We got back around 1 am last night and it couldn’t have come sooner. Â I can only do Vegas for 3 to 4 days tops. Â Being there for 6 nights with a newborn and 2 other kids at home is just too much. Â Plus it didn’t help that my last day of live poker was a disaster. Â It was a weird time to be in Vegas because I’m in the middle of a horrible stretch online and have virtually no confidence in my game. Â I thought playing live would be a nice change of pace and was hoping to just come back a winner no matter how small.
I played 4 long live sessions in Vegas. Â After my first 3 sessions I was up exactly $476 playing 1-2 NL. Â Nothing to write home about but 3 positive sessions where I just played my game and luckily avoided any real awful situations. Â All that changed with my last session. Â Bret and I were playing at the Rio the last few days because a lot of the players seemed to be total donks. Â Not all of them mind you. Â But at least we weren’t surrounded by 22 year old kids with no tan that spend their whole life in the basement printing money.
The average player there was probably in his 30’s to 40’s with quite a few older people sprinkled in. Â Needless to say we felt very comfortable playing there against this type of player. Â I must say I played pretty tight because I was so intent on booking a winning trip. Â Everything was going according to plan until I was dealt pocket 9’s and and turned a set on a board of 8 10 2 9 rainbow. Â Obviously I was vulnerable to straight draws. Â Unfortunately my opponent already had it. Â My 9 gave me a set but him the nut straight. Â (Of course he called my flop bet with a gutter and hit it). Â I ended up shoving the blank river thinking I was probably good but of course I wasn’t. Â After playing so carefully for 3 and half days that hand COMPLETELY tilted me. Â I was feeling so sorry for myself after my terrible run online to boot that when he turned over the nuts I just sank in my chair and totally lost focus and desire to be there. Â I should have just left right then and there.
But I of course wanted to get my money back and when I was dealt AA about an hour later I thought I had a good shot at doing just that.  Unfortunately my opponent was the same guy who felted me and  who raised deuce 7 under the gun, showed bluffs and basically was splashing chips every other pot.  Needless to say with my confidence what it was, combined with his loose aggressive style I found it impossible to put him on a hand.  After calling my $45 preflop raise (because there were several limpers) he and I were heads up.  The flop came out JJ2 and I immediately bet $75.  He paused a second and called.  The turn came a king and this is where I completely screwed up the hand.  I was incapable of putting him on a hand, but he was the type of player that could easily have AJ, KJ,QJ, KQ, AK obviously, even 22.  Oh and there were 3 clubs on the board and of course I had none.
Instead of just going with the hand and getting it in I checked the turn hoping to see a free card to make sure the fourth club didn’t hit.  He immediately bet $100 and with only $180 in front of me at this point he was effectively putting me all in.  No way I just call that bet, he knows if anything I’m going to get it in.  But my confidence was so crushed from my beating online recently and my cooler where I stacked off with a set to his straight, that I just froze and eventually folded the hand.  I didn’t want to get felted by the same dude twice and basically played the hand scared.  He asked if I wanted to see what he had and I said no.  He was actually a nice guy.  But later he said he had……AK of course.  For some reason the most obvious hand he could have had didn’t register with me and I was convinced he either had a jack or was going to hit his flush.  Horrible logic, but that’s what happens when  you are tilting.  You don’t think right and everything falls apart.
I left shortly after that hand and ended up down 550 on the session and ruined my whole trip. Â I finished down $74 overall which isn’t even a third of a buy in. Â But it was such a let down after playing so solid for 95% of the trip.
I sulked for at least 24 hours and didn’t play another hand live even though I could have squeezed in a small session. Â Meanwhile my online disaster continued the entire trip. Â I don’t think I booked a single winning session online in Vegas. Â But I vowed to just tighten up, play fewer tables when I got back home. Â (By the way I only played 4 to 6 tables in Vegas)
So what happened today? Â I lost 10 buyins. Â My worst day ever. Â I had KK run into AA of course. Â I reraised 10 10 on QQx board to an aggro monkey who of course had AQ. Â I turned a king hi flush on a 3 flush board to my opponents Ace hi flush. Â Standard. Â My Ace King got run down by J10. Â I flopped a flush while my opponent flopped a set. Â Of course the board paired on the turn and I was drawing dead. I had AA and some donk called my 20x preflop raise (a bunch of limpers in the pot) with J4 and hit a jack on the flop and the turn. Â Â I cannot win a hand. Â It’s been this way for a at least a month now. Â I even played some micro PLO at the airport and lost 2 buy ins real quick.
