I can be beat. How much do I want to bet on each street." Beginners say "All in preflop is good here". However, All In gives him 5 cards to work with. So maybe bet less preflop and see if an a or k flops. Now put him to the test a little more or ask "do I want to make some more money by betting less where he might call, or do I want to reduce my risk to zero but not win any more money by betting more than he will call?"

See what I'm saying. It's not all about odds. If you are a 20 to 1 favorite you'll still lose 5% of the time. Will I risk 100% of my chips with that kind of advantage? Sure. 3 to 1, probably. How about a coin flip, QQ vs AK, a made set vs a flush draw with 2 cards to come (I don't know the exact odds on that one), but it's a DECISION. There are very few "no brainers" in poker. The more you get into "no brainer" territory the less of your brain you are using. That's what gets people in trouble. There's more to poker than cards, odds, etc. There's emotional management, risk management, etc.

You're learning. Don't sweat it. I played break even poker for close to 5 years before the light went off and I "figured out" my game. Is my game the best? Not by a long shot. But it works for me. As long as you:

- know that you can be a winning player CONSISTENTLY if you continually apply knowledge, discipline and emotional maturity to your game
- keep it all in perspective - because everyone loses a certain percentage of the time

Then you'll do fine. The real question is - Do you enjoy playing poker? If you do, then that's reward enough until the light goes off.

[ryan_knn]

no im not a beginner i joined this site not very long ago,but ive been playing for about three years in casinos and about a year online. I think im just gonna play B&M poker b/c I do fine in the 3/6 and 6/12 games there but horrible online at lower limits. But thank you all for your replies

[swiggidy]

Don't you wonder why you succeed at 3/6 and 6/12 B&M games, but not at low-limit on-line? Maybe there is something you could improve and become a better 3/6 B&M player?

I suck at ring games. I don't know why, and I can't afford to find out right now. After I build my BR at SnGs I plan on going back and figuring out how to win at the 25NL table because there is something there I feel I need to figure out to become a more complete player.

If you don't really want to get better, why are you poking around in forums like this?

[relayer]

Here's my dilemma: I have read and re-read SSHE, HEFAP, Jones, and have frequented this and other HE fora. I have certainly made drastic chnages to my game based upon the advice and insights offered by these great authors and the many posters here and elsewhere who are clearly much better players than I. I have become much more disciplined and have managed to fix any number of leaks that used to plague my game (tho' one I'm still working on is the one highlighted by aok here--namely, refusing to give up a big hand even when the flush is so obvious it's scary).

The issue for me lately is that I RARELY get cards which are marginal, let alone speculative or even good. The mind-numbing, endless streams of 72, K3o, 94, J6o, 32, 42, etc etc etc make using much of the advice mentioned above impossible. So it has turned into mucking hand after hand after hand and getting chewed up by the blinds. Not only has this become boring (and no I don't multi-table), it has also steadily eaten up my bankroll.

At this point, I am desperate for a backdoor flush draw with an overcard. It's that bad...

[Aces]

The issue for me lately is that I RARELY get cards which are marginal, let alone speculative or even good. The mind-numbing, endless streams of 72, K3o, 94, J6o, 32, 42, etc etc etc make using much of the advice mentioned above impossible. So it has turned into mucking hand after hand after hand and getting chewed up by the blinds. Not only has this become boring (and no I don't multi-table), it has also steadily eaten up my bankroll.
.

Probably doesn't seem that way when you're running bad, but(as I'm sure you know) you get roughly the same amount of good and bad hands as you statistically should, and the same as every other player at the table. You might switch it up and play some low buyin SNGs, or play limit if you're playing NL. Sometimes a change will break you out of a funk. Maybe you just haven't found your game yet.

[EricE]

Another option is to multitable. I normally play 3 tables at once. 3 is enough to offer me near constant action w/o getting too busy. It is very rare (though it happens) to get a cold stretch of cards at all 3 tables. Very often one table will be slowly diminished by the blinds while the other tables are gaining various $ above the buyin. All this is to say that multitabling keeps you from getting bored and evens out the runs of bad v.s. good cards faster since you are seeing more hands total. Its an option you should consider.

[Warpe]

The issue for me lately is that I RARELY get cards which are marginal, let alone speculative or even good. The mind-numbing, endless streams of 72, K3o, 94, J6o, 32, 42, etc etc etc make using much of the advice mentioned above impossible. So it has turned into mucking hand after hand after hand and getting chewed up by the blinds. Not only has this become boring (and no I don't multi-table), it has also steadily eaten up my bankroll.

At this point, I am desperate for a backdoor flush draw with an overcard. It's that bad...

Where and what are you playing? This sounds like a PP SnG to me or, worse, a turbo there. If it is then I'd recommend switching to PS...bigger starting stack, better blind structure, and stay away from turbos on either site, 'cause I don't think they'd suit your game. I dumped playing PP SnGs for exactly the reasons you describe. Going for a couple of entire tourneys without even a WHIFF of a decent starting hand. So your discipline cracks and you play something marginal as short stack and - phffft! - you're gone.