losing sessions

I haven't got round to using poker tracker yet so cant work out my BB/100. (I can only get hand histories 100 at a time from my pokeroom! argh.) But im woundering roughly how often you guys have losing sessions?

I play 2-3 sessions a day, each lasting anything from 2-4 hours where I 4-5 multitable at .15/.30 NL 6max. Yesterday I made $200, then had a really bad losing session in the evening where I lost 100! This is the most Ive ever lost in a session and was quite disheartening. It was quite a bad one, 2 people went allin with me on flush draws and hit, someone rapped my trips with a running straight etc... cards just werent really going my way.

Id estimate I get a losing session once every 5 or 7 days. Im woundering if this sounds normal and how often others have a losing session?

come on guys, be a man and admit to the frequency of your losing sessions!

I don't really keep track, but "fairly often" fits.

more often than once every 5 or 7 days for me

keeping track of BB/100 is pretty simple even without PT if you know how many hands you've played (and remembering BB=2xBig Blind)

BB/100 = (100 * profit) / (2 * bigblind * #hands)

I lost $75 at NL20 today. That was the most I've ever lost in one day. Before that the most was about $30. Worst day EVER.

I go on streaks. I'll lose for a while then go on an absolute tear then lose again then go on a tear again. It's wierd. Thankfully the good streaks last quite a bit longer than the bad streaks.

Today I lost AA all in preflop three times. Then there was the hand where I had 88 and the flop was K83 rainbow (Fillmaff!) and this guy raises my bet with his KJ. I put him on AK or KQ so I didnt want to take him out of the lead because I was obviously a massive favourite (~100:1) over those two hands or just about every other hand outside of KK. He hit running K then J to make a better full house than me.

Shit happens. Did all the shit have to happen today though? All at once?

LOL.

I've only been using PokerTracker for 1 month, but (in total, across my 2 aliases):

27 out of 66 sessions are classed as 'losing sessions'.

Trouble is, classifying like that encourages 'chasing' (staying longer at a bad table when there's better ones available to turn a slight losing session into a 'winning session'

IJ

I have had 2 -$1000 swings this year. That's about 10 buy-ins or more each swing.

I don't keep any specific records aside from the size of my BR.

Some days you win big, win little, lose little or lose big; depends on how the cards are running and if you run into a lively table.

Don't concentrate on short term results. Every session cannot be a winning session. Just make sure that you evaluate your play on the hands you lose. If the money goes in when you are a big favorite and you take a beat shake it off and take it for what it is. But when you evaluate your play, be honest with yourself. Did you infact misplay the hand and invite the suckout, or did you force your opponent into making a bad play?

i wouldnt be worried about it .. if you play a solid game, you are going to have more winning sessions then losing sessions.

i'd say i have a winning sessions 4 out of 7 sessions.

I'm enjoying a nice -7 buyin welcome party from the players at 3/6.

-'rilla

Because I'm anal, I update a graph every time I play poker with my daily winnings/losses and my total profit/loss. It has recently started looking like a seismograph shortly after a massive earthquake. I am hoping this is because my developing aggression is significantly upping the variance. But to answer the question, my biggest day's loss (at £25NL) was exactly one hundred pounds sterling. Horrible.

Originally Posted by biondino

Because I'm anal, I update a graph every time I play poker with my daily winnings/losses and my total profit/loss. It has recently started looking like a seismograph shortly after a massive earthquake. I am hoping this is because my developing aggression is significantly upping the variance. But to answer the question, my biggest day's loss (at £25NL) was exactly one hundred pounds sterling. Horrible.

Lmao, I have the exact same thing...but I take it a step further.

I look into my Std deviation and variance etc...etc..

Since I am still a noob I go around 5-6 consecutive losing session in a row every once in awhile, mostly with stupid plays and a few bad beats thrown in.

My sessions are about equal parts black and red. Thankfully, for the most part, the black numbers are bigger than the red ones. It's nice to know I'm not the only FTRer who has losing sessions. I was beginning to think I was the only one.

