Trying to take stock

[Anosmic]

Well, I'm coming to the end of my PP 45-beginner days and it's been really good.
I had to stop today because I've managed to lose about 20% of my BR in the last couple of days and on the verge of tilt. (I say verge because I'm either just about to, or have just started tilting).

I've played about 10K hands so far and my BR is now $280 or thereabouts, up from the $50 start, down from the nice $350 level I reached last week.

My PT summary looks like this:


There's a another 1k hands in PokerOffice from the iPoker sites I played for a bit. (Small losses there, at their $0.05/$0.10 and $0.25/$0.50 games, offset by the bonuses).

Both PT and PO rate me as Tight-Agressive Passive.
I think I've done okay at the $5NL tables, been playing 4 at once and making steady profits.
I was 3 or 4 tabling $10NL for a while, but then I need to be more focused.

I'm irritated I'll leave Party's $10NL tables a loser. I'd worked hard to get back to break-even at $10NL and done it and a spat of bad results has ruined that.
I was starting to really feel my game was falling apart, but looking over my games I see that the big losses which really cost were understandable.
(I've lost two buy ins with AA recently. One to a guy who hit trips 3s and I never guessed I was beaten until the showdown; the other was AI preflop against AKo who hit a flush. So I'll not lose sleep over that one).

I've lost a couple more buy-ins when I've hit trips. One I should have seen that he made his straight, but didn't. Others like someone turning over AA which they'd min-raised pf or the guy who caught a backdoor flush seem more acceptable.

So I'm on the move from Party soon because I'm not ready for $25. But what would you guys recommend? Look for $5NL somewhere else and work on some of my problems?
Work on my $10NL game instead? Perhaps cut back to 1 table and work on reads more? Start trying to play more smart stuff? Or just keep up the set-hunting etc and work up my BR to a higher level before worrying about that?

Any guidance from our resident gurus is welcome

[jyms]

If you can stop befor the tilt, I advise you to do it. I'm around the same as you Anosmic, in that we started at party around the same time. hit a snag and a half and have lost most of my winnings and am down to $75 bucks after getting to almost $350. Made some real poor decisions, (see the circle of death thread) Funny thing is I can rewrite that word for word now, with my experiences. I was just waiting for the beginner tables time to run out and was about to bonus whore another sight, but as things are right now i'm screwed. You made good progress, jump on another sight and bonus it up and wait for a reload at party.

[biondino]

It's clear you're playing $10NL more scared than $5NL - look at the VP and more importantly the steal stats. Now, I don't know if you were too reckless at $5, but the BB/100 doesn't seem to indicate so. At $10 the players aren't noticeably better, but they might be slightly more willing to let you steal their blinds, and to try and steal yours. So why are your stats so much weaker?

The SB VP stats are interesting too. Have you made money on the SB in $5NL? Because if so then again, you are being too tight here.

Are you playing fewer suited connectors/gappers etc? There must be something in that 3% difference. My VP is about 19% and I play SCs whenever they're feasible and more besides with position. Have you taken these out of your armoury?

[jackvance]

Hehe Anosmic, the times I have ruined great results from subsequent horrible play (b/c I got too overconfident, kept expecting it to keep going so good and got frustrated etc) have been so numerous it is coming to the point that all it does to me is "ah well, again..."

I've been blowing money the past few days on horrible play (and a bit of bad luck.. but mainly getting frustrated from the bad luck and blowing more money because of that frustration).. and yesterday I put in some more hours and made it all back again ($70 in 5 hours)

I think it's good you lost that $70 now. A relatively cheap price to have your feet put back down on the ground I'd say! This is gonna be happening more often in your poker career than you might expect.. if you're anything like me (ie, human) then when things are going well, you tend to think that it's gonna keep going like that. Well, it's not. So you got off cheap now

[Anosmic]

It's clear you're playing $10NL more scared than $5NL - look at the VP and more importantly the steal stats. Now, I don't know if you were too reckless at $5, but the BB/100 doesn't seem to indicate so. At $10 the players aren't noticeably better, but they might be slightly more willing to let you steal their blinds, and to try and steal yours. So why are your stats so much weaker?

I disagree about the relative levels of $5NL and $10NL. At 10 there are more people raising pf, proper raises.
Now I'll fold AJo, AQo to a good raise pf. Now that hardly happens at 5, but more often at 10, so as a result I'm laying them down more often, hence a lower VP.

Similarly with KQ, KJ, QJ. I'll junk KJ, QJ from early position at 10 unless I feel like raising with it. Whereas I'll open limp with them at 5 because it works.

As to blind steals. It's easy to steal my blinds, just raise me. I'll only defend with something. I'll junk SB if I don't have a normal starting hand unless pretty much everyone has folded to me.
But then I did that at 5NL.

The SB VP stats are interesting too. Have you made money on the SB in $5NL? Because if so then again, you are being too tight here.

I made money at all positions in 5NL except UTG.
SB is ironically one of the few positions at 10NL that has made me some money. BB is a horrible loser (! playing crap I should be because I've caught a bit of the flop?!?).

Are you playing fewer suited connectors/gappers etc? There must be something in that 3% difference. My VP is about 19% and I play SCs whenever they're feasible and more besides with position. Have you taken these out of your armoury?

I rarely play sc or gappers.
I do play Axs at 5NL a fair bit, but not as 10NL so much (especially since there's often a pf raise and wouldn't call that with Axs).