I'm stuck in neutral @ 10NL, ideas?

Sorry for the nebulous post, but I am wondering what everyone else does when they feel like they are stuck. I've bounced back and forth in my bankroll, and am basically breakeven over the past 5k hands. It is really frustrating because the level of play at 10nl shouldn't really be much different that 5nl. Its almost as if everytime I hit a hand, no one wants to call but everytime I miss, they are donking into me or I am getting c/r.

If anyone can offer any pointers, tips or articles, it would be greatly appreciated. My play hasn't really changed at all, so I don't know if its a mental thing or if I just need to push through it. I've made a few bad reads, and gotten coolered a few times but sometime just seems wrong; I can't get in the groove the way I used to at 5nl.

5k

come back later

Dude don't worry about. I was B/E or losing for 10k hands at 2nl about 2 weeks ago. Now I'm on the biggest heater I've been on since I started my op. Don't sweat it man, you'll start to pwn before too long. And like iopq said, 5k isn't really that big of a sample; hell 10k isn't even that big lol. Good Luck

Not sure if this will help, but what is your table selection like? I play on stars and I was finding that if there are already other players waiting on a table its not worth looking at cos it will be nitted up by the time you get to play on it.

Get in the queue for tables with high VPIP, and dont pay too much attention to the pot size, and then use your HUD to establish who the fish are.

trust me it happens alot. keep learning and taking in new info, stay tight and dont bluff. if bored add tables.

I told this to a student yesterday who is kinda stuck as well, I remember when I was doing this BR building challenge for GS and I won like 12 buyins in the first 3k hands at 10nl FR and then went on like a 6-8 buy-in downswing over the next 3k. Poker is brutal like that, it's amazing how much worse you play when you're running even slightly poorly.

Try to re-gain a positive attitude and expect good things to happen to you when you're playing.

A lot of people don't have the heart for NL because big bankroll swings can happen in a matter of a few hands and everything you've worked for over the last 1k hands can go down the toilet. That's the nature of the game. Be thankful you're just breaking even. Go through your sessions and try to find spots where you could/should have done something different. Just don't try to fix something that ain't broken.

Be patient. When I started back at 10NL I had the same problem. Up a BI, down a BI, up, down... Then I went through a 4 day up swing and won 3BI for 4 days in a row.

Your focusing too much on the short-term. 5k hands is absolutely nothing of a sample size. You could very likely win 20 buyins in the next 5k hands you put in. I suggest just playing more hands, and maybe add in a bit more study time so that you increase your edge a bit more.

I've had 9 buy-in swing over three consecutive days.. about 9k hands... I'd post stars @ 25k hands for a check up...

How many hands do you guys usually put in for a session? I try to strive for around 500 per session, which is usually around 2 hours of two tabling the faster tables.

That is what I usually go for: 500 hand minimum 1-4 tabling. Last night I logged a little over 1,200 hands though (was running goot, ~95bb/100 ftw (gotta love dat 2nllol)).

But yea, 2 hour, 500 hand session is solid imo. I'm trying to get in two of those sessions a day now though. (At least thats my new goal.) 1k hands a day for me would be pretty gross, and I think it would help speed up the BR growing process.

Originally Posted by bigspenda73

Poker is brutal like that, it's amazing how much worse you play when you're running even slightly poorly.

Try to re-gain a positive attitude and expect good things to happen to you when you're playing.

I couldn't have said this better. And like a lot of people here are saying, 5K isn't that much. Don't sweat the small stuff and you'll be fine.

Like everyone else said, hang in there, 5k isn't a big sample set.

From what I've heard, limit doesn't swing down and up like NL does, but it has a tendency to break even for very long stretches.

Originally Posted by mieczkowusc

How many hands do you guys usually put in for a session? I try to strive for around 500 per session, which is usually around 2 hours of two tabling the faster tables.

Do you actually table select for faster tables? This is probably -EV.