Originally Posted by ngericl

My sessions are about equal parts black and red. Thankfully, for the most part, the black numbers are bigger than the red ones. It's nice to know I'm not the only FTRer who has losing sessions. I was beginning to think I was the only one.

even the best of players have losing sessions.. i read on daniel n' s blog about him complaining about losing 1 mil one night against phil ivey and howard lederer

Originally Posted by Element187

Originally Posted by ngericl

My sessions are about equal parts black and red. Thankfully, for the most part, the black numbers are bigger than the red ones. It's nice to know I'm not the only FTRer who has losing sessions. I was beginning to think I was the only one.

even the best of players have losing sessions.. i read on daniel n' s blog about him complaining about losing 1 mil one night against phil ivey and howard lederer

That's gotta suck. But to be in a position to be able to say that is still pretty cool.

You can see how often I have losing sessions or losing streaks from my avatar. There is 102k hands in that graph and it plots BB's on the vertical axis against hands played. In the long run my win-rate looks quite stable and those HUGE downswings I had don't look so bad anymore.

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

You can see how often I have losing sessions or losing streaks from my avatar. There is 102k hands in that graph and it plots BB's on the vertical axis against hands played. In the long run my win-rate looks quite stable and those HUGE downswings I had don't look so bad anymore.

I have long thought I will do that and use it as a tilt adjustor. Of course, that assumes that I am long term profitable, which remains to be seen.

I keep track by day (since not all the sites I play at are supported by Pokertracker). Out of the last 29 days, I have had 7 losing days.

However, I think looking at things this way is bad since it largely depends on how many hands you have played. Winning players that play 2K hands per day will tend to have fewer losing days than players with the same win rate and variance but playing far fewer hands per day.

Also, I think it encourages you to continue playing in bad games trying to get out of the red and to stop playing in good games in an attempt to quit while you're ahead. I am guilty of this at times and have turned 40BB losses into 100BB losses that way, though it's been a while since that happened.

My sessions are basically 1 per day, lasting anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. I've had 3 or 4 losing days in the last 20. One of those was the worst single-session loss I've ever had though. It was just a few days after I had moved up to NL 100, and it's documented in brief in the Bad Beats forum... I ended up losing 6 buy-ins that day. I'm actually still massaging my bankroll back into shape after that catastrophe. (The day after that, I started the morning by dumping another 2 buy-ins, and then ended up ahead 2 for the day after a good afternoon.)

Originally Posted by dalecooper

My sessions are basically 1 per day, lasting anywhere from 3 to 6 hours. I've had 3 or 4 losing days in the last 20. One of those was the worst single-session loss I've ever had though. It was just a few days after I had moved up to NL 100, and it's documented in brief in the Bad Beats forum... I ended up losing 6 buy-ins that day. I'm actually still massaging my bankroll back into shape after that catastrophe. (The day after that, I started the morning by dumping another 2 buy-ins, and then ended up ahead 2 for the day after a good afternoon.)

Posted: Mon, 06 Jun 2005, 3:43pm Post subject: Reply with quote Edit/Delete this post
With that win rate you should move up, no doubt. I do suspect that you were mostly running good over those 11k hands, so I hope it won't be a shock if you hit a real downswing starting off at 100NL. In the long run though you should earn more $/hour playing 100NL.

:P

What can I say, you were right about that. It was some pretty nasty stuff I was afflicted with that day. I had kings twice and both times someone else had aces. I had aces twice, and they were cracked once by a set of threes on a very non-threatening board, and the other time I had stepped away from my computer and the hand timed out so I didn't even get to play it. I had nut flush vs. a boat, a boat vs. a bigger boat... on and on. It was easily the worst luck I've ever had in a session, and it seemed like every single time one of these came along, I lost a full buy-in. Hideous. I really wanted to quit poker that afternoon.

Loosing sessions... lets see, I'm making my SECOND trip around the damn newbie circle of death...

But you have to wonder, what is really a session? A couple of hours at a table? A day? A week? A month? If you look at how much money you had a a particular time vs what you have now, it's all relative. If I say that I was up to $800 two weeks ago, and now I'm at $500, that is a loosing session. But a week ago I was at $300, and now I'm at $500, so I am winning for the week even though I'm losing for the month. As long as my BR never goes negative and I have to start from scratch, I'll just say I'm in a permanent winning session and be happy with that!!

Originally Posted by storm75m

Loosing sessions... lets see, I'm making my SECOND trip around the damn newbie circle of death...

