8000 Hand Downswing, is this normal?

Just went bust on two Zoom tables I played today brought $1 to each, playing SSS. Would like some feedback on these hands if that's ok. Since pokertracker is playing up (Unsupported database type: PokerTracker 3 Type 0????) I have to type it out, sorry about this.

First table bust:

Me ($0.92) small blind with Jd Jh
Lucky Donk in big blind ($2.10 approx)
Button($2 approx)

Button limps for $0.02 , I raise to $0.10, two callers.

Flop: 10c 7s 3c

I check, BB bets 0.02, BU calls 0.02

I raise to $0.25 into pot of $0.30 figuring I will get value from AT, while protecting from flush draw.

BB calls $0.25, BU calls $0.25

Turn: 7d

I check, BB shoves for $2.02. Before the shove the pot is $1.05, and my stack is only $0.57 now, so I'm getting about 3 to 1 to call, even though I'm pretty sure he's lucked out and hit the 7 can I fold here? Considering that there's some chance of AT shove as well?

River is blank and lucky donk shows 72o I shit you not. I feel like this was kinda my fault for pot committing myself, but the chances of top pair beating me on the turn are quite low, and in the times a dangerous card doesn't come, villain is pot committed to my shove of only $0.57. I dunno. I'm still a poker noob but at least I'm not playing 72o OOP right? Or am I in the wrong here? I don't even know anymore.

Second table bust:

Button ($1.50 approx)
Me ($1.05 approx)

AK in the big blind. Folded to Button who raises to $0.06/3bb.

I jam it with AK, which is pretty fishy, but from my experiences it is not profitable to 3bet AK OOP because people will call in position planning to cbet pretty much any board and 70% of the time when I don't hit, I lose a quarter of my stack. Plus I've found that just shipping it looks pretty fishy, and so people tend to call with a wider hand which is what happened here:

He calls with AJ

Flop: J J 9

Pretty fucked at this stage

Turn: A to ensure I'm drawing dead and that's me bust on two tables, down another two BI. What I'm wondering for this hand is if I'm getting called by AJ (I've been called with A7s too, lost also) is it good to ship it with AK if I'm gonna be playing out of position otherwise?

What do you guys reckon?

50bb is more like MSS.

hand 1 don't get why do you bet flop and check turn, specially if you want to check/call which just doesn't make sense as then you don't even protect vs fd. would just ship the turn myself

hand 2 whatever, but you don't seem to be playing your AK correctly. in MSS most of the time you can still +EV (shove) cbet for fold equity+overcards equity

What do you expect at NL2? You should see the same plays at NL50 and then go nuts when you catch 4 in row for 200 bucks... You just have to accept the fact that idiots are gonna get lucky on you some % of the time and that's it. That's why they play, to tell all they friends how they cracked AA with 83. In the long run you own them, end of story.

Keep up the good work, stay positive, you should be happy you have access to that level of retards.

And yeah...

Originally posted by Tomaloc
50bb is more like MSS.

+1

And hand 1, just bet bet bet on the flop, don't let overs hit. They will stack off with top pair most of the time. Check-raise isolates only the better hands + some nonsense that happened in your case.

i somehow missed that he had check/raised as PFA. yeah that doesn't make sense either

i'd like to add that 3bet shoving AK will likely even show you a reasonable EV bucks profit at NL2 but you definitely should aim to drop that play sometime if you plan on moving up.

Yep, definitely don't plan on playing AK like that for higher stakes (if I ever make it there lol), but its been working as the calling range for 0.02 Zoom is insane.

Tomaloc, my reasoning behind check-raising the flop, was expecting around a pot sized cbet to occur, with 3 people in the pot, you're very likely to get one from one of the two villains at this level regardless of the board texture. When they bet 0.02 and called, I figure they must have a weak hand or a draw. At this point, I want to either take down a decent size pot right now, or make it very expensive to draw. Plus the average Zoom 0.01/0.02 player is gonna call pot size with top pair in an instant (in this case middle pair). As for the turn play it was just bad, I'll leave it at that.

