What do you do when......... ?

[Chipaccrual]

  You rarely seem able to hit a flop anymore

You do hit top pair with a decent kicker, your opponent has hit trips

You can"t remember the last time your pocket pair made trips

You are on a straight draw, the card that helps give your opponent a flush or fullhouse

Your kings or queens find aces 90% of the time

You are racing and you lose 80% of the time, irrelevant of holding the pair or overcards

You do hit with your overcards, your opponent hits their two outer

You finally make the money with an average stack, when any of the above happens


At the moment, FML

[Jon MW]

Get a job

[kinboshi]

Play cash.

[lukybugur]

When? You mean poker"s not ALWAYS like that ... ?     FML!!!

[deanp27]

take a break

[AMRN]

get a blue rinse and join a whist drive

[noble1]

realise that poker is not just about playing your hand and work on ways of getting chips by other means by improving your reads of others and situations/players you can take advantage of..

Develop a thick skin and learn to except variance but still be able to play your A game...

Learn to fold....

[Zanshin]

Move up stakes............    

[Swinebag]

You rarely seem able to hit a flop anymore

You do hit top pair with a decent kicker, your opponent has hit trips

You can"t remember the last time your pocket pair made trips

You are on a straight draw, the card that helps give your opponent a flush or fullhouse

Your kings or queens find aces 90% of the time

You are racing and you lose 80% of the time, irrelevant of holding the pair or overcards

You do hit with your overcards, your opponent hits their two outer

You finally make the money with an average stack, when any of the above happens


At the moment, FML

Remember those FTs and 4 figure cashes from earlier in the year. They were no fluke. This is the variance of big field MTTs slapping you in the chops.

Are the stats you are quoting only in your mind (??) and are they starting to make you play bad?

If you think you are starting to play bad then give up for a bit or try the following....

1. A few micro stakes STTs where you go allin every hand untill you dish out a shocking beat of your own (posted this before)
2. Try a different game
3. Try a different format

You can"t realistically expect to run like you did in January. Keep making good decisions, record your results and keep posting hands.

[Eck]

DRINK, DRINK, DRINK!

[noble1]

everything below is good advice and points to follow......

1 find a lucky pair of under pants you could wear...
2 the bra on head for flips does work wonders....
3 buy a cat so you can kick it when you lose,saves on expenses for broken mouses,laptops and monitors etc etc
4 last night I stayed up late playing poker with Tarot cards. I got a full house and four people died.DO NOT TRY THIS....
5 Remember - Poker is like sex - everyone thinks they"re the best, but most people don"t have a clue what they"re doing
6 money isn"t everything...unless you"re playing in a rebuy tournament
7 they say poker is a zero-sum game. It must be, because every time a donkey plays his sum ends up zero
8 poker is like sex, it"s gr8 when you go allin
9 remember - you can only play pocket jacks 3 ways, all of which are wrong
10 it don"t matter if the donkey is blind you still gonna lose if your crap
11 give up poker if opponents say the following - Even Your Poker Face Is Ugly
12 always complain to the dealer the cards are ill shuffled till you have a good hand
13 avoid people with gold teeth who want to play cards
14 the good news is that in every deck of fifty-two cards there are 2,598,960 possible hands. the bad news is that you are only going to be dealt one of them hands Chipaccrual - most likely 72o
15 poker is not about whether you won or lost, its about how many bad-beat stories you are able to tell
16 there is a very easy way to return from a casino after a nights poker with a small fortune: make sure you go there with a large one
17 the trick to poker is mastering the luck
18 remember no wife can endure a gambling husband, unless he is a steady winner
19 most probably right now your best chance of getting a flush is if you go to the toilet....
20 as Eck says - get pissed

[Chipaccrual]

Rob,

You wanted hands, here we go.

$5 $10k gtd on stars this afternoon.  21/78 sitting well in the cash when this happens :-


PokerStars Game #26866008104: Tournament #153492688, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level XVII (1500/3000) - 2009/04/08 18:34:47 WET [2009/04/08 13:34:47 ET]
Table "153492688 286" 9-max Seat #8 is the button
Seat 1: Xanthalius (59628 in chips)
Seat 2: DAVEatUW2 (144370 in chips)
Seat 3: swiffer33 (133225 in chips)
Seat 4: Innova Tom (12504 in chips)
Seat 5: slypud (81501 in chips)
Seat 7: Chipaccrual (97971 in chips)
Seat 8: Axl2032 (39252 in chips)
Seat 9: rookiemonsta (51530 in chips)
Xanthalius: posts the ante 300
DAVEatUW2: posts the ante 300
swiffer33: posts the ante 300
Innova Tom: posts the ante 300
slypud: posts the ante 300
Chipaccrual: posts the ante 300
Axl2032: posts the ante 300
rookiemonsta: posts the ante 300
rookiemonsta: posts small blind 1500
Xanthalius: posts big blind 3000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Chipaccrual [kd ks]
DAVEatUW2: folds
swiffer33: folds
Innova Tom: folds
slypud: folds
Chipaccrual: raises 6000 to 9000
Axl2032: folds
rookiemonsta: raises 42230 to 51230 and is all-in
Xanthalius: folds
Chipaccrual: calls 42230
*** FLOP *** [js jc ]
*** TURN *** [js jc ] [ac]
*** RIVER *** [js jc ac] []
*** SHOW DOWN ***
rookiemonsta: shows [th ah] (two pair, Aces and Jacks)
Chipaccrual: shows [kd ks] (two pair, Kings and Jacks)
rookiemonsta collected 107860 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 107860 | Rake 0
Board [js jc  ac ]
Seat 1: Xanthalius (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 2: DAVEatUW2 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 3: swiffer33 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 4: Innova Tom folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 5: slypud folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 7: Chipaccrual showed [kd ks] and lost with two pair, Kings and Jacks
Seat 8: Axl2032 (button) folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 9: rookiemonsta (small blind) showed [th  ah] and won (107860) with two pair, Aces and Jacks