But you have to wonder, what is really a session? A couple of hours at a table? A day? A week? A month? If you look at how much money you had a a particular time vs what you have now, it's all relative. If I say that I was up to $800 two weeks ago, and now I'm at $500, that is a loosing session. But a week ago I was at $300, and now I'm at $500, so I am winning for the week even though I'm losing for the month. As long as my BR never goes negative and I have to start from scratch, I'll just say I'm in a permanent winning session and be happy with that!!

Mike Caro says this a little differently, something like "You are always exactly even when the next hand begins."

worst losing session.. 13 buyins.. or $130.. that was an incredible bad run, but in my record sheet theres a good day of +$146 to account for it.. ie. variance.

I dont use PT because i dont have it, and because the main site i play on doesnt give hand histories but i have created my own tracker than can give me a BB/100 16.5 currently.. but thats only 3K hands so i'm expecting that to change.

in my 48 days of play so far I have had 11 down days, but this isnt a figure of sessions, as there some days where I go down in the morning and up twice my loss in the evening. havent yet made the record sheet advanced enough to look after that much detail.

so the short answer.. yes a losing run once every 5-7 days is normal, i run at about 1/4.. i think it depends on who you play with. If your up against chasers they'll be more often, but your profits on good days will be higher so either way you come out roughly the same i think.

check out danny's attitude towards losing $113K in one day: "Could have been better, could have been worse I guess."
http://www.cardplayer.com/negreanu-blog/

awesome replies guys, very interesting and reasuring. Similar to poor dalecooper I think I was unlucky enough to hit my first MAJOR bad streak while moving up a level - from .1/.2 to .15/.30 nl and losing about 6 buy-ins over approx 2k hands, getting everything cracked and nothing going right. There were other factors:

The play was different and it took me along time to realise this - players were alot looser and my continuation bets didnt work nowhere nearly as much as at the level below.

The added psychological hinder of my BR dropping below 1k was noticable and may of also effected my play. I also had to cashout $800 very soon to pay rent so it wasnt a 'true' playable BR really.

Since then I have dropped back to .1/.2, got back into the swing of things and cashed out my 800 with 446 now left to carry on building my BR with at .1/.2. When I get 1k or maybe 1.5k of true playable BR [where nothing has to come out for rent or bills!] ill try moving up again to .15/.3 [$30 buyin] 6max nl.

I've now started compiling my daily sessions into Excel so I can generate graphs like CocoBills - I think it will be very usefull to look at when you feel yourself tilting a little and overall just very satisfying to look at!

I now have Poker Tracker but need to ring up my poker-room to sort out them compiling my past hand histories and email them to me as their software service is rubbish - only allowing me download the last days HH's. I must have anything from 15-25k hands and cant wait to start analysing them!

Isn't this the wrong place to post? It's not so much a strategy rather than a complaint or maybe a discussion...

Originally Posted by AcesInTheHole

Isn't this the wrong place to post? It's not so much a strategy rather than a complaint or maybe a discussion...

Shut up. Read more before you make your 14th post if you're gonna try to moderate. You can't argue the fact that this turned into a good discussion.

Your variance is going to be different depending on your style. I almost never have a losing session anymore.

That's because often I don't allow people to gamble against me. That is to say I don't like to go all in with the best hand or chance to win on a dangerous board.

I fold the hand and curb my variance most times. I don't make every +EV play if it's for a big chunk of my chips. Unless I already have a bunch invested into a pot, I'd rather grind em down later. As a result I get to the same bankroll as you at the same time, but without the heart attack.

TylerK and myself had a big debate a couple months back over going all in with +EV every time you have the opportunity. It's correct to do so most definately, but you have to understand the beast. You have to expect variance playing that way. Some people like to say it's the correct way, but I like to say it's ONE of the correct ways.

If you don't like variance, then you're going to be folding the best hand a lot and winning a lot of small pots with an occasional big boy. If that doesn't sound pleasant than just deal with the swings and accept the fact that it will all come around eventually if you play correctly.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

Your variance is going to be different depending on your style. I almost never have a losing session anymore.

That's because often I don't allow people to gamble against me. That is to say I don't like to go all in with the best hand or chance to win on a dangerous board.

