High Stakes Downswing of August 2012

Sorry I haven’t posted much.

The past 120 composite hours of 5/10 have left me with perhaps the worst experience of my poker career.  I just don’t feel like writing about it, I’m too disgusted overall, but I’ll try here.

I got my bankroll together to a level I thought was appropriate for 5/10.  As soon as I returned from Vegas I proceeded to drop just under 6k in 120 hours.  That’s about 6 buy-ins consecutive.  My previous career worst is 14 consecutive in September 2011 at 2/5 (nothing has ever come close to that previous career worst playing live).  I've dropped 6 consecutive buy-ins live at other times playing 2/5 before.  I dropped 7 consecutive from mid-march to early April playing 2/5.  There was even a stretch during mid-May 2012 where I dropped 5 consecutive. 

So despite the horrific timing of this fucking bull-shit happening as soon as I try to move up again, it is possible.  Also the 5/10 game doesn't play a direct 2x bigger than 2/5.  It plays more like 2.5x bigger.  Losing 6k consecutive at 5/10 isn't like losing 6 buy-ins at 2/5.  Losing 6k consecutive at 5/10 is really more like losing 4 buy-ins consecutive at 2/5, which happens a fair amount.  I mean if I lose 2k consecutive at 2/5 it means almost nothing, I know that shit will swing back incredibly soon 80% of the time.

This still hurts a lot more.  Obviously I'm not used to the pure amount of money that I'm hemorrhaging, this is uncharted territory for me.  This is the territory of high stakes variance.

Unfortunately I don’t have the cushion to drop 14 consecutive at 5/10.  Well I guess I could technically drop 14k, but I’d probably be destroyed psychologically beyond repair.  Well fuck I’m not even 50% close to my career worse I guess… 

I’m mostly getting hammered by fish every session at the worst times.  Every dry flush draw gets there.   Any time I go to show-down for a reasonable pot I lose.  Doesn’t matter how slim their outs are, it hits.  It’d almost be better if I was losing to regulars, then at least I could study spots where I could improve.  But it’s hard to go back and study: “ok I 3-bet 200 pre-flop with JJ, two callers including fish, Flop 8 5 3 (two diamonds), fish shoves 350, I over-shove, regular folds.  T7s automatically drills the dry flush-dray on the river.”    

And it’s gone on like this for approaching a month straight, at probably the worst possible time, when I’m trying to move up.

To make matters worse I seem to be losing in the trenches.  I have won only 8 out of the last 23 sessions.  All of these sessions are different intervals I record it strangely, ranging from 1.5-9 hours each, but still.  I’m not even sure how often I’m honestly playing my A game at this point.  My schedule is mad fucked up.  I’m losing balance.  My social life is taking a hit, I’m miserable.

These are some points of logic that help me continue to play at this time:

1)  I try daily to keep in mind that it’s the present; I’m not running good or bad. 

2)  I try to look at the overall picture to help bring sanity to the situation.  Ok I’m getting destroyed, but if I scale back the past 180 hours total I’m just over break even playing 5/10.  I’m in a way holding my own.  It’s a very tough jump and maybe I should…. GASP…….. even give myself a slight amount of credit for not losing 8k in 40 hours, for planning out the shot and giving it my best.

3)  I’m back to even, OK.  It’s pretty much like starting fresh. PRESENT, PRESENT, PRESENT.  If my head isn’t in the present I shouldn’t even play, as hard as that is.

4)  If I drop 8k-10k from where my bankroll started playing 5/10 I think that is good evidence that I should stop playing, it’s just not my time.  This is serious money that I should be able to stabilize off of over 80% of the time.  Sometimes you're just going to idiotically run face first into that 20%.

5)  I know what I’m going to do if I fail.  It’s back to 2/5 for another long stretch.  If it looks like I’ll be stuck playing 2/5 for more than a year I can either accept the lifestyle, transition out of live poker to online, or switch career paths.  I can always walk away from the game, I'm not trapped.  The point is I'm not going to like die if I fail at this 5/10 push, life goes on....

-bag