MIND-BLOWN: Down -$157 in 3 hours (5.19.2010)

Sometimes it’s just not your night.  Or for me on PokerStars it is NEVER GOING TO BE my night.  The absolute trainwreck bull-shit continues.  My blood is boiling right now.

I really don’t know where to start or why I am even writing this post in such a shitty mood. 

Started off brilliantly.  I open on the blinds with JJ.  A standard complete fucking nit regular jams me $20 all in.  After thinking a while I determined I just had enough equity to call on his range.  My overpair fails against AA OF COURSE.  I mean what other hand what he have?  It couldn’t be AK , AQ, TT, 99, complete shit, I don’t know whatever.

Shortly after my KK is somehow demolished as an opponent holding TJ flops T,T, J.

Then a full buy in lost QQ < KK all in preflop.

Then my KK is HAMMERED by two outs as the all in 33 preflop catches a miracle set.

Then another massive suck-out as clown-box plays A8s.  He flops  a lucky set, and hits an even luckier flush after being all in on the flop.

THEN THE BEST PART.  I lose two full buy ins FLOPPING SETS within the span of 5 minutes.  The first I’m all in with 88 on a 9d, 8d, Ts board.  The guy is holding JQ OFFSUIT.  Of course it holds.  AGAIN what else would he have??????   The dude with a 34% fucking VPIP.

The next kick in the face was epic beyond belief.  I price in preflop with 66 for a set mine.  Flop comes 6s, 5c, 3d.  I’M HOLDING 66.  All the while thinking this should be funny, let’s see how I lose another full $40 pot.

So we go all in on the flop:  turn 7s, river 9s.  At this point I know he has something ridiculous there is just no way I hold in a pot like this.  SURE ENOUGH HES HOLDING 44, for the fucking straight.

HOW YOU LOSE $160 more in 3 hours with $20 buy-ins:

-$40  AQ < QK all in on the turn.  I'm holding a dominating top pair with 74% equity, but he rivers the miraculous straight.

-$36  TOP SET 66 < 44 all in on the flop.   80% equity raped.

-$30 KK < 55 all in preflop.  Another 80% equity LOST.

-$40 QQ < KK all in preflop.

-$40 JJ < AA all in preflop.

-$40 88 < JQ on the flop.  Hit’s the top straight against my set and holds.

-$30 AK < TT all in pre.

-$30 AK < JJ all in pre.

-$25 QQ < TJ  He flops trip jacks.  Yeah plenty I can do to get away from that hand!

- $25  JJ< A8s .  Sucked out by the flush-draw.  SWEET!

So win 4 of the hands above and the session is completely salvageable.  Win the three 80% equity hands and win one coin-flip and the session is around even.  Win 6 or 7 out of the 10 above hands like any super-user who has played a million hands on Stars and suddenly YOU’RE A WINNER BABY.  Can I play any of the hands above different?  I could have maybe hero folded the JJ, the guy was that tight.  It's an unthinkable move that no other short-stacker can really make, but thats about it.  Maybe fold the QQ all in pre because my account is rigged?  Maybe fold the KK pre because I know 55 will catch?  Are we serious?

Could have should have would have.  The story of my last 2 months.  I  have ran -$4,200 EV in 175,000 hands, and that’s by HEM standards, that doesn’t even include QQ running into KK 50 fucking times during a week.

So that’s it great night here.  Not sure how I’m ever going to dig out of this hole.  I feel like I could play an entire year on this site and not have this luck balance out.  I’m currently 62% to Super-nova so I feel I’m kind of trapped pushing forward on this rigged ass site.  I have to relax and get over the past, but I’m having a hard time.  Each miserable session just brings everything back.

Future generations are going to me as a case study on variance.  THE MOST UNLUCKY MOTHER FUCKER ALIVE HERE HE IS.  He can’t play 170,000 hands without running anywhere near the average during any 10k interval.

So I’m done.

SORRY SORRY SORRY.

What a horrible unproductive post.

Fuck my life.

AND LOGIC:

I AM ALREADY DOWN -$1,150 on this month.  If I save all of my FPPs here on out I have figured out what I will clear when or if I do ever hit Super-nova.  It’s going to be around $2900.  So if I lose another $1,000  I’m still profiting +$750 for that time span.  If I lose -$1,750 in that time span I break even.  How do you could you lose $-$1,750 in that time span?  How do you put so much time into your game and not at least break even?  Well leave it to me, I will find a way as always.

If I lose $1,750 in that time span I break even and move on with my life.

If I lose $2,500 in that time span I lose $750 and I move on with my life.  Great $750, that's what I should be paying rent anyways.