I fold the hand and curb my variance most times. I don't make every +EV play if it's for a big chunk of my chips. Unless I already have a bunch invested into a pot, I'd rather grind em down later. As a result I get to the same bankroll as you at the same time, but without the heart attack.

TylerK and myself had a big debate a couple months back over going all in with +EV every time you have the opportunity. It's correct to do so most definately, but you have to understand the beast. You have to expect variance playing that way. Some people like to say it's the correct way, but I like to say it's ONE of the correct ways.

If you don't like variance, then you're going to be folding the best hand a lot and winning a lot of small pots with an occasional big boy. If that doesn't sound pleasant than just deal with the swings and accept the fact that it will all come around eventually if you play correctly.

With that style you will be making less long term profits against bad players and you wont be winning at all against good players...

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

Originally Posted by Rondavu

Your variance is going to be different depending on your style. I almost never have a losing session anymore.

That's because often I don't allow people to gamble against me. That is to say I don't like to go all in with the best hand or chance to win on a dangerous board.

I fold the hand and curb my variance most times. I don't make every +EV play if it's for a big chunk of my chips. Unless I already have a bunch invested into a pot, I'd rather grind em down later. As a result I get to the same bankroll as you at the same time, but without the heart attack.

TylerK and myself had a big debate a couple months back over going all in with +EV every time you have the opportunity. It's correct to do so most definately, but you have to understand the beast. You have to expect variance playing that way. Some people like to say it's the correct way, but I like to say it's ONE of the correct ways.

If you don't like variance, then you're going to be folding the best hand a lot and winning a lot of small pots with an occasional big boy. If that doesn't sound pleasant than just deal with the swings and accept the fact that it will all come around eventually if you play correctly.

With that style you will be making less long term profits against bad players and you wont be winning at all against good players...

Maybe you're right, but I'm doing just fine right now. If I start foundering, then maybe it will be time to re-evaluate. As of now I clean house almost every session.

i'm guessing i lose probably 3 days a weeks. I have been on the worst downswing/bad play funk of my life this past week. It just seems like every hand i get i run into a set or, when i get a set it folds around when i throw out a weak bet. I've lost about 10 buyins or so in the past week. I've had downswings this bad before, but because of the stakes i'm at it seems much worse than before. In many ways it is because if i were to lose everything (which i am not going to let happen) then it would take alot longer to work my way back up.

One thing that Rondavu's style does is impose discipline. I'm sure we all know how tempting it is sometimes to go all-in on a marginal call, and the problem is it doesn't take many of these slightly-erroneous bets to decimate your stack (that's the story of almost all my major losing sessions, I'm sure).

So basically, it's easier to make mistakes, and because of the nature of the beast, BIG mistakes, when doing the all-in thing.

(Obviously, no-one on this forum makes those kind of mistakes, but, you know, some poor saps do )

A classic example of my style was illustrated last night. I had QJh suited UTG. I raised to 2x BB to at least get SOME isolation if not just value if I hit. I think that's one thing I do that most people don't. I refuse to limp from anywhere on the table holding broadways. Anyway, I got 6 callers. The flop came out 6c Ts Js. At this point I was second act out of 6. Well, first act decided to slightly overbet the pot. I instantly put him on a flush draw that was trying to get cute. I couldn't call, because that would improve pot odds for more calls, and I couldn't go all in because my position denied me information. In this case I decided to fold even though I was almost certain I had the best hand at the moment on this loose table. These are the kind of +EV plays I don't risk.

Don't get the impression I never gamble. I certainly do. I called an all in by a very aggressive player last night when I flopped a flush draw on a rag board holding AK suited. I had two strong overs, and I was sure he caught TP and was trying to push me off my broadways. In that case I called and won. I had 15 outs however against a guy who bluffs a little too often. I had him slightly covered as well.

I choose my spots very carefully.

