[Closed] I hate real work... time for some superturbos and fish...

Well Nick may I call you Nick, I must say that I really enjoyed reading your blog. It took a few days but finally finished.

I really apperciate your outlook on poker and life. Trying hard to take the emotoins out of poker has been my biggest hurdle. I have been a long time FL player with over 20 years live playing experince. I took a really long break from poker as the swings really effected my home life and that is not what we want. Can't worry about the randomness of the cards which we know we can't control. But at times you get so pissed off the you get grumpy and short fused with your family. This made me take a step back.

Well I used to play a little sng back with Cannel or Stievro He was once a mod here but haven't seen him for awhile. I was pretty good but because of my live FL playing I stuck with FL. I was one of those that had a blog but the fustrations of the swings I just let it die out, which I think was a huge mistake. I may start it back up if I can dig it out of the PS archives lol... Anyway been playing SNG's and things are going pretty well still not sure which ones i want to focus on reg, turbos, or DoN I like them all.

Well enough of me rambling about myself this is your blog and your space. I was relived to read your border issue worked out for the best great read it was. God Bless your wife for letting you live out a dream. I wish you much success in everything you do. I will look forward to your progress and hope that I will one day be back to Diamond myself. I to am Canadian.....

Thanks Frozenrope and yes you can call me Nick I appreciate all your comments!

Anyway played 2 small sessions today and the second one I ran super badly, with all the nastiest things SNGs can do... but anyway one of the things I remind myself of when I do run badly is that these things have to be dealt with, there is no avoiding them, and all too often they come in clumps... Am I happy with how I played? Yes. Am I confident I played in a profitable way? Yes. So it doesn't matter how the cards fell... These I feel are the biggest challenges for SNGoers... dealing with 10/20+ bad beats in a short space of time... and I think the biggest leak anybody could have is to ignore their own frustration and continue playing because they feel they have to for whatever reason... I still believe that taking a break is one of the most profitable moves a player can make... It's something that I am still happy to do... if I am in a groove to play a big session I can power through and deal with what happens, but if I run horribly, and finish badly I really like to have a decent break and only hit the tables when I am fresh and hungry... These are important things to realise as these stretches can be quite lengthy and overall how you deal with negative variance will make all the difference in the world later on...

Lo nick,

I like what you say about taking breaks, although I'm not sure if it's the best strategy long-term. Perhaps it's better to toughen up and learn to accept terrible results and just keep the grind alive.

That being said, I was more then happy to shut down my computer after a 0/20 session this week ♠_frown: (but I am a pussy).

I do experience that I become less and less result oriented after playing more. I'm getting used to the swings, just trying to squeek in some volume

greets and good luck on the tables man!

Yeah totally... I am a firm believer in busting through the variance with volume... it is the quickest way to do it... but only if your mindset is solid, if it begins to break down, taking abreak iss the best thing you can do... having the discipline to know the difference and follow the best course is the nuts IMO...

Thats exactly right....

Both points combined.....

When you are like me still, tilting like a maniac and getting very mad and your mental state
goes out the window.. and you just had an insane run of bad beats, and you are staring
at a decision for your tournament life or your stack, or even just that last shred of sanity
left and its a FL pot.. and you say FUCK IT.. it cant happen again, its my turn and you make
a bad play knowing it is wrong and it bites you again.....

Or when you work your ass off like everyone else who takes this game seriously enough
does, and it takes 3 weeks to get a small profit and then BOOM its gone and then some
inside an hour and you snap!!!

There is NO WAY you should EVER EVER EVER try and push through the variance
when you are not ready to be totally numb and unaffected playwise by these
nasty swings. You are asking for disaster.

One thing I have managed never to do is play outside my limits, or try heads up, or
any of the things that the gambling mentality begs you to do during times like these.

Instead, I take long ass breaks and I try to come back every once in a while, and when
I find myself getting nailed with bad luck and shrugging it off, I am ready to begin anew.

My hat off to you Mr. Parkes.

You have finally made it further along the tunnel. I dare not say the to the other side
yet, because it will take us all much longer before we can truly play like Bokku.

I have been following yours and my other favorite blogs since I had to hang it up
back in august. And I have almost written something many times. Now I can no longer
hold back. You deserve a great congradulations for all your hard work and effort.

You are setting an example for all of us.

Good luck at the tables and may luck never have me sitting at yours.

OMG YOU'RE ALIVE 897! I have been wondering.... anyway thanks... I appreciate it...

