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ynot United States. Apr 24 2012 17:08. Posts 209

Variance. For a fish like me, what a f-in difficult term to fully understand. To wrap my head around losing while still making the correct plays and not change a thing is a hard thing to grasp for me. It becomes harder when I go on losing streaks continuously getting my money in when I have the best of it and coming up short. One of the main reasons I have a coach is for this reason. He informed me of tough times to come and why poker is such a hard game to consistently be good at let alone maintain a level head when you encounter tough times.

At the beginning of April I felt on top of the world. Playing 1/2 at my local casinos I didn't have a losing session in the first couple weeks. I added roughly 2,500 to my bank roll enforcing the teachings of my coach and breaking down every hand I had a question on in a deep hand analysis. I would sit there with my little notebook and pen writing away, describing big hands, how they played out and every hand I was involved with that I had a question or i won/lost curious about different ways to play it. But now, oh boy. Something happened. I continue playing the same way, analyzing the table as best i could trying to put hand ranges on everyone but no matter how good of a read I have I keep getting outdrawn on turn/river and it has been costing me some money.

Before I go further, this is me whining. Everyone experiences this i know. I'm sure some people reading this will just roll their eyes at another fish complaining so im sorry in advance. This is just my little blog and i just feel like ranting and whining.

I will do my best to remember a semi-large hand i was involved with that really began this trend of losing.

1/2 Table . Hero has 650-700 in his stack. Table is relatively tight with the exception of 3 individuals who limp/call just about everything and bet random amounts with both strong and bluff hands.

Villain #1 700 in her stack. (no fucking idea how she got it) is a female who is actually pretty hot, doesn't understand a damn thing about cards and has begun taking a barrage of tequila shots from villain #2.

Villain #2 is a older gentlemen who plays extremely loose. He over bets a lot of hands and limp calls with just about anything. His hand range is about anything the dealer throws to him.

Hero is on the button with As,Ac

Villain #1 utg limps in followed by 2-3 limps from early position to villain #2 in the cut off who limps. I raise to 25. My image is a bit more tight and I have been 3 betting a lot of my stronger hands pf against the loose canons. The 25 bet is a bit much in a lot of other circumstances but with villain #2, he tends to limp call with anything no matter the pf raise. I almost think it could have been more but, shoulda woulda coulda.

Both blinds fold. Villain #1 calls. All fold to villain #2 who calls.

Flop: 10s, 4s, 5s (pot 85ish)

Villain 1 leads out for a 20$ bet. Villain 2 calls. Hero Re-raises to 125$.
Villain 1 thinks for awhile like she does every single hand. Looks at her hand a few times... calls. Villain 2 folds.

Turn: Qd (pot 335)

Villain 1 check. Hero bets 300. Villain think and thinks and thinks and thinks. She looks a little nervous by the amount she is up against and after 5 or 6 minutes ends up on calling. At this point in the hand i'm not quite sure what in fuck I am up against. On the flop I thought a flush draw with maybe 2 overs... She has been hitting a lot of hands but generally played stronger hands. She didn't play very many wonky hands and called down a lot of people with top pair and drawing hands which is how her stack was built. The few times she made her hands that she knew were strong she fired pretty strongly into the pot. I was all sorts of fucked up by the call. She had a couple hundred left and I would have thought a flush would have just shoved.

River: 9h

She checks. Hero goes all-in. Again she thinks FOREVER. The more she thought gave me a little bit of comfort that she missed her flush. I really didn't put her on a straight draw since she called the flop raise. She called.

I show Aces with a sinking feeling in my gut that im up against a dumb hand like Q,10. She shows Ks,Jc for the straight.

It's just one of those things that i'm sure there were better ways to fold and i had severe tunnel vision with my aces vs her. When she won she jumped up like she won the lottery as i sit and stew for a minute and say nice hand and walk away tail between my legs.

Shit happens. Do I feel like I played it wrong? Meh, I could have picked up on her calling the 125 that aces may not be good. I just really felt like she had some flush draw with a pair. This very well may not even be variance but it was the hand that began my downward spiral.

Beyond that it was small things that began happening like hands with two pair on the flop getting beat by villains hitting trips on the river. A lot of this is my fault as i was playing an immense amount of poker while i was winning and started to wear myself out mentally.

I began losing stack after stack and started to feel like every hand no mater how well i hit wasn't good enough. An absolutely terrible mental state to be in. I more or less needed to use my coach as a therapist to re-instill my confidence that i was playing the hand correctly but variance is the reason that bad players players play hold'em.

Well, there is my whining rant. I went on to lose about 5-6 buy ins within the last 2 weeks until i finally decided to take a break and re-evaluate everything to make sure we aren't making mistakes. I couldn't imagine being a high stakes player and going on streaks of tens of thousands of dollars being pissed away by players catching cards vs us.

Anyways. I hope everyone has a great day and don't beat up me to badly for complaining. I know I am a results oriented player and i'm am really really trying to knock that off. I have a lot of faults still but i am dedicated to fixing them.

Have a great day everyone!

0 votes

Tensai176 Canada. Apr 24 2012 18:50. Posts 1018

Variance for me is the hardest thing about poker.

I think you played the AA just fine

ynot United States. Apr 24 2012 19:01. Posts 209

It's hard to talk about variance at my level since i have very little experience with it.

Stat.Quo Somalia. Apr 24 2012 23:58. Posts 1227

I would've checked the turn, you still drawing to the nuts on the river, and you don't end up playing for stacks with just one pair

Almebeast Sweden. Apr 25 2012 02:30. Posts 797

A turn check is certainly viable, but a bet is probably better considering what villain showed up with. I would probably have checked behind river though.

After all is said and done, more is said than done.

Achoo Canada. Apr 25 2012 02:44. Posts 1454

You played the hand fine, should have bet a little less on the turn, 220-240ish. She's probably not aware of it but it feels a bit like she slowrolled you on the river which is not nice, but heh it's probably because she doesn't know much about the game so you can't really blame her for that ... So, to conclude, you are being introduced to variance, nothing new, the real poker battle starts here, good luck !

Odds are exactly 50%: it either happens or not

K40Cheddar United States. Apr 25 2012 22:46. Posts 2202

Yeah this is some pretty standard bullshit. I try to get myself to just laugh at it and move on.