But, I take that in my stride and sit tight, waiting for that double up opportunity.  21 hands later, and I have not played a thing, this happens :-

PokerStars Game #26866636597: Tournament #153492688, $5.00+$0.50 Hold'em No Limit - Level XVIII (2000/4000) - 2009/04/08 18:52:54 WET [2009/04/08 13:52:54 ET]
Table "153492688 286" 9-max Seat #6 is the button
Seat 1: Xanthalius (36628 in chips)
Seat 2: DAVEatUW2 (194018 in chips)
Seat 3: swiffer33 (121825 in chips)
Seat 4: Lecter75 (78860 in chips)
Seat 5: slypud (140901 in chips)
Seat 6: joiridezz (63370 in chips)
Seat 7: Chipaccrual (31141 in chips)
Seat 8: donk girl (158343 in chips)
Seat 9: rookiemonsta (76260 in chips)
Xanthalius: posts the ante 400
DAVEatUW2: posts the ante 400
swiffer33: posts the ante 400
Lecter75: posts the ante 400
slypud: posts the ante 400
joiridezz: posts the ante 400
Chipaccrual: posts the ante 400
donk girl: posts the ante 400
rookiemonsta: posts the ante 400
Chipaccrual: posts small blind 2000
donk girl: posts big blind 4000
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Chipaccrual [kh kd]
rookiemonsta: folds
Xanthalius: folds
DAVEatUW2: folds
swiffer33: folds
Lecter75: folds
slypud: raises 8000 to 12000
joiridezz: folds
Chipaccrual: raises 18741 to 30741 and is all-in
donk girl: folds
slypud: calls 18741
*** FLOP *** [ ts qd]
*** TURN *** [ ts qd] []
*** RIVER *** [ ts qd ] [ac]
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Chipaccrual: shows [kh kd] (a pair of Kings)
slypud: shows [ ] (two pair, Eights and Sevens)
slypud collected 69082 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot 69082 | Rake 0
Board [  ts qd  ac]
Seat 1: Xanthalius folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 2: DAVEatUW2 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 3: swiffer33 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 4: Lecter75 folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 5: slypud showed [ ] and won (69082) with two pair, Eights and Sevens
Seat 6: joiridezz (button) folded before Flop (didn"t bet)
Seat 7: Chipaccrual (small blind) showed [ kh  kd] and lost with a pair of Kings
Seat 8: donk girl (big blind) folded before Flop
Seat 9: rookiemonsta folded before Flop (didn"t bet)


So I go out in 58th place earning $20.60 for my 5hrs of poker play.  And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.  

[bigredders]

this is the problem when you play this level of players! i had a silimar situation earlier when i push all in(with pocket ) and someone calls 1/3 of his stack with 8-9 off!! of course the 9 hits on the flop and im nearly drawing dead! Can you imagine doing that yourself?

something i have been doing recently is playing tournaments with a lower amount of runners, funnily enough my results have been far better including making final tables instead of just cashing. try that for a few weeks rather than playing the big guarantee tournis, hopefully you luck and skill will come through!

[Chipaccrual]

this is the problem when you play this level of players! i had a silimar situation earlier when i push all in(with pocket ) and someone calls 1/3 of his stack with 8-9 off!! of course the 9 hits on the flop and im nearly drawing dead! Can you imagine doing that yourself?

something i have been doing recently is playing tournaments with a lower amount of runners, funnily enough my results have been far better including making final tables instead of just cashing. try that for a few weeks rather than playing the big guarantee tournis, hopefully you luck and skill will come through!

Skill ?

I think you must be confusing me with someone else.

I"m the tall chap that is normally running around getting chip counts at APAT events because I"ve already been knocked out.

I do agree with you though about the thinking of "would I push/call with what they push/call with"

Noble1 sent me a link to a very good article on levels of poker thinking.  Will go and try and find it.

[Chipaccrual]

LINK