OK, well today was one of those brutal days we have to endure... The cards fell so hard, as if trying to tilt me I experienced some incredible things that I know get to so many players... but I managed to grind out a 4 hour session and finish the session at a slight profit... the line has been moving sideways the last couple days... But as I go through these I come up with all sorts of ideas... hopefully some intereting stuff that can develop in the future...

I am gonna play a bit tomorrow, and then it is turkey time for thanksgiving It has been snowing for a few days now and everything looks really awesome outside... it feels like Christmas I have to say it is one of things I really love about being here... the snow outside and the toasty warmness of inside... big family dinners, games and stuff afterwards... afternoon naps and mucho relaxing... just an awesome time... only gonna miss the build up to christmas and all the lights on the houses as we are off to SA for 4 weeks (thanks fish and donks for sponsoring this one :f_thumbsup:), anyway, I'm happy with things, life is pretty cool

OK, during my session I just played I had a really cool idea for a post... I have been running not so good at the moment, but I thought what I wanted to discuss was hopefully something that less experienced and more experienced SNGoers can take something from... Firstly this is my graph from the past week:

Now, it's pretty much breakeven which is not all that bad... but having experienced things like this before I think the reason it is break even and not seriously negative is down to the mental work I have put in, cos much of my winnings have come in the most unlikely places and at the unlikeliest of times... but that is not the point of this post. I am going to list all the things that happened to me in today's session which is the last 28 games of that graph... and this comes off the back of many sharp drops over the last week, all contributing factors to player's losing confidence and increase of negative emotions that can cause tilt. So I am going to list all the scenarios and talk about them as to what I feel is the best approach I can take to keep my mental focus and not lose my head...

Today I eaxperienced:

Constantly losing AA, KK, QQ in the early stages when villain stacks off and hits his outs on turn/river

Very deep (5000 stack-1500s starting stack), getting KK 7-handed and running into AA by the only guy who covered me...

Ran into big PPs in the BB when I was shoving any 2, but normally when I had 77 or TT...

Experienced several of the most unlikely suckouts, normally runner runner straights/flushes, often I was the clear favourite after seeing the turn.

Busted on the bubble because of loose calls and bad play by villain e.g. limp calling T9o when I had KK...

Marginal pushes getting called and busting

Finally double up and win a pot and lost stack very next hand

Lost a helluva lotta flips

Lost many hands when dominating villain cos he hit 3 outer

Chip leader on the bubble and bust in 4th

Get ITM with a decent stack and finish 3rd repeatedly

Villain always seem to hit flush and I miss all my outs when I need them most

Oh, and when the shorties on the bubble KEEP doubling up, often to make me the shortie

OK, I definitely think every SNGoer has experienced all of these scenarios, and in isolation each one is OK to deal with... but it gets toguher when you experience all of these multiple times in a 28 SNG session, and have had this all weak how do you not wanna smash something? Confidence is the key, and belief, trust and discipline... These are the lectures I give myself for each one of those scenarios when they happen, everytime...

1. Constantly losing AA, KK, QQ in the early stages when villain stacks off and hits his outs on turn/river

These are +EV hands but they are not invincible. Villain played badly and got lucky, this won't happen often enough for me to worry about, even if it seems to happen often now. Avoid getting excited when you see you have AA, great excitement can lead to a harsher impact when your AA gets cracked. Don't put too much pressure on your poor Aces, just know that, even when you are dealt them and you do lose, overall you just profited...

Very deep (5000 stack-1500s starting stack), getting KK 7-handed and running into AA by the only guy who covered me...

As much as it sucks if I had doubled up there I could be in a sweet position to win the whole tourney and very often will with 2/3rds of all the chips, so unlucky, but yeah, KK can get beaten, and it doesn't matter how you played up until then.

Ran into big PPs in the BB when I was shoving any 2, but normally when I had 77 or TT...

Just cos you're in the SB with a decent hand, even AA, it doesn't mean villain won't call and win... is it a +EV push, hell yeah! so you profited despite losing. Reload.

Experienced several of the most unlikely suckouts, normally runner runner straights/flushes, often I was the clear favourite after seeing the turn.

The more unlikely the result the harder the hit. That's why runner runner hits or the 2/3/4 outers on the river piss people off so much. If you have a 95% chance of winning going into the river, you WILL win 95% of the time, accept also that you HAVE to lose 5% of the, don't cry about it, you'll do the same to other I promise, but only 5% of the time....

Busted on the bubble because of loose calls and bad play by villain e.g. limp calling T9o when I had KK...

You have to bust on the bubble on occasions... if you never busted on the bubble, you would have the sickest ROI ever, and that's not very likely... just be glad there are players that bad on your limit! and appreciate when they get lucky, cos they'll probably do it again! It's their lucky hand.

