mate, first, you have to try to solve the tracker issue, because its definetely a big problem for you now...
Also read CAREFULLY ytricky's comments about different type of players and try to assume it, to find the logic behind it!
But, you have to understand something - patience is everything in this game, therefore 10k hands(incl your first 3-4k 'fishy' ones) is not enough for a general conclusion. You have to make your mind to expect another 20-30-100k hands with the same result and being able to continue to learn and play the same way! Thats the psycho part of the learning and its not easy.
But, if you had a tracker, you can go back to your biggest losses and examine them again. Ask yourself: Did I know I was beaten here, but still hit the call button, because of frustration? Did I got scared of my prev. bad beats and because of that didnt pound this station-guy when the flush came out? Did I 'fall in love' with my aces, so when I saw them, and it was after a loosing hand, I decided this MUST be the hand to recover?
All these points will help you improve, but most of all, you must learn TO HAVE A PLAN, to EXPECT different boards and to know how you'll react to all these 4-5 types of them. That means, lets say you raise with KK PF, and a fishy player calls... You have to know what should you do if the board is 7-8-9 all spades; and also if it is A-7-2 rainbow; and also Q-T-5 two spades; and also J-J-2 rainbow. YOU MUST KNOW IT BEFORE THE FLOP, RIGHT THERE IN YOUR HEAD, if you don't - you can't blame anybody for calling too much, etc... Remember, if somebody calls too much, that means HE IS MAKING A MISTAKE, and that's all you want him to do. Yes, he'll bad beat you sometimes, but the other times he'll call you down with his PP of threes and in that cases you have not to be scared of the board, but to bet relentlesly and thus - exploiting his mistake. You have to LOVE the bad beats, because if you have the proper money mngmnt, a bad bead means you have just won some money!

But, first and formost, you have to solve the tracker issue, really... there are torrents, etc, you must solve it!

QUOTE(KingBG):

mate, first, you have to try to solve the tracker issue, because its definetely a big problem for you now...
Also read CAREFULLY ytricky's comments about different type of players and try to assume it, to find the logic behind it!
But, you have to understand something - patience is everything in this game, therefore 10k hands(incl your first 3-4k 'fishy' ones) is not enough for a general conclusion. You have to make your mind to expect another 20-30-100k hands with the same result and being able to continue to learn and play the same way! Thats the psycho part of the learning and its not easy.
But, if you had a tracker, you can go back to your biggest losses and examine them again. Ask yourself: Did I know I was beaten here, but still hit the call button, because of frustration? Did I got scared of my prev. bad beats and because of that didnt pound this station-guy when the flush came out? Did I 'fall in love' with my aces, so when I saw them, and it was after a loosing hand, I decided this MUST be the hand to recover?
All these points will help you improve, but most of all, you must learn TO HAVE A PLAN, to EXPECT different boards and to know how you'll react to all these 4-5 types of them. That means, lets say you raise with KK PF, and a fishy player calls... You have to know what should you do if the board is 7-8-9 all spades; and also if it is A-7-2 rainbow; and also Q-T-5 two spades; and also J-J-2 rainbow. YOU MUST KNOW IT BEFORE THE FLOP, RIGHT THERE IN YOUR HEAD, if you don't - you can't blame anybody for calling too much, etc... Remember, if somebody calls too much, that means HE IS MAKING A MISTAKE, and that's all you want him to do. Yes, he'll bad beat you sometimes, but the other times he'll call you down with his PP of threes and in that cases you have not to be scared of the board, but to bet relentlesly and thus - exploiting his mistake. You have to LOVE the bad beats, because if you have the proper money mngmnt, a bad bead means you have just won some money!
But, first and formost, you have to solve the tracker issue, really... there are torrents, etc, you must solve it!

This is 10k hands on propaganda :P I've been playing poker for much longer, I'm still learning obviously but I've been on Stars and made a bit of money before playing 1-table sngs for about a year or so. I've just ran so horrible recently.

Beating micro limits is really quite easy. Just do not bluff too much (only with the best possible boards like raggy board, and an A coming on the turn when you have air but you can represent it well. Valuebet all your toppair hands, make sure you don't miss any bets. When you do find yourself missing bets, make a note on the player that he called two bets for example with a weak hand (like bottom or mid pair) and put a mental note for yourself that you have to valuebet your hand next time. Most of your profit will come from making the action on the micro limits and being aggressive and constantly making light valuebets because players at microlimits will most likely play very passive, have bad betting sizes (like they only fire 1/3rd of the pot or even less giving you tremendous odds) etc.etc.

Notes are way more important than statistics you have on the player. While a player may have quite normal stats because of their style of play, they might be calling too much and bluffing too much at the same time. I wouldn't stress the use of a tracker that much because the game isn't meant to have all these statistics to your disposal. You also have to know how to play without them. However once you can afford it, make sure you do use a tracker because why wouldn't you :P I'm just trying to make a point that you don't HAVE to use a tracker to beat micro limits.