The dark poker cloud is not gone, thought I might try another two tables, bad idea:

3bet shoved JJ got insta-called by A9, which took it.

Another table raised 4bb on button with AT, called from BB with KQ

Flop 10 9 2 rainbow, he desperation donkbet shoves his $0.40 stack, and I call figuring I'm most likely ahead (and I am, till he rivers a K)

As for the 50bb being MSS, its the minimum you can buy in for at Zoom. I figured SSS would be very good for Zoom, as its very hard to exploit, especially when the anonymity of Zoom means no one knows you're playing it. It was working REALLY well before this downswing hit me, I personally reckon when

Really just want to get through this, but I'm just not enjoying this kinda poker.

On a positive note, I won a $15 heads up game (which was incredibly stupid of me to play even though I'm a lot better heads up than cash tables, as $15 was my whole bankroll at the time, at time I just didn't care as it would force me to take a long break for a month or so and re-deposit at $50 or so as a better variance barrier) so I'm back to where I started, $30. It was great to play someone who was thinking and using logic but I'm not gonna take the BR risk again.

Thanks for the help everyone, especially Tomaloc. It is good to talk this out, as I'm doubting my cash table poker a lot here. I like to think I've been adapting my play to suit what I've seen of the Zoom limit I'm playing at, but when I keep losing I really am questioning my play, even though it feels like I'm getting it in constantly as a 70% favourite and losing.

EDIT: Just shoved a rather suspicious resteal with AQs, he had KJo and won. Not a huge bad beat but still enough to be faeces icing on the turd cake.

EDIT2: This thread should be renamed Metza's Badbeat Whinefest.

OMFG QQ vs AQ loss. 5/5 70%+ all ins I have lost today.
EDIT: Now AA vs JJ, 6/6 ahead all ins lost (down 7BI today when I add AK 3bet shove running into AA to those 6 bad beats) So sick. I almost feel like my negativity from this is bringing these bad beats to me.

Wanna throw things on the groooouuuund:

Originally posted by Tomaloc
you mean, only stack off with twopair or better? it's well doable at FR25-
set peddle for the win ♦

What do you guys reckon

move down stakes and play for fun your not going to be a winning poker player

Originally posted by Targetme

What do you guys reckon

move down stakes and play for fun your not going to be a winning poker player

If you could read, I'm playing 0.01/0.02, so I can't move down stakes, genius.

There's no need to be a right asshole about it, its a pretty shitty thing to say to someone who's running this bad, I don't need people being d-bags on top of that. So if you don't have anything constructive to say, don't say anything.

Cheers.

I thought I read nl25 well then carry on im honestly trying to save your soul you got a down right terrible attitude towards poker

haha target if yu were being serious it would have made my day and btw OP yu have aan awful attitude in poker, i couldnt even bother playing NL2.....

Originally posted by Castle93
haha target if yu were being serious it would have made my day and btw OP yu have aan awful attitude in poker, i couldnt even bother playing NL2.....

im completely serious sometimes you gotta put a dog down to save pain later

Alright, I know my current attitude is bad, but I am not used to this volume of bad beats and its happening just when I'm starting out on the cash tables, its pretty understandable if you think about it. Bad attitude does not = bad playing. I am still getting in my money good, so your comment is not legitimate and rather rude.

You yourself have a pretty bad attitude towards helping out other players, you offer nothing of any value. Instead of trying to help, you just add negativity. Why bother?

I'm just venting that's all, its my way of dealing with it, so please respect that. I appreciate you trying to save my soul, but I'm honestly gonna be fine as soon as I can start winning my 1 to 4.5 shoves. Until then, I will vent what is ridiculous to me, but normal for someone with 1,000,000 hands or whatever under their belt, but I haven't done that volume, so for me it is tough to handle.

I do not mean to cause any offense, I am just in somewhat of a bad mood and do not appreciate being told I am a losing player when I am constantly losing with the best hands. It does not help.

There is the odd troll in here.
Some of them are quite odd, in fact.