In a similar way to Rondavu.. say if I have Ax suited (x= lower than 10) in late posistion and limp in. for this example lets say i have A8.. flop is 824.. flush draw on the board. someone bets the pot. I probably have the best hand with TPTK, no one can have a straight yet or flush, the idiot who played rags and caught 2 pair, 88 44 22 and over pairs have me beat. I can't call, because as rondavu said that would improve drawing odds. so i can fold/raise/push.

raise gives me info which is good, but that allows a call and betting round on the turn, and the odds of a scare card showing are much too high, any card higher than 8, any of the flush suit, A/3/5/6/7 can finish a straight, and 2/4 give the calling idiots a set, leaving me with only another 8 allowing me to play back at agression on the turn. I have 1 or 2 outs to truely improve.. yay!

if its only one other guy in the hand then i'll take him on, but generally i'd rather wait it out for a bigger hand so a fold is good for me here. Mayb i'm too conservative, but i 'dont like putting myself in positions where i can be bullied out of chips. Maybe thats a bit of a leak and I should be prepared to push and make drawing truely expensive and hopefully decrease the field here.

Originally Posted by BIGandRICH

In a similar way to Rondavu.. say if I have Ax suited (x= lower than 10) in late posistion and limp in. for this example lets say i have A8.. flop is 824.. flush draw on the board. someone bets the pot. I probably have the best hand with TPTK, no one can have a straight yet or flush, the idiot who played rags and caught 2 pair, 88 44 22 and over pairs have me beat. I can't call, because as rondavu said that would improve drawing odds. so i can fold/raise/push.

raise gives me info which is good, but that allows a call and betting round on the turn, and the odds of a scare card showing are much too high, any card higher than 8, any of the flush suit, A/3/5/6/7 can finish a straight, and 2/4 give the calling idiots a set, leaving me with only another 8 allowing me to play back at agression on the turn. I have 1 or 2 outs to truely improve.. yay!

if its only one other guy in the hand then i'll take him on, but generally i'd rather wait it out for a bigger hand so a fold is good for me here. Mayb i'm too conservative, but i 'dont like putting myself in positions where i can be bullied out of chips. Maybe thats a bit of a leak and I should be prepared to push and make drawing truely expensive and hopefully decrease the field here.

This is a classic example of a push hard or fold situation. In my book you made the right decision waiting for a better spot. There's always going to be a better situation. The hands you can potentially lose the most money on are ones where you get yourself committed and fall behind. It's not always the best decision to invest a lot when your currently ahead, especially on the flop.

Originally Posted by Rondavu

It's not always the best decision to invest a lot when your currently ahead, especially on the flop.

yes, stack size comes into it alot, and how many callers you are likely to get, theres no sense in staying in if more than half the deck is going to put you behind. A single pair may be ahead but its just way too vulnerable. A table of fish will be willing to join forces and excercise the full potential of their 30+ outs to beat you.

Why dont you start using Pokeroffice instead of PT??! Its far superior during play and you can start using it the very first day of installation, in contrast to PT which takes forever just to get running...

Rondavu, Big and Rich - how do you classify this style of play? I've been wondering that as it sounds like I play very similarly.
Most would probably say weak tight I would guess.
And that may be right, but it seems more like there's a sliding scale on the weak side - meaning that you are weak when you have little to draw on and improper odds (even with +EV), but you are aggressive with decent hands with good odds to improve.
There are some 'weak' betters that will only bet 10c all the way to the river with strong holdings - they are at the other end of the spectrum.

Tight weak is vulnerable to loose aggressive in the short term. But it's almost a good thing for me. Take a few small hits against a loose aggressive, realize that they are in this category - and then eventually you will bust them out.
Tight weak seems like it's even more vulnerable to tight aggressive - but on an even less frequent basis - and hek in most of these situations I'm not losing too much - less than a dollar.

The thing about this style - it is playing fine for me at the .05/.10 pacific tables - but I'm not sure how well it's going to carry up (though it will be months before I move up anyway). If moving up to that particular level means I hit a lot more TAG players, I will probably not do well as I will be running into them more than my hands can hold up at the flop.

there's nothing weak about folding in a precarious situation. if you think that either of the examples given were "weak" and inconsistent with tight aggressive play, then i would recommend re-reading your sklansky. for example, the whole concept of reverse implied odds often forces you to lay down the best hand on the flop because the pot is too tiny to be worth calling down 3 rounds of betting. to be tight aggressive you can't just be aggressive, you also have to be tight, meaning "know when to fold 'em."

i recently read an article by clonie gowen about how sometimes you have to lay down the absolute nuts in the middle of a raising war if you have no redraws and everyone else is likely to be drawing to a higher hand. granted, this is in pot limit omaha where you often win only half the pot, but the point is it's not "weak" to fold a strong hand if you think you're going to lose. it's tight and it's sometimes right.

