I’ve been attempting to keep my balance at approximately $50,000 on PokerStars.  Last week I had $54,000 in my account and took out $4,000 to invest in a bond mutual fund.  The next session I played I lost $3,500.  That session was about 2,000 hands.  I didn’t play bad; just lost KK < AK and AK < AQ at 10/20.  Just to let you know I was only playing one table of 10/20 alongside many other midstakes games.  A $50,000 roll for 10/20 would be no where near sufficient. 

After that session I went to the gym and got in a pretty hard workout.  Losing a lot of money actually help to push myself, lol.  I came home still not completely out of the negative mindset but I was ready to play another session.  This session went terribly and I was down 2.5k at one point.  I ended down 1.5k.  It was your usual unluckiness, set over set, KK < AA, AA < KK, AK < KK, flush < boat.  I didn’t really feel like I was tilting at all.  However, a friend was watching one of my games where I made a river call with two pair and the guy had a flush.  I thought it was a bad call, and my friend sent me an IM saying, dude that was a terrible call.  I realized I was just frustrated and the call was practically a mis-click.  If I had thought about how the hand played out it was obvious I was beat.  If I had not been tilting I would have thought about it for 3 seconds and folded.  Instead I made a rookie mistake of seeing I had two pair on the river and immediately calling.

The very next session I lost seven heads up sit and gos in a row.  Okay, so maybe that’s not THAT crazy, but considers 6 out of the 7 players I was playing were very poor.  Most of these matches I was probably a 60/40 favorite given the fundamental mistakes many of the players were making.  However, I at least had an alright cash session and booked only an $800 loss. 

The next four sessions were all losing.  No huge losses though.  Of the course of the five I probably lost an average of $750 a session.  My bankroll now sat at $40,800. 

I’ve probably had over the course of my poker career 10 bad runs.  Let’s define a bad run as a break even or losing stretch over 75,000 hands or more.  The first five times it happened it would bother me greatly.  I would wonder whether it was possible if I was just the unluckiest player of all time.  Each bad run always seems like it’s the worst while you are in it.  The worst part was I would lose confidence.  I would question whether I was able to beat the games.  I guess you could call this poker depression.  One bad thought leads to another and it’s an endless cycle where you beat yourself up.  You can’t let go of that one huge coinflip you lost or how you stacked off lightly with top pair out of pure frustration.

This time it was different though.  While I knew that losing this much would mean it would take me awhile to rebuild I never panicked.  I never questioned whether I was a winning player and I didn’t feel the need to reduce the number of tables I was playing.  I’ve ridden out enough bad runs to know what it feels like and I know how to deal with them.

It’s similar to investing.  Amateurs tend to buy into bull markets and sell near the very bottom.  You’ve probably met someone like this.  They have sworn off stocks because of how much they lost in 2002.  If you’ve played poker for any significant period of time you have surely met someone who swore of poker because of the swings.  In both you only make a real significant profit when you stay for the long term.  Remember that next time you run badly. 

Today I played a session and almost immediately I dropped 2k to put my balance at $39,000.  A psychological threshold had been crossed.  When I made it a goal to maintain my balance at $50,000 I didn’t expect to see my balance ever reach below $40,000.  I made a promise that I wouldn’t play any 5/10 or higher if I got below 40k so the threshold did have some real meaning as well.  Anyways, I played through the session and finally caught a brief uptick.  Hit a few sets and got some premium hands which put me up a good amount.  I ended the session up 2k and my balance was at $43,000. 

I have no idea whether this bad run is over.  I’m hoping I hit bottom there at $39,000 but I cannot be certain.  At least I broke the losing session’s streak.  There is further reassurance that I have a $3,000 and a $4,000 bonus to clear within the next two months.  I know that I will hit $50,000 again and get my game back on track.  It is only a matter of time.

The key notion here is that even in your darkest days there will always be light at the end of the tunnel. 

With the SNG you are locked in for a buyin basically and the match will take no longer than 30 minutes.  It's critical to pratice table selection for these.  If you see a regular already sitting, do not sit!  It is not worth the trouble and the edge you might have will be minimal.  The nice thing is if you are against a good player it will be over soon and you are unlikely to be a dog.  The bad part is if you get a total fish you only have him for this short period... atleast he can't get up 20 big blinds and sit out though. 

