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New player - Am I bad or unlucky? Help!

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I started playing online poker about few months ago, I've taken it pretty serious, studying hard, playing hours everyday and learning as much as I can. I got to a point where I felt comfortable at NL10 and was basically pretty neutral profit/loss which I was happy with for my level of experience.

Then BAM, the last 5 days I've totally tanked losing half my bankroll, I can't seem to hit anything and it has shattered my confidence. On reviewing my hands, I feel like I am doing the right things and just getting crazy unlucky, I understand variance and thought I was prepared for it, but the run I have been on seems just mathematically impossible. But I am concerned that I am just kidding myself. Would anyone with some experience be able to look at a few examples of hands and give a view?

Example 1. Hero starts K7s. Flop 2, J, K. Hero raises and is called. Turn is the 9 hearts. Hero checks because I have a low kicker and my opponent is a moderate nit. River is 7, given me 2 pair with no flushes and low chance of a straight on the board. Opponent plays tight but keeps pushing when he is in a hand, sometimes with nothing. Hero goes all in. Villain follows and shows 8 and 10 clubs completing a straight. Equilab tells me given my cards and that deck vs a random hand I'd have a 94% chance of winning. So vs a nitty player you'd say that was lower but still, feels bad. Bad luck or bad play?

Example 2. Hero starts JKs hearts. Flop is 7 hearts J clubs K spades. Hero bets with two pair and is called. Turn is 2 clubs. Hero bets and is called. Turn is 9 clubs. I notice that there is a potential clubs flush on the board now, but consider that I've been betting pretty hard and if he was holding out for the draw he has brass balls, and from previous hands he is not one to semi bluff. River hits as the 9 clubs and I go all in. Villain follows. Showdown he has K7 clubs suited completing the flush. He was betting on a K7 (a lower two pair than mine) and pulled a flush on the river.

Now these are just two examples and on their own I'd just say hey variance happens. But in the past 5 days I can pull 15 similar all in situations and I won exactly one of them. Given the odds of me winning my last 4 all ins according to Equilab, if I had bet £10 on me losing all 4 I would have won over £77,000! Yet it happened.

What is troubling me is that in all of these big hands I can't find any major rookie mistakes, just a few minor ones and maybe a bad read of my opponent here or there. But I'd always be pushing from strong positions and just getting beat by even bigger hands that always showed up late or are just hidden pocket Aces etc. But how do I know I am not just deluding myself!? When I first started playing I could easily pick out mistakes and work to fix them, I feel a bit at a loss for what I can do here.

If any more experienced players have any suggestions, it would be really great to hear.

Thanks!


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5 replies
Tomaloc
Joined: 17.01.2011

your hand histories are missing some information like relative positions, stack sizes, bet sizes... it does feel like you are deluding yourself to some extent.
of course you aren't playing against random hands. specially when playing against a potentially competent villain, you have to consider which worse hands he might actually pay you off with.
K7 is not a hand to go allin with there considering a 100 BB stack with no turn action. the 9 clubs also completes straights, specially QT comes to mind... of course you have a good hand, but you aren't as huge of a favorite as you think.


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la55i
Joined: 27.01.2013

If I'm being honest here, I would say you are indeed deluding yourself to some extent. It seems like you are not a total noob but I would say there is still a lot to learn. Tomaloc pretty much said all I wanted to say also. We can't know what you should do with this little information. And if you don't know what information is needed to figure out the best plays, then you probably are not making the best plays. It is difficult to spot mistakes from your own game if you are not already a very good player.

You can post some example hands here :) We also have a lot of strategy videos that might help :f_thumbsup:


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Dandiiik
Joined: 19.07.2009

Without further information, my diagnosis is that you are delusional :f_biggrin: Just kidding. But just they way you reported the two hands suggests that you have a lot to work on. Hero starts K7s. Flop 2, J, K. Hero raises and is called. I mean, in these 3 sentences there is so much information missing that it is almost impossible to analyze it any further. What do you mean by hero starts? Open raise? Limp? Call? 3bet? What positions? On the flop how much did you bet? Were you in position? Did he x/raise you or normally raise you? How big was that raise? What were your thoughts, your plan? Any table dynamic?


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Tim128
Joined: 29.01.2017

Nice title of the thread by the way :P


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