If I break even I gain +$1750 during that time span.  That is more than my day job and I can fucking quit.

If I PROFIT during that time span I am golden.

It’s salvageable, but I can’t keep running like I have been or I am completely fucked.  This -$200 in 3 hours bull-shit has got to end.  It is unthinkable.

Going out tomorrow night and getting wasted on a Wednesday screw it.  I’m not playing another god-damn hand until the weekend where I’m going to put some massive volume in.  Hopefully I can find my sanity by then, this absolutely sucks.

Well done on that confidence building comeback session!

EDIT 5/19/2010 6:00 p.m-  Please ignore this pathetic bitching of a post.  This is what can happen if you're in a horrible mood and not mentally prepared to take a really bad run.  Also, the calculation of the $2900 is massively off, proving just how unclearly I was thinking at the time.  I'm still on track here and have to stay focused.  I'm going out tonight, but I will be back for the weekend war.  Not even close to giving up.

-bag

Comments

[BH]

Unlucky fella, I feel your pain. Been on downswings before and gets you really hating life and poker, and think you are doing the best thing in going out and getting hammered. Take a break for a few days then come back with a fresh head and start again.

By the way, I was just reading the comments to the previous post and FK sounds like he knows what he's talking about. Not sure if you've done this already, but if not then spend a good few hours finding some short stack strategy articles on 2+2 etc as there could well be some 'standard' shove spots you are missing out on.

For example, if I was facing 4 limpers and I had 33 in the small blind, I'm shoving all day for 20bb. Re-raising all in against an aggressive button stealer (~40% steal rate) should also be done with a TONNE of hands. I'm sure you can work out the maths, but if you shove with 89s you'll have a load of fold equity and STILL have 35% equity versus someone calling off their top 15% hand range.

Anyway, enough poker chat. Go get hammered and good luck when you return!

[baglife]

BH,

Thanks yeah It can't get much worse from a hating life and poker standpoint. I've been through plenty of SS strategy articles, but going back over some to make sure I'm not missing some spots is never a bad idea. Most on 2+2 are more geared around SSing 6-max tables, and I'm full ring, but still a lot of similar concepts.

Facing 4 limpers in the SB and shoving with 33 sounds like suicide to me, with 6-max I can see this, but not so much at my stakes. Why? Three reasons I can think of based on my experiences:

1) The 2nd and 3rd limpers could have easily called with a hand like 44-TT, these are typical hands to limp behind to set mine (assuming all of the players aren't clueless). When you shove and it is back around to them they will often call down if they are a decent player and know what you're doing. Even a casual player will often call down to see what is going on. And when you get called you're praying for a coin-flip at best, which I think is a bad situation to be in.

2) You can make just as much in the long-run set mining in this spot with minimized variance, even with just 20BB. I'm going to post the math on this later, but I'm pretty sure I'm correct. Though I could be wrong.

3) You are in a FULL-ring situation. You can wait for lower-variance situations and be fine. There is no need to shove-bot 20BB on such slim margin?

Against the aggressive stealer, this is a situation I run into so many times during each session. I really have to keep getting more aggressive. It's just tough when you don't even have the confidence that your JJ or KK shove will hold because it simply hasn't been. A good strategy might be to raise the steal sometimes from $3 to about $8 with a weaker holding. Regulars often auto-assume you have AA or KK when you make this sort of raise. And if they do re-push you then it's a matter of calculating your equity and if you have 35% against the 4-bet range you are certainly committed at this point. If not you can fold the hand and play more unexploitably with your remaining 10-12BBs or whatever.

-bag

[BH]

Didn't realise you were playing full ring, apologies. This does make a big difference to the math as you are right, there will be loads more limping with (bigger) small pairs that crush 33.

Have you ever thought about taking a shot at short stacking the 6-max games? You'll make more rakeback in that variant and as you say, there's plenty of articles on optimal strategy that you can use as a base for your game. As there are less people it also means less player analysis when you multi table, which has got to be a good thing if you play 12 tables +

[baglife]

I thought about taking a shot short-stacking 6 max tables. However, first I wanted to hammer out a smooth win-rate on the full-ring. Part of the reason I picked full ring is because I thought there would be less variance. Yes there should be a lower win-rate with full ring, but less variance.

If my full ring ever stablizes I would definitely consider trying out some 6-max. However, right now I've put way too much time into working on full-ring and I still somehow have confidence to pull myself out of the hole and not completely jump ship.

Well shoot I just wrote up a post limping late with small pairs vs shoving, might throw it out there anyway just to confirm. I spent the time writing, why not. The answer I came up with again is LIMP FOR THE LOVE OF GOD.

-bag