What am I doing wrong? Need advice

I've been playing low limit online poker for about one year now. I started out like many losing a few hundred bucks learning the ropes. However, after a month or so, I began to find success. For the next 6 months I made back all that I lost plus quite a bit of profit.

But the last 3 months or so, I have found myself depositing an amount, making 3 or 4 times that amount only to eventually lose everything. Admittedly, some has been to poor play and tilting, but a lot has been to bad beats. It seems every time I am all in preflop with a dominant hand (pocket pair to a lower pocket pair, or AK vrs AJ etc) I end up losing (BTW I only go all in preflop with AA, KK, QQ, or AK). Also, people are hitting their draws on me, seemingly, every hand (also I cant hit a draw to save my life). I am almost to the point of letting them see the cards for free and just folding if that suit comes up.

I guess I haven't really lost a lot of money out of my pocket over the last few months, but I have definately lost a lot of profit.

I play mostly at three sites- PartyPoker, PokerStars, and PokerRoom. Pokerstars by far has handed me the worst beats. i seem to lose to lower pocket pairs every time there. PokerRoom seems to hand me the bad beats of AK vrs A and a lower kicker card. PartyPoker has been fairly good about bad beats. Should i stick only to PartyPoker?

What are some tips for avoiding tilting? What are some tips to handle bad beats?

i know bad beats happen, but I seem to take more than my fair share.

Here are my last 15 hands of all in preflop against ONE opponent.

AK vrs A9... LOST
AK vrs A8... LOST
QQ vrs JJ... WON
QQ vrs 22... LOST
AA vrs 98s... LOST
AA vrs ??... WON
AK vrs A2... LOST
AA vrs A2... LOST
KK vrs AQ...WON
AK vrs AJ... WON
AK vrs AQ... WON
QQ vrs A4... LOST
KK vrs QQ... LOST
AA vrs KK... LOST
AK vrs A10... LOST

The odds say I should win 70-80 percent of these hands. As you can see I've won 5 out of 15 for 33 percent. the average pot is about 40.00 in these situations. 15 pots at 40.00 apiece is 600.00. 75 percent of 600.00 is 450.00 (this is what i should have won). 33 percent of 600.00 is 200.00 (this what i have won). thats a 250.00 difference. This is all in about the last 10 days, and has been happening for about 3 months.

More info needed. Do you play PL, NL? What stakes?

Are you raising your premium hands (AA, KK, QQ, NOT AK) enough to drive off implied odds?
Are you able to see the traps coming? You're not betting the farm on top pair of an overpair, are you?

I play NL with blinds of .10-.25, .25-.50, or .50-1.00. I always raise my premium hands usually 4 to 10 times the big blind, depending on how loose the table is and my position.

Most of my beats are PREFLOP all ins against ONE player.

As far as betting goes after the flop on non-preflop all ins, I always bet at least the pot when i have an overpair to he board and there is a draw out there. I am good at folding a big hand when I feel I am beat, but it seems I always get my money in with a far superior hand only to lose to suckouts. i that player calls the pot sized bet after the flop, I'll bet the pot (or twice the pot if he's on a flush or straight draw) again if I dont think he improved on the turn. It seems my opponent will still call even tho he's not getting pot odds, and it seems like he hits more often than he should. Very rarely, if ever, am I all in without the best hand at the time.

All you've gotta do is fight tilt.

The money will come if you're constantly getting action with the better hand as well as protecting your hands while they're ahead.

-'rilla

I think you are focusing too much on these bad beats. Even if you have been bad beated a disproportional amount, you shouldn't focus on it. AS long as you get your money in the middle when you are ahead, you should be happy win or lose. That's a hard thing to do, but its something that, as a poker player, you need to learn to do.

Although it may not be a bad move at lower limits, Pushing with ak and QQ is risky just because the hands that will call you like AA KK Ak QQ dominate you or result in a coinflip.

Regardless, if you are always getting yourself into the situations that you posted above, you will win in the longterm.

Rediculously small sample size for any meaningful interpretation. Keep putting your money in when you're way ahead. It will pay off in the long term. If the variance is hurting you too bad, drop to lower stakes or go ahead and let them see the flop. The thing is, if they're going to fold because they don't hit the flop but would have called all-in preflop, the majority of the time (over the long term!) you're costing yourself money.

- Jeffrey

Quitting after suffering heavy losses is probably good advice. Also, if you're able to focus on making good decisions and at least partially ignore the money aspect of the game, you're less prone to go on tilt. This can be difficult to do, and probably can only come from experience.

Originally Posted by dsaxton

Quitting after suffering heavy losses is probably good advice. Also, if you're able to focus on making good decisions and at least partially ignore the money aspect of the game, you're less prone to go on tilt. This can be difficult to do, and probably can only come from experience.

That's great advice that I've become much more adept at following recently. Sometimes you just take big hits and how you handle them will determine whether you end up as a winning or losing player. Doyle Brunson talks about this concept in Super System. When you can handle your emotions during a big winning streak or a big losing streak, you'll become a much tougher opponent. You can't change your play just because you took a nasty beat.

Earlier this week I had aces cracked 3 times in a row(to JJ, 88, and 44)...2 of them when I got the opponent all in on the flop and one preflop...I got turned or rivered all 3 times. That's poker. I'm not going to quit being aggressive with rockets just because they got beat a few times.

Make sure you pay special attention to your play and emotions while you're winning and feel you're playing good poker and try to emulate that every time you play.