A couple of ideas crossed my mind while reading this thread:

• You can't play MSS mechanically -- you must pay close attention to the other players. Many players see short stacks as poor players or easy targets. You want to be the one to exploit them, not the other way around.
• If you are multi-tabling, drop the number of tables so that you can be paying close attention to each hand.
• If you haven't already, re-post these hands in the hand evaluation forums.
• Analyse some of your winning hands too -- especially those where you think you just "got lucky"

And yes, long downswings are normal.
Have a look through the psychology articles on tilt, too -- if you are losing your cool at forum trolls, you can't be playing your best.

Good luck,

Originally posted by VorpalF2F
There is the odd troll in here.
Some of them are quite odd, in fact.

A couple of ideas crossed my mind while reading this thread:

• You can't play MSS mechanically -- you must pay close attention to the other players. Many players see short stacks as poor players or easy targets. You want to be the one to exploit them, not the other way around.
• If you are multi-tabling, drop the number of tables so that you can be paying close attention to each hand.
• If you haven't already, re-post these hands in the hand evaluation forums.
• Analyse some of your winning hands too -- especially those where you think you just "got lucky"

And yes, long downswings are normal.
Have a look through the psychology articles on tilt, too -- if you are losing your cool at forum trolls, you can't be playing your best.

Good luck,

Thanks.

I haven't been playing exactly mechanically, but I have been systematically shoving overpairs or better on the flop, because I am getting called with worse hands. This is Zoom btw so its hard for people to really exploit my strategy when they'll only play a couple of hands with me anyway. A lot of people do feel they can push around shortstacks, but in my favour they will also tend to call shove re-raises from the shortstack also which makes for some easy double ups.

The downswing appears to be over (fingers crossed) and I am back in the green, luckily when I am not on a downswing the gradient of the upswing is much steeper thanks to the appalling plays made at NL2

Originally posted by Targetme

Originally posted by Castle93
haha target if yu were being serious it would have made my day and btw OP yu have aan awful attitude in poker, i couldnt even bother playing NL2.....

im completely serious sometimes you gotta put a dog down to save pain later

I meant like if you knew he was playing nl2 and told him to move down stakes haha

I don't understand Metza. You are on a downswing, and your bankroll is in danger, and you still don't listen to good advice. Play short stack strategy for God's sake. You only need a $12 bankroll to play $2NL. If the suckouts continue, well you are playing short stack, with 20 BBS, so the loss is minimised. If an upswing begins, guess what? Your bankroll will start to grow again. Then once your bankroll has grown to 40 buy-ins, you can revert back to full buy-ins only.

Originally posted by arthurbentley
I don't understand Metza. You are on a downswing, and your bankroll is in danger, and you still don't listen to good advice. Play short stack strategy for God's sake. You only need a $12 bankroll to play $2NL. If the suckouts continue, well you are playing short stack, with 20 BBS, so the loss is minimised. If an upswing begins, guess what? Your bankroll will start to grow again. Then once your bankroll has grown to 40 buy-ins, you can revert back to full buy-ins only.

Huh? I AM using short stack strategy, but on Zoom the min amount is 50bb instead of 40bb, so technically it is midstack but it's only a 20% difference and I play the short stack strategy playing style. And the suckouts have reverted to normal percentage, now up 6minBI.

EDIT: Wait, what? 20BB? Pretty sure SSS (and table minimum) is 40bb dude. You can't buy in for 40c.

I think the most obvious message that has not been said here is to get off Zoom.

I understand that you might want to put in some volume but until you can learn some self control and improve your game (which Zoom will not help with) you should play slower tables and only 2 or 3 at a time. It might seem very slow but this extra time will give you a chance to look at other players and get to know and understand their game which is one of the keys to improving your game.

You say you are using SSS but you admit to having to use a MSS stack due to site restrictions. The 2 approaches have some important differences that mean the relative strategies do not work well with the wrong size stacks.

I would suggest either learning MSS properly, or if you want to use SSS, moving to a site that allows SSS (20bb stacks).

being bad player is perfectly normal.....

everbody is talking about variance as a bad thing, and while they are losing variance is there, but when they are winning theres no variance its just pure skill