Im probably going to drop down 2 levels more and just try to book a winning day. Â Even if it just means a few bucks. Â I have never experienced a downswing for this long. Â I have serious doubts about my ability to win at the smallest levels right now. Â And this is after winning consistently online for almost 4 years. Â This game can be so brutal.
24 Responses to “Speechless”
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winning for 4 years says nothing because it’s only in the last 2 years that the games have been getting crazy tough. You can’t add the winrate you had in 06 to the winrate you have right now.
I also want to add that the last 7 or so months in particular have been the most dry and tough ones
Remember prior to last month I had won at NL 50 for 8 of the last 9 months. My one losing month was for $17. Beating that level hasn’t been an issue until I tried to move up, added tables and my whole game went to shit.
Jeessuss . . . you’re making me depressed . . . and I’m just reading it and didn’t live it. Hopefully the wife will keep all the sharp objects out of reach.
Everyone, I mean EVERYONE goes through a cold snap. The pros talk about it all the time. In particular, I remember an interview with Doyle where he talked about a downturn that had even him questioning his ability.
At least it was at the end of the trip and not the beginning. Just think how much worse it would have been if you had gotten crushed right out of the gate and spent the rest of the trip trying to chase your losses.
Don’t forget, you had 3 good sessions before stepping on the landmine.
Cheer up little buck.
Wait…you made it $45 pre flop in a 1-2 game, and you WEREN’T 3 betting?!?!?!?! This is LOL bad eb…thats the classic old guy move…4 guys limp….he makes it $40, of course everyone folds, and he turns over AA and says he didn’t want anyone to suck out on him. The fact that you played AA like that means you didn’t deserve to win money on this trip IMO. Your head is not in the right spot to be playing the pokahs right now. Try a new game for a few days, or donk n go’s or something
Tom,
I was definitely 3 betting. In fact I think Bret tried to isolate and raise from the button (think later he told me he had KQ hearts or something like that). I was in the SB and made it $45. Either way my problem was tilt, and post flop not my pre flop raise.
I think you overestimate how much your decisions actually effect your results. For the most part poker decisions are extremely simple and easy, it would be very hard for you to be playing bad all of a sudden. run better next time
I like your thinking! Even when playing well we make mistakes. When you are playing bad or running bad whatever the case may be..some of the bad scenarios are just piling up more than usual.
10 bi days suck but you can make that back easily in like 2-3 days man! Take a break and then grind homie! Dropping levels for a small while isn’t a bad idea, but im sure it’ll be temporary. Go back to ABC poker when you get back at it, no fancy crap and you’ll win again.
you should post graphs of your daily sessions, they’re always interesting to look at.
Was Lurch on the poker waiting list at all?
Have you thought about playing other games besides NL holdem? Why not try Omaha H/L or Seven Card? If you can’t let go of holdem how about HORSE? Learn some razz. You just might need a break from NL…when you come back you’ll be refreshed.
Hi EB, have been starting to listen to the podcasts, got quite a few to go, but very nice work so far, I’m hooked.
A couple of things I would suggest. Firstly, I think up until NL100, you can pretty much get a winrate by minimizing horrible mistakes and starting with a decent hand range. You really can win just playing the cards that get dealt to you. However, I think by NL100, to really crush it consistantly, you need to be thinking on the next level. Winrates becomes more about getting extra value, bluffing in better spots and laying down hands when you are behind. So I think it’s probably the first level where hand reading becomes very important. So I’d be doing a lot more work on trying to hand read effectively, as this will give you back an edge over the regs who are still trying to play hands perfectly based on what they hold. The trick in poker is to make the best decisions based on what we hold and what we think our opponents hold, so learn what they hold and your winrate will boom.
lol at u thinking nl100 regs are level 1 and that eb only plays his own hand. Once you reach nl25 the regs can read hands very well
i played with eb for every session but one…he played well…tight aggressive…it amazes me that donks still pay him off when there is zero percent chance he is bluffing…they can’t help themselves…his last session there were a few coolers and he was put in some tough spots against very good players (there were a few). If we were there longer, it’s a LOCK he would have finished up…probably a bunch.
I agree with Kevin. Nothing helps to loosen long-term intensive thinking about one game like changing to another.
Too much intensity applied to anything, especially where luck is such a large part of the variance is going to really make loses sting. Wasn’t just a couple of months ago you were blowing off steam in a .01c-.02c Stud game? Go muck around for awhile in those for a while until you want to go back to 50NL. You’ve said it yourself that you’re an addictive personality; and I think in this case your constant obsessing is hurting you at the tables and causing some -EV.