LHE has swings, it's just not as noticeable as NL and it doesn't happen in big chunks. That's the nature of the game. NL is a cold-hearted bitch. It's not uncommon for LHE players to have 100-200BB downswings. And when it does, it's much harder to get back because you can't just go "all-in" when you hit a big hand. So it's kinda pick your poison.

Originally Posted by Airles™

LHE has swings, it's just not as noticeable as NL and it doesn't happen in big chunks. That's the nature of the game. NL is a cold-hearted bitch. It's not uncommon for LHE players to have 100-200BB downswings. And when it does, it's much harder to get back because you can't just go "all-in" when you hit a big hand. So it's kinda pick your poison.

LHE can have huge swings when you have a couple of maniacs at your table. 2 loose aggressive players can combine to make almost every pot 4 to go (i.e., quadruple your cost of seeing a flop) and every flop 4 to continue (again, quadrupling your cost of getting to the turn). Even more than 2 loose aggressive players will result in you rarely if ever having a good read, which means that you will be showing down pots and losing all the time.

Of course, if you play properly, you will score enough big pots to profit in this situation. But the variance can get just as big as NL with the right (wrong?) kind of players at your table.

Originally Posted by LawDude

Originally Posted by Airles™

LHE has swings, it's just not as noticeable as NL and it doesn't happen in big chunks. That's the nature of the game. NL is a cold-hearted bitch. It's not uncommon for LHE players to have 100-200BB downswings. And when it does, it's much harder to get back because you can't just go "all-in" when you hit a big hand. So it's kinda pick your poison.

LHE can have huge swings when you have a couple of maniacs at your table. 2 loose aggressive players can combine to make almost every pot 4 to go (i.e., quadruple your cost of seeing a flop) and every flop 4 to continue (again, quadrupling your cost of getting to the turn). Even more than 2 loose aggressive players will result in you rarely if ever having a good read, which means that you will be showing down pots and losing all the time.

leave the table. /downswing

swings in LHE are much bigger than NL, people need to realize that the smaller the edge is that the bigger the swings will be.

From my personal experience, every time that I'm stuck, I'll go back to FTR or some other site that I subscribe to watch back poker videos.
I usually have the feeling that my play haven't change a bit when I'm stuck at neutral but the poker videos always steer me back to play my winning game.

Originally Posted by Chopper

Originally Posted by LawDude

Originally Posted by Airles™

LHE has swings, it's just not as noticeable as NL and it doesn't happen in big chunks. That's the nature of the game. NL is a cold-hearted bitch. It's not uncommon for LHE players to have 100-200BB downswings. And when it does, it's much harder to get back because you can't just go "all-in" when you hit a big hand. So it's kinda pick your poison.

LHE can have huge swings when you have a couple of maniacs at your table. 2 loose aggressive players can combine to make almost every pot 4 to go (i.e., quadruple your cost of seeing a flop) and every flop 4 to continue (again, quadrupling your cost of getting to the turn). Even more than 2 loose aggressive players will result in you rarely if ever having a good read, which means that you will be showing down pots and losing all the time.

leave the table. /downswing

It's never a terrible idea to request a table change / switch tables online if you can't handle the variance.

On the other hand, it's important to distinguish variance from bad play. As long as you are properly rolled, and know how to adjust your play to take advantage of loose-aggressive players, you should be able to make money on them over the long term. You just need to be willing and able to take whatever hits are going to come in the short term.

The key when you keep getting beaten by a maniac is to start reviewing the hands in your mind, and asking yourself if you were making the proper reads, making positive EV plays against their ranges, etc. If you were doing that, and people are simply hitting seemingly impossible suckouts against you, then you shouldn't be that concerned (and if your bankroll is compromised to the extent you are concerned, you are probably underrolled and should move down).