Marginal pushes getting called and busting

I pushed the hand for a very good reason aware that I will get called by certain hands. When I get called by those hands and lose, I can't be upset, it was what I was anticipating, you don't win by folding.

Finally double up and win a pot and lost stack very next hand

While it sucks did I do anything wrong? No, suck it up...

Lost a helluva lotta flips

Yep, it'll happen when you lose more than your fair share, but flips will be balanced evetually, so enjoy it win you win more, it's gonna happen, as long as you stick to your guns...

Lost many hands when dominating villain cos he hit 3 outer

2 things, you will win most of the time, and you will hit your 3 outer just as often...

Chip leader on the bubble and bust in 4th

It HAS to happen, deal with it. Just be grateful your not that bad to stop abusing the bubble for fear of busting... how +EV is it... SUPER DUPER, so suck it up...

Get ITM with a decent stack and finish 3rd repeatedly

Haha, my favourite, probably the one that pisses me off the most.... but my play that got me busted is also the play that allows me to win so many tourneys... better 3rd than 2nd ♦

Villain always seem to hit flush and I miss all my outs when I need them most

That's just whining, we've spoken about the %ages already, move on

Oh, and when the shorties on the bubble KEEP doubling up, often to make me the shortie

Yeah, would be nice if they busted, but don't play passively if you wanna win... folding into the money is not always the best route

And when they all happen in one session... well fuckit, deal with each one and forget about it... appreciate that in order to move up you have to move down. Poker is an unforgiving mistress... But you never know when your luck will turn... I still believe one of the worst things to think is "I'm in a downswing", cos think it, and you may just land up being right, cos you have so many excuses as to why you are being destroyed.... you don't wanna shove cos you're in a downswing and will get busted, but it's a +EV shove and will give you the chiplead?? These are the differences that can shape a downswing. To constantly play solidly you have to play without fear or apprehension. As soon as you question your instincts or fold when you KNOW you should push, it's time to either snap yourself out of it or take a break. There is such a fine balance. I am a big fan of picking of marginal +EV spots when the time calls for it, that I know if I lose this, I lose a big edge, especially over the regs who I encounter, so if I can't do that, there's no point sitting down to play.

Anyway, that's enough for me

+1 I am learning this and getting better and better at it

I think you explained every SNGer's state when running bad. This was exactly my day yesterday. I know that solid play in the long run wins and try hard to keep the positive frame of mind or leave the tables. Thanks for the indepth look at our SnG lifestyles. Stay positive and grind on. Our best weapon against the fish or bad players is NOTES take lots of notes the fish don't care about money or playing good for that matter. With our notes when we meet again we have the history to get it back in the long run.

That is exactly my today lol. Very nice post btw, makes you feel better.

Nice post nick, It's easy to tell you've had your soul crushed often enough by the sng's, it can break a mans hard if you ask me..

I'm learning to deal with it aswell. Few days ago I had a 0/20 session, it was terrible, I'm happy this did not happen at the start of my sng carreer because I would have stopped for sure

It's just something you have to deal with, I've learned to deal with it mostly because of samplesize. After being winning player for a few K sng's (thinly vailed brag ofcourse) I'm pretty sure about being a consistent winner, it's just a little bump on the road.

I have a tip to add to your list: don't track your results too often. I am a sinner, I used to check my sharkscope or HEM my account every day, I'm a sucker for shortterm results.

Sharkscope is blocked now, my HEM trail is over, I only have a dry number at the start and end of my session and I love it
Now I don't start overanalyzing shit like ROI and all in EV. It's pure distraction, the only thing that's important is that you bring your A-game to the table and keep working on your play. I'm also happy I didn't have to see the graph for the 20BI swing

Hi Nick!

I dont really care much about SnGs, but some of your thoughts are brilliant!

So i just wanted to say Keep it up mate!=)

Brilliant Viewer88 nice addition and something we should all be a little less results oriented. Something I will try to do with my game starting today.

Yeah, I like viewer's comments... It is important to take away the focus on short term results... awhile ago I stopped looking at my daily results and the graph etc and would only check at the end of each week. Now I don't care, I check every day, cos I like numbers... but it is purely observational, I put very little effort into analysing stuff cos it is largely meaningless, ROI is largely meaningless and I believe is the major shortfall of most SNGoers.

You will see so many players concerned with what their ROI is, asking what is achievable etc. You see people concerned with the fact that they don't have a good one... blah blah. TBH I don't believe anyone can achieve a solid grasp on what their ROI actually is for a couple of reasons.