Hell, try some Badugi before you head back to the grind. Just make sure before you sit down again it’s because you WANT to, not because you feel like you have to.
Badugi is the nuts. Although you would have to sign up with Pokerstars as Full Tilt doesn’t have it.
In my experiences at casino’s the 45 isn’t out of line and its probably about the right amount to get 1 caller that you want, less then that you get everyone to call. But doing that creates the problem you ran into on the turn, the pot is so big you now have an all in decision for 180 bucks with 250 in the pot. I think you just have to go with AA and if your beat oh well.
My feeling is that live poker 100BB deep is really short stacked poker due to the over sized pre flop raising that takes place making it play much shorter stacked then 100BB online does. A $300 stack in 1 – 3 live plays probably like a $30 stack in your .25 – .50 game online. Are you ever folding AA online with jj2 this board for $20 dollar all in on the turn vs this villain?
Other question is what suites where your aces?
I agree too take a break from NLH, play LHE or PLO or even the 7 game mix.
EB…it’s nearly impossible to put someone on a gutshot…maybe a double gutter, but a gutshot is tough. If you underbet your set on the turn, then maybe that was a mistake, but you didn’t list any bet amounts for that hand, so I’m not sure.
As far as the pocket Aces, with a JJ2 board, I might have folded too. You put in a big bet on the flop and he called. That was a your test and he passed, so you kinda have to respect that, and if he’s willing to bluff, then you gotta give it to him. Another option would’ve been to underbet the flop, making him think that you flopped a set of Jacks. I think that you need to stop with the automatic bet amounts (like 3/4 of the pot) for a continuation bet because if you do this every time, your opponents will not be able to put you on a hand. By underbetting or overbetting, you can manipulate your opponents into thinking that you have a certain hand, when you really don’t.
When I see players who automatically bets the same amount after the flop, I tend to call more often than I fold because whether they have a hand or if they are just bluffing, it’s 50/50 for me, so I want to see what they do on the turn. I might even be able to take em off of the hand on the turn by bluffing, which is what your opponent did.
I don’t think that you played either hands bad, but I think listing the bet amounts for each hand would tell me more. I am not a big fan of your autobets though…
How about posting to ur blog more than once a month.
Bickel,
I see you’re not running too great. First of all, you need to explain your hands live exactly as if they were online and you were providing a txt HH.
Anyway, the AA hand…the $45 preflop raise is atrocious. You WANT action, especially from these donks who will go busto w/ one pair. With limpers, live, I would raise to 4xbb+1bb/limper.
You can’t give this type of guy credit for Jx. You JUST said he was capable of having a ton of crap. He could have ANY pocket pair (besides 22), which would mean you’re ahead of all other pairs. Also, he could jus be floating you with any Axss hand (like A5 of diamonds or something). Basically, he knows if he’s calling the flop, you’re giving up a ton on the turn.
If he had a flush draw, he’d probably shove the flop (based on the description of this type of player). He certainly could float you with something like KJ or KQ postflop (AK was surprising but w/e). You need to c/rai on this turn. It’s a decent spot for him to float the flop with any pair or air to try to take it away from you on the turn (since it’s hard to hit this board unless you started with a big pair in your hand or turned a hand with AK). It’s hard to flop trips, your stacks aren’t MASSIVE, and you have AA vs a donk. The hand should play itself as a cbet flop and c/rai on turn.
Email me for some help man- I can assist you w beating NL$100 and whatnot. I can help you open up your game, raise your winrate, beat all the crazy spewy LAGs, etc. You can’t play this tight and straightforward and expect a big stready profit past NL$50, though.
I hate it when people say “you want action”. I think playing winning poker is all about protecting your profits, taking the guaranteed money, and not taking any unnecessary risks. Yeah, poker is boring when it’s played right. If you want action, then go to the BJ or craps table.
I hate when they say you want action, when someone got action. From 1 player like he wanted. You don’t want action from 4 players with AA. Well I don’t in EB’s spot i want to get in as much money pre as i can that i think will get called by only one player.
EB post some hands on that website that blew up your DN interview.
Just reading this write-up now. As you are well aware, 1/2 live plays a LOT looser than any game you’d play online. You could play your normal TAG game and book a decent win (absent sick downward variance), but to really crush these games, I think you need to loosen up your game. I would try to see as many flops as possible and outplay the donks post-flop. Some of these 1/2 tables have some deep stacks, so you don’t mind putting $10-15 bucks in preflop with junk hands if you can get paid out big if you hit the flop hard. Plus, playing tight in live poker is incredibly boring!