I'm getting a little frustrated. I'm winning all the small pots and losing all the big ones. Occasionally, I do screw up and make a bad call, but those are getting fewer and fewer. However, I get a lot of bad beats, which cost me a ton. The difference from limit is you may have three people seeing the river and one in NL. But, when your entire stack goes in, it doesn't matter if it's three or one.

I'm down on Full Tilt, way down, and most of it through no fault of my own. Runner, runner straight beats my AAA vs. QQ. An idiot calls a large raise with A5 in the BB and hits AAA? One is a bad beat. One is being victimized by stupidity.

So, how do you guys handle the swings? I was almost back to even, and now I'm down, down, waaaayyy down. It almost feels like NL requires more luck than FL. Your good luck and their lack of it.

I could use some more of y'all's good advice. Thankee.

CJ

CJ variance is going to be part of no limit no matter what you do. In order to win you have to be willing to put money in with the best hand and deal with it if you get drawn out. From what I'm hearing it sounds like you have a relatvely small sample size if your variance is all coming from two hands. Keep playing well is all you can do and hope your luck changes.

CJ,

I ve had some ugly swings. A couple of them have been just awful. 4 and 7-8K hands where you cant win a single BIG pot. Hours of stealing blinds or taking smalls pots with continuation bets to be half a buyin up, to lose it when you finally hit a set and the calling station calls you with bottom pair and runner runner str8 draw that ALWAYS seems to hit.

I have got to the point where I think: This should be RIGGED!! but apparently it´s not . the worse losing streak i have been I drop 12buy ins, but I can assure more than half was because of tiltness. In this month I went to UB and it seems that nothing, absolutely nothing I do could make me win a big pot. I lost 797dollars from outdrawns where I was 90% favorite to win the hand (flopped top set against AA or KK, all in and they hit their two outer about five times). it didnt stop for more than 7K hands and even like that, I ONLY lost 240 -5buy ins- because I really think I was playing very well.

Yesterday ina very frustrating session I lost 3 buy ins in just over 1K hands , and most of it was donation, for the first time in months I was tilting....

I feel I am better handling badbeats and losing streaks than I am a player, I have been in soo many of them that I am not affected by it most of the time. Patience is the key. I find myself losing sometimes because I get impatient and build a big pot to someone else´s made hand. Thats all it takes to have a bad session.

hang in there and you will be in a great rush soon, or at least your made hands will hold up more often. This is just part of the game and if you are playing correctly people will outdraw you sometimes, but that just means you are pushing your chips being favorite and that s what it s all about...

AlexMR.

if you are tilting alot just take a break, a week or two. if you keep playing make sure its your A game and not something else, in the end the numbers should even up

Agreed, Coke. The closest I've come in a long time happened yesterday. I was on the button with KK. I reraised a short-stack pretty good. Flop came AAx. He bet, and I pushed, figuring him for a pocket pair. Turn came an A. River a blank. He showed A5d.

A5??? What kind of a moron calls off their stack with A5???????

I didn't tilt, but I was freaked out enough I had to stop playing. I didn't change my game, but I was sure sick in the stomach for a time. Felt like I got blindsided by a train.

rdale, I finally found that out last night. I did manage to get it right back, after the set over set fiasco. Man, really hard on the nerves.

Whew, this site is like having a supportive pokerplaying grandma.

CJ

The variance is what kept me playing limit for a long long time. I guess the thing about having your entire stack potentially at stack with every hand scared the bejesus out of me. I guess what changed my mind was seeing the potential upside as I got better. I mean it isn't just my stack at stake every hand is it?

After that is was just a case of grasping the nettle so to speak. I have stacked more people than been stacked but it still takes a little getting used. I think the only way to deal with it is to have the correct amounts of money to handle it, after all why else do we have BRs, then to really close your thinking. I think Ice wrote a article about losing AA to KK when you are all-in while you have the best of it means technically you win $60 or something. At the end of the day if you are playing the majority of big hands when you have it then it has to come in your favour soon. I am sure you already know this though.

Personally I find the bad beats easier to deal with than when I am plain out played or do something stupid. If you are going through things and finding more bad beats than silly play then you are doing your job and the cards will in time do theirs...

Rich

For me, the key to handling variance has been to stop focusing on what the outcome is and start focusing on whether or not I played my hand correctly given the circumstances.

Play'm right and let the poker gods sort it out.

for Alex and others including me.

Do some leak finding with PT. Specifically, cold calling w/marginal hands. My biggie here is AKo. I'm going to do a search and review this critical play. AQo too.

Going to showdown with pocket pairs too often. QQ and 1010 are my biggie losers.

Next review your position stats and playing from the blinds.

I think you'll be amazed at how much you'll learn.

Currently winning 6BB/100 after 14K hands, Empire & PP. I'm going to implement some leak pluging and see if my stats don't improve.

GeoC,

I am at the point where I dont see many leaks in my game. That is a big problem because I KNOW i have (or should have) sooooooo many. I am winning money with marginal hands. That is because some 8-4 hitting str8 or something, but the point is I just dont play marginal hands.

I dont cold call except with PP or AK (and not always). I know two leaks that are costing me. I go to SD too often (in fact that has been improving a lot, WtSD used to be 24-25 now is at 19-21) and i am having discipline problems. I dont know i f that could be justified by this awful streak I have been through. I just know I am pushing often knowing I am beat. That s a major leak.

I think I am not paying attention to position, and that is a big flaw. I play all my hands regadless position and that is not good. For example, I am showing a profit (could say break even) for QJ, but I find myself limping in Ep with them, just to leave the BB to the table when someone raises behind me. That is a leak.

I am always thinking of ways to find them (leaks) . In my case, they are still too obvious.

AlexMR.

For example. In todays play of about 600 hands, I have lost my stack 4 times when I put all my money in as the favorite and opponent has hit a 2 outer. Wow. 4 times in 1 day.

But, I've played the hands exactly as I should to maximize EV. So I just role with it.