1. We evolve and develop as players, so I am going to be a different player in 10K games time, and I am a differnet player to 5K games ago... what about in 100K?

2. We have no control over the way the cards land and very little control the opponents we play against so 2 people who play identically can show very different ROI over 10K+ tourneys... a breakeven run that long is possible so...

3. Our game differs often. Leaks may creep in or may get ironed out, we may play sessions where we are not playing well, tilt, or are distracted etc, all of these affecting the quality of our decisions and ofc our ROI, so I believe our ROI is a fluid value that is constantly dependent on the way that we play, but we may never know it's true value...

So, once we understand all of that, looking at our short term results becomes a lot easier... we get to look at what has happened and refelct on 2 things, 1) How do we think we played? and 2) how did the cards fall for us... and then we can see how that translates into numbers and lines. Does it tell us if we played well or not... no, only we can know that and that takes work. It can tell us if we are doing the right things over a decent period of time, but that is implied in the understanding.

One thing I want all SNGoers to avoid at all costs. Something I have done before and it has punished me. Never think along the lines of, well I have a x% ROI, so if I play x amount of games per week I can make $x per month... and then push yourself to earn money... Focusing on ROI is becoming results oriented in it worst and most dangerous form... just play your best and see what happens...

If it means not looking at your results for a week or a month then so be it, do what you can to look at the bigger picture... I am so motivated by seeing a larger sample size at the moment, and seeing where the line goes eventually that each individual bad beat or poor run also becomes easier to deal with... anyhoo, those are my thoughts for today

Only played a small session today... Titan was lagging so so badly and even to the point where I timed out and folded AA preflop... while I was clicking the raise button, it just wouldn't register. Still not running great, but that's OK, I am however eager to get a decent session in tomorrow, maybe... anyway, got the first video for the other blog recorded today, flows, just working out the final touches... a 2-parter I believe... looking forward to that... anyhoo, will probably get a couple 45-mans in tonight, and maybe a decent grind tomorrow... I really have not played as much as I would like to have played, but I have acieved my mid-monthly goal of maintaing my titanium status at Titan. End of month goal is diamond status...

hey you promised an entry about how to keep the head up after a loosing session... I could really need that NOW!

OK, as I come off the back of another nasty session filled with 1-outers and horrible calls I have decided to discuss some concepts here. I am a big fan of self-observation and analysis as I am probably me best subject to observe in order to build up my understanding. One of the keys is to be able to step back and look at the situation and put it all in perspective. While this is an excellent technique in dealing with everything life gives us and helps us cope I think in poker it is critical. One simple thing to remember, there is always a bigger picture.

So as I run badly, overall about BE over 400 games this is OK. We like to see results but we have to endure this. I discussed in a previous post all the horrible things that happen, and as many agree, the more frequently these happen in shorter periods of time the more it tends to affect our mental state. Take a step back. Why do 2, 5, 10, 20, 50 badbeats/suckouts/running into better hands affect us? Because we feel we deserve to win and we deserve a break... But the bad news my friends, is so do others... they will win a lot of these hands, and they are quite likely to happen when we really don't want it, which is most of the time ♦

We need to play the big picture game, what do I mean, well in my scenario when I play a session I can sit down to play 20-50 games in one sitting... who knows how many I will win/place/bust? we cannot predict how many or how they will happen. But I know I will not place in all, and may in fact place in none, this is possible because we have to bust A LOT, more than we like. Get used to losing a lot. We will bust more than we place, there's no other way about it.

If we take a normal ITM% of 36% over 1000 tourneys we will bust out of 640 SNGs without placing. What stops them coming in huge chunks? nothing really, each game is random. 1000 tourneys is a small sample, think about 10 000, 100 000 etc... we need to bust out of so so so many of these, the biggest favour we can do for ourselves is think of it as another bust chalked off and move on... as quickly as that. Forget as quickly as possible how it happened, you bust, for whatever reason, but it has to happen. You're not ITM until the are 3 players left and you are 1 of them. You haven't won until it pops up and says that you have. Until that happens anything is possible, get ready for it... as much fun as it is when we cruise along at a 35% ROI for period, realise it is not sustainable and you will have to deal with balancing... Once again, the only thing we can do is work on our game and bring our A-game to the table, every table we play.... there is nothing more we can do... as soon as we take these bad beats personally and lose our head, continuing to play is pure punishment. Gaining perspective and controlling our mind and emotion will allow you to power through the variance... good luck!

this blog is pure gold!

thank you so much!

I really like the idea of considering it the other way around...

How many we need to bust out of to sustain an average win rate.

Thats really gold like Flows said.