One final note: don't let short term results judge anything. Short term variance can happen and you can be on the short end of the stick.. but results will follow long-term if you play well.

Firstly, mate, I didnt mean to offend you or sound too mentor-like. I personally am not such a consistent winner as I'd like to be, so we both dont differ much... And of course, I believe you've already won some cash, thats really great! But your bias just sounds familiar to me and I know for sure, that you're lying towards wrong direction thinking the issue is 'they're calling too much'. Thats all I want to stress...
And about the tracker: yep, totally agree its mainly about the notes, not so much about the stats, but thats the case for you, Twisted. You have those preplanned situations in your mind and you know what to do when you see a passive approach or the opposite. Furthermore - you are able to recognize differnet types of players pretty quickly and adjust easily... So you may pass by the tracker sometimes. But thats not always the case with all of us, we really need (IMO) the stats to tell us what guy are we facing. After a 30-40 hands the stats will immediately reveal is he a fish (like 60/8) or can he think and fold preflop OOP (e.g. 30/12) or is he a super nit who plays only strong brodaways+pairs (15/8), etc... So in the middle of the hand, you have only to take a glimpse at his stats and act accordingly. The more tables you play the more you need this info in front of you. The other advantage of the tracker is the ability to replay our hands and analyze them without the running clock over us. I do this BEFORE and AFTER each session and I remember when I first started to do this how much my results had improved. Thats my whole point about the tracker. Otherwise I also would stress the notes - thats the thing after all.

So, gl mate, and I'm sure its a temporary issue, the only thing you have really to worry about is the possibilty to give it up now because of these difficulties...

Last edited by KingBG 24 May 2009 in 00:56 CET

hate super microstakes, anything below 25nl i wont bother playing at all if im rebuilding. sux for you, but if you can deposit money to "boost" br, it's really ok imo. just make sure you really have the skills to beat micros and just not getting impatient with results.

Small update, since May 2nd, the day I started on propaganda with the ballerpoker 50$ bonus, I have made 17,50$, so yeah I've been making money, although I've run so bad it's slowed me down ALOT and probably hurt my confidence along the run.

17,50$ in profit but EV adjusted shows a profit of 56,87$. While a 40$~ gap between EV and actual profit is a small amount to the ballers in here, it's 40% of my entire bankroll!!!!

Tbh since I got HEM back I almost feel it's confirmed my superstitious idea that I'm the unluckiest player alive =/

On top of it I just got an email from propaganda telling me my hand histories I have lost in my emergency format last week are gone, which is roughly 10k hands (my actual total sample is 8k, so I'm missing more than 50% of my hands, although I ran just as bad so that probably makes the ev-profit gap something like fucking 50% of my BR, ridiculous).

It's just so frustrating to play good poker, better poker than I've ever played, improving my game so much, but my results still being completely horrible. Poker is one of the biggest passions in my life and I really have been working hard for the past year+ on building a bankroll that I could grind a sideline income with, seeing no results so far even though with my play and stats I should be playing NL10 and approaching NL20 :(

Ahh, sry to hear about the hands' loss... thats really frustrating! I also had similar issues when moved up to PT3 :(
Well If I have to, I would suggest tightening up, as a common remedy for many of our levels' problems...

Last edited by KingBG 16 Jun 2009 in 23:45 CET

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Makes me wanna give up. To all of you this is a regular suckout, to me this is how every session ends. Bad beats and ending up making no money, actually losing some .... I realize this happens once in a while, so please don't tell me that anymore, go check my posted hands, go read my blogs. I'm slowly becoming superstitious .... How is this possible? Why does this 1 in a 1000 horrible streak happen to me? Wtf have I ever done for me to always get shut down by some donkey who loses it all to another player a minute after?

It ain't even about the money itself, but moving up the stakes, it's about BIs and me having improved but still receiving nothing but bad beats. Not being able to move up, week after week of putting thousands of hands in.

I've got roughly 25,000 hands played so far in the last 2 months and a half. EV adj is somewhere around 65$ now, while my actual profits are about 19$..... On a total BR of 105$.

I realize I sound like a whiny bitch and it's not alot of money but for me it's all about moving up and improving ... but improving hasn't changed the end result at all so far ... I normally am really laid back and don't whine much, but poker's been so harsh on me in the last year, I'm so fucking confused ... I love this game and I wanna keep playing but seeing this shit .... It's like everything is 100% gamble, I've tightened up, improved my reading abilities, improved my postflop play, improved my betsizing ... like all aspects of my game have gotten better, yet I'm still stuck playing .01/.02 along with the retards that make the majority of players at that level (no offense to the other NL2ers here but you have to admit most players you play against on that level are not far from braindead).

Here's for tonight's session... Run into a maniac, 88/58 who goes all-in preflop and shows any two pretty much (went allin pf with 25o and J4o I think it was), I tighten up and prepare to take his money and this is what happens.

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Another winning session turned into a loss.