That feeling when you can't win
Every so often - i'd say once every 1000 hours of live poker - I get these un-real sessions, where I cannot win a decent hand at show down for 20-30 hours.
You also get the feeling where you can't win a hand - like a cursed monkey is just sitting on your back.
You ether flop a set and get no action - or you flop nothing for hours.
(2 hands that I remember happening - I open AKo get 2 callers - Flop K86r - I try and check/raise or call depending on how big they bet - but it checks through - Turn 9 - I bet half pot - 1 caller - river Q I check call half pot and he has JTo so I lose around 30bb which isn't so bad, but still funny.
KdQd vs action player - who 3b over my open - remarkable 2 other people call and I close the action. 55bb pot 2d3c4d - I check to him, he bets 12bb - 1 caller - I raise 65bb he calls - turn Ts - I bet the rest which was like 30bb or something and he calls with 2h7h hahaha and holds. Just silly hands.
Also you witness some random playing every hand and just crushing.
I'm sure everyone has had this before if they played long enough - but it's like the strangest phenomenon.
Jnandez talked about it in one of this streams, but I can't remember which one - but he said he just quits for the day when it happens to him.
So I played about 25 hours of live poker in 2 days and did not win any hands at show down - Funny how the game is sometimes.
Linglin had it happen to her too - super wild.
What do you do when this happens to you? Play through it or take a break? I feel like taking a break is the best, as i've lost a lot of money for the day fighting against someone running super hot.
5 Replies
You learn to recognise when you're making this kind of narrative in your mind. You can't shut it down entirely because paying attention to things like showdowns and stack sizes are +EV. The problem is the emotional reaction to it. It feels like a wound getting bigger and bigger. We have learn how and when to recognise it and recognise the fact it usually needs at least one of these three things:
- Time. Time to resolve itself. Time to heal if you're tilting. Time to ABORT immediately if you're haemorrhaging.
- Patience. Literally any % stress, even at the level of 'a thought', is going to be negative EV.
- Emotional management. Self explanatory.
Tip: next time you notice yourself 'narratising' somebody else's luckbomb, try to see how long you can last feeling positive towards them, particularly if they're a weaker player. So much so that you're glad to give them your $$$, as long as you played the hand perfectly your end. Literally any amount of time feeling good about negative variance is massively impactful, it's free and abundant EV that very few bother to pick up.
As for being card dead. Easy. Play online instead. 😉
I play on coinpoker sometimes - but the games are quite a bit tougher.
You learn to recognise when you're making this kind of narrative in your mind. You can't shut it down entirely because paying attention to things like showdowns and stack sizes are +EV. The problem is the emotional reaction to it. It feels like a wound getting bigger and bigger. We have learn how and when to recognise it and recognise the fact it usually needs at least one of t
At live poker it's real easy to win almost every session unless you get doom switched - this was my last month - I usually just laugh when I lose to crazy hands cuz it's funny and I do want the action. Most of the regs probably have deep pockets and just wanna gamble.
Started off red hot - that's about 70 hours or $50~ an hour. I usually do 1/3 but will play 2/5 and 1/2 omaha from time to time and have an average win rate of $40 an hour - so my variance is real low because my villians are so poor. I have around 7590 hours total and have yet to find a tough game at live poker. I do play low stakes though where the rake is high but it's fine.
As you can see from my graph - I got kinda rekt at the end of the month - just couldn't make a winning hand at show down - kinda crazy to be honest. Also lost all my huge draws - and my AK lost to QQ AIPF for around $300.
Fair enough. I've never played live so I can't comment at all really.
I know it took me years to appreciate variance.. so I can only think that effect is dramatically exponentialised playing a handful of hands/hour. I was recently trying out some things at 2nl cash on stars and I somehow managed to go on a 30 buy-in downswing. 80% of which was mostly unavoidable. Opened my eyes to true bankroll requirements.
Fair enough. I've never played live so I can't comment at all really. I know it took me years to appreciate variance.. so I can only think that effect is dramatically exponentialised playing a handful of hands/hour. I was recently trying out some things at 2nl cash on stars and I somehow managed to go on a 30 buy-in downswing. 80% of which was mostly unavoidable. Opened my eyes
Stars 2NL cash is still gonna be more difficult than some live games because the rake is capped at 15bb or 30 cents. At live poker most rake is capped at 2-3bb - 1/3 is $6+$3 and 2/5 is the same.
My biggest downswing at $1/3 was $4000 and at $2/5 $10000 - but it's rare.
Also wouldn't surprise me if people are using solvers in real time in online poker.