The last time I got felted in a casino, it was due to 3 maniacs who were at a table bidding up the price of every hand. But I reviewed in my mind each of the hands I lost major money on. This one was typical:

I had 9s7s on the button. Maniac 1 raised to 2 bets, Maniac 2 to 3 bets, Maniac 3 caps. This was going on every hand. Everyone else on the table was a calling station and called every capped pot pre-flop-- I was the only one who was folding bad hands. The rest of them figured they had a chance to hit a big pot. I calculated my drawing odds with my suited 1 gappers and called.

Flop comes Ts8d6c. There was a bet and at least one of the maniacs, in MP, raised, I 3-bet, and MP caps, I called and 2 others called.

Turn comes a 4d. Maniac bets, 1 other caller, I raise, Maniac re-raises, other player calls, I cap, he calls.

River is a Td. Maniac bets, calling station calls, I call. Maniac turns over T6.

I lost 18xBB on that hand. Maniac was building the pot with terrible pot and implied odds and negative expected value, even though I had a tight image on the table (by far, the tightest player there) and he knew I wasn't betting weak hands and that I would fold when I thought I was beat. (He had even made fun of me for that earlier in the session.)

Every one of those bets I made had positive EV. But with so many loose aggressive players (and calling stations willing to call them), you simply have to put up with huge variance and lots of suckouts to collect your money in the long run.

add some more tables and keep learning.

Originally Posted by jimmyallin

add some more tables and keep learning.

Those two don't really coincide with each other. Adding tables is only going to add to your variance.

Originally Posted by Airles™

Originally Posted by jimmyallin

add some more tables and keep learning.

Those two don't really coincide with each other. Adding tables is only going to add to your variance.

Not necessarily. Although it could if you start playing worse; as you add more tables the law of diminishing returns to sets in. Lower win rate, more variance etc.

However, if someone can play 8 tables just as optimally as 4 tables, the only difference will be more hands per hour (and the result of more hands/hour at the same win rate will equate to more $/hour), thus the swings will level out faster if you just play more tables because you're getting through your sample of hands faster.

In this case though I don't agree that adding more tables will help. 5K hands really is nothing, but to make sure it is nothing, I would suggest posting some stats (especially postional ones) to get some sort of idea on how you played. Obviously 5K hands isn't ideal to look at stats, but it will help highlight the extremes.

Originally Posted by Airles™

Originally Posted by jimmyallin

add some more tables and keep learning.

Those two don't really coincide with each other. Adding tables is only going to add to your variance.

This is completely false unless you mean adding more tables lowers your edge. Variance is a short-term phenomenon, adding more tables means playing more hands means accelerating the long-term.

Um... yeah, what I meant was adding tables when you're frustrated with poker isn't going to help, at least IMO. Maybe I'm one of the few, but when I'm on the lower end of a bankroll swing, the last thing I'm doing is opening up more tables if I'm frustrated, on tilt, spewing, or I feel my game has more hoes than Swiss cheeeeeeez.

in the grand scheme of things, just remember that positive variance will come your way sooner or later

Originally Posted by Parasurama

Originally Posted by Airles™

Originally Posted by jimmyallin

add some more tables and keep learning.

Those two don't really coincide with each other. Adding tables is only going to add to your variance.

This is completely false unless you mean adding more tables lowers your edge. Variance is a short-term phenomenon, adding more tables means playing more hands means accelerating the long-term.

yes, it's pretty proven that adding tables decreases your winrate/edge. The lower the edge (I've said this too much lately) the higher the overall variance.

Been there. Just keep doing your thing. Make sure your playing your best poker everytime you play, and learn something from every session. I went on a 5K 12 buy in up swing, then proceeded to lose 11 buy-ins in the next 4K hands over the summer. It's bound to happen. Just play good poker and in the long run you're golden.

I've had a 10 buy-in down swing at every stake of every game I've played post UIGEA.

25PLO
50PLO
25NL-FR
25NL-6max
25NL-6max
50NL-6max

It happens, especially while you're learning. Most of these were after I thought I knew what I was doing and was gaining confidence in my game.