ChezJ

I lose everyday, all day.

Sometimes the cards just don't work for you, there's nothing you can do.

Tight play is what seperates the losers from the "go broke and stop playing poker" losers. Depending on the game, you can sometimes get away with playing loose and aggressive, but NOT every game.

Originally Posted by ChezJ

reverse implied odds

Originally Posted by greggy

Why dont you start using PokerOffice instead of PT??! Its far superior during play and you can start using it the very first day of installation, in contrast to PT which takes forever just to get running...

Poker office doesn't let you choose a hand, like KK and see the hand history for all the times you got it. Am I wrong?

Rondavu, Big and Rich - how do you classify this style of play? I've been wondering that as it sounds like I play very similarly. Most would probably say weak tight I would guess. And that may be right, but it seems more like there's a sliding scale on the weak side.

Lol. I'm loose aggressive. Many loose aggressives don't know when to turn off the faucet. I've been forced to learn when I should slow down for the purposes of survival.

I guess you could say I'm loose aggressive against weakness, and Tight aggressive against strength. That sounds about right. Maybe "Tighter", or "Tightest" aggressive in some situations.

Originally Posted by DaHorror

Rondavu, Big and Rich - how do you classify this style of play? I've been wondering that as it sounds like I play very similarly.
Most would probably say weak tight I would guess.
And that may be right, but it seems more like there's a sliding scale on the weak side - meaning that you are weak when you have little to draw on and improper odds (even with +EV), but you are aggressive with decent hands with good odds to improve.
There are some 'weak' betters that will only bet 10c all the way to the river with strong holdings - they are at the other end of the spectrum.

Tight weak is vulnerable to loose aggressive in the short term. But it's almost a good thing for me. Take a few small hits against a loose aggressive, realize that they are in this category - and then eventually you will bust them out.
Tight weak seems like it's even more vulnerable to tight aggressive - but on an even less frequent basis - and hek in most of these situations I'm not losing too much - less than a dollar.

The thing about this style - it is playing fine for me at the .05/.10 Pacific tables - but I'm not sure how well it's going to carry up (though it will be months before I move up anyway). If moving up to that particular level means I hit a lot more TAG players, I will probably not do well as I will be running into them more than my hands can hold up at the flop.

hmmm... i dont really know, i dont like to classify my personal style as i change up depending on the table.. I play like that against a whole table of calling stations when i know every kind of draw is going to be out there against me... like the .05/.1 pacific tables.. the players there are ridiuclous.. I often see people calling or pushing AI with any A or K. On those tables i play passivly until i hit a high TPTK or better.. at which point i bet really hard beacause i'm gaurenteed calls from crappy hands. No continuation bets with overs... because they get called.

where as on my other site i play more Tagg and lagg.. and now i'm moving up to NL25 on pacific where it will be different again.. not sure quite what it will be like yet as tonight was my first session there.

the main thing is switching all over the place.. If your playing right then you'll never be vulnerable because your playing the style that beats any given player that you are up against.

Originally Posted by DaHorror

it seems more like there's a sliding scale on the weak side - meaning that you are weak when you have little to draw on and improper odds (even with +EV).

I'm not sure of the exact situation i used and i cant be bothered finding it.. but thing thing for me is.. i dont like those situations because i'm likely to get destacked. It may be +EV but if i'm only a say.. 35% to win then i'm happy to wait, gives less variance and getting destacked is bad.. it can send you on tilt and then if you havent got the disipline to control it you may get destacked 4-5 times... and thats really bad.

If the time you win quadriples you up then your geting +EV, but if the times you lose you tilt and lose more. Thats -EV

wow, i'm replying alot of times to this...

further more.. the situation i spoke of, now that i've read it, was limping in. I had input the minimum amount, so there wasnt a pot worth taking yet. As ChezJ said, its not a weak move, TPTK 8s.. your probably best but there is just way to many hands that could be out there already and beating you. and in Rondavu's example, his QJ TPGK may have been +EV, but without position we dont know, one of the 6 players in could have already got a set.. then what do we have.. drawing dead.