Tuesday, November 27, 2007

...and back down we go...

Brutal. I played my second session at .10-.20 last night and got raped. I had a Royal-esque run of second best hands and bad beats mixed with a healthy dose of bad play. At my peak I was at $440.00, now I am $330.00. I would continue at these stakes, as I did have some success, but I think I will drop back down for now until I get back up to the upper 300's at least. I had a decent start at that level, but this one terrible session came too early for me to keep at those stakes.

Some hands off the top of my head: I ran AJ into AK twice on an A high board for my stack, I had AQ, raised got one maniac caller, cbet the missed flop, he called, turned an A, led for pot, he called, pot bet river leaving me about 10 bucks left, and he just called with AK. Flopped a set of 9's, got it all in on the flop against a bare flush draw which hit, lost about half a buy in with Q10 on a Q high board vs QJ. Got it all in with top 2 against an open ender that got there, etc.

And every time I hit the nuts they would just fold. AA in the BB? Folds around. FINALLY flop the elusive set? They all fold on an A K 2-suited board after a preflop raise and 3 callers.. ETC.

I could have played better too. But overall I think if this was a "normal" session I would have probably broken around even.

So anyway, it's time to swallow my pride, admit defeat, and get back in the trenches trying to build back up to 400.... I will keep you guys updated. sigh.

7 comments:

Marshall said...

This is where you guys offer me unbridled encouragement.

jsola said...

I don't think you noticed, but I was sweating you for a lot of that session (while I was donking off half a buy-in on another table).

I caught the set of 9's gone awry, that was such a cold deck. I was pulling for you not to go on tilt after that, and I noticed you were up to like $30-$40 at one point before dumping it back to the table.

I wasn't paying too much attention, but later in the game, I DID see you doing a lot of minraising and I think I caught a minbet at one point. FYI, this made me change my notes on you from "DONK" to "MINRAISING DONK."

Did you play any differently early on (before the beats occurred)? Did the jump in level affect how you played?

Marshall said...

I pretty much played the same way I have at the levels below, but with some adjustments. I didn't notice you sweating me, maybe I would have played better had I.. :/

The min raise preflop means one of two things from me: Ax suited or pocket 2's-6's. I do that just because at these levels almost NOBODY re-raises minraises pre-flop and it gives me better odds seeing the flop with those hit or miss type hands.

I do remember min betting the flop once but it was a mis-click.

It was a weird night, I normally win at the 6-handed tables in those marginal situations, but I couldn't get it going. I was up to around 30 at that one table before the AQ vs AK hand against that monster maniac stack. I saved a few of the gems from last night on my comp and will try to get them posted. But overall, I played pretty shitty. It was one of those nights where it felt like every time I got it going, I got slammed right back down.

Sushi Cowboy said...

Been there done that. After my first meltdown after moving up levels I instituted some mandatory cutoff points so that after I dropped through $xxx dollars then I would have to stop and at least re-assess how I'm doing. That set dollar figure acted like a failsafe mechanism to help make sure that I didn't d0nk off chips. Having a cold deck is going to happen but there is no need to compound the problem with bad play and that was why I instituted a cooling off period after I went down far enough. I also put in a set dollar amount that if I fell to that point I would leave those stakes immediately. Losing too much of my bankroll too quickly was a sign to me that I was playing above my roll and I had to back off so that I do not even think about chasing my losses.

Don't worry, I'm sure you'll get it back and you can look at it as a cheap lesson. Losing a quarter of your roll hurts a lot less when your roll is $400 than when it is $40,000. However I would suggest that you ask yourself how much you think it is OK to lose, for whatever reason, at .10/.20 before you should step away from the table.

Marshall said...

Oh and to answer your questions: I played about the same the whole time, and I played the same I do at the lower level. I think I will have to adjust though. I have adjusted a little each move, and will have to for this one too. I just keep it the same until I figure out what needs to change specifically.

I pretty much just play LAG I think.

Marshall said...

mini-update:

Played a short session of .05-.10 to get myself back in a groove and for a tilt test. Passed fine and played fine turning a small profit before dinner.

Afterwards, I dove right back into .10-.20, but decided to change my play up significantly. Basically I didn't feel like I was in a position to take a big hit and wasn't willing to gamble a lot like I normally do on the Cake challenge. So I decided to bring my "A" game. I played very tight, was waiting on big hands, wasn't drawing unless it was cheap, and tried really hard to be in position for the most part.

It worked as expected, not with huge results, but with solid ones, I am back up to 375.00 now and looking forward to creeping back up on the 400.00 mark.

Marshall said...

Mini-update again:

After finding myself at 375 I took a shot at the 10-20 game again.

Basically the same result. I ran QQ into AA on an all undercard flop for one buy in, then ran 55 for a flopped set turned river boat into Q3 for a bigger boat. Pretty sick.

So again I found myself down but not out, and I hung in there on two other tables and ground my way back up to 368. This transition has been quite rocky, but if I can get a couple of sessions strung together of not getting raped by the deck, I think I will surge forward.

GL Marsh.