On the first level (10/20, 1500 starting stacks) I make it 3xbb raise pre.  However, one the blinds get to 15/30 I prefer to minraise pre.  The minraise enables more postflop play because you are not committing as much preflop.  I like pick away at my opponents.  This means raising about half the hands and making small continuation bets.  Opponents often get frustrated by this approach and make moves at the wrong times. 

Another nice thing is opponents often don't understand fundamental sit and go principles when a player has less than 10 big blinds.  If you play this small ball approach the whole game and then start open pushing hands bad players will often give you way too much credit for a big hand.  No regular or decent player would fall for this. 

In general I think the heads up cash games are more profitable to play.  However, sometimes it's hard to attract bad players.  One thing I like to do is sit with an odd amount.  Say it is a 3/6 game.  I will sit with say $286.70 rather than $600.  It looks much less intimidating.  Often players who sit with that amount are really bad and are playing with a large portion of their bankroll... I want to appear to be one of those players.  After someone sits for 10 or so hands I will reload to the full $600. 

I try and practice leaving a cash table after 25 hands if a player appears to do nothing fishy.  You will notice right away usually.  Bad play is indicated by calling out of position preflop often, minraises, or open limping.  Good play is indicated by a few well timed 3-bets, folding out of position, and open raising 35%+ of the time. 

Cash game play is more frustrating to me.  In the past two days I have found some horrible opponents at 5/10 and 3/6 nl heads up.  Interesting enough they both had a similar tendency of being aggressive and not folding.  Maybe ever 4th hand I would raise I would get min 3-bet or face a very small 3-bet.  Normally this is great; I can call in position or 4-bet if my hand is strong enough.  The problem was I was calling but never hitting a flop!  It's tough when your opponent does this 10 times and you literally never hit a flop.  Then the couple times you decide to 4-bet bluff he shoves.  Adding to the frustration was when I got dealt premiums of JJ+/AK I was always getting folds.  Nothing was going right but in both cases I played until the villain sat out.  Despite being down a few buyins the game was still incredibly profitable over the long run.

You have to know when to quit at heads up cash.  Sometimes the momentum doesn't swing in your favor and you get totally steam rolled against a player who you should be crushing.  As long as your aren't tilting it's best to stay in the game assuming your bankroll can handle it.  However, you need to be honest with yourself because tilt comes in different forms.  For example against one of those opponents mentioned above I made a few tilty 4-bet bluffs just because I was getting extremely annoyed by the min 3-bets.  On balance I should have picked my spots more carefully.  The bluffs were necessarily bad, but if I was thinking more rationally I would not have made a few of them.

Personally I find the sngs to be more fun but the cash games are probably more profitable.  I get less frustrated with the sngs.  The sngs will inevitably come down to more luck because you are forced to show down.  But it's in those first 2 levels where you can really get a leg up on your opponents with superior postflop play.  For right now I'm switching back and forth between the two formats of heads up play depending on my mood.  Heads up play has helped me develop my reads better and it also makes me calmer when in full ring or 6 max situations.  Anyways, these are just some random thoughts I had lately about heads up play.  Feel free to comment. 

Due to the lack of good cash games going I played I sat a 3/6nl heads up table.  About 7 hands in I raise Qh6h from the button.  Villain calls and flop comes 9h5h3d.  I bet 30, he check raises to 90.  I thought there was a good chance he was making a move so I make it 260 he shoved and I called.  Turn and river are blanks and he shows A9o for the win.  I'm not too sure either of us played the hand great.  I'm not going to be stacking off worse top pair hands and at best he's a coinflip if we get in.  From my side I'm stacking off with a queen high flush draw; seems fairly marginal, but I though the fold equity would make up for it.

I end up losing both sngs on some unlucky allins.  Additionally, I've lost a few decent size pots at 3/6nl and 5/10nl cash games.  At this point I'm down about 2k and not too happy with how the session is going.  I wasn't tilting though.

Before I know it I won a 2k pot at 5/10nl with a set against a fish.  I registered for 2 more $330 sngs and won both of those.  They are offering 1.5x ffp/vpp on stars for those hu sngs this week so I figured I should play some.  I sneak a peek at my balance and realize I'm close to even again!

I win a few more heads up tournaments and pick up some decent size pots against fish for the rest of the session.  I didn't place in either 9 man $315 sng I played in though.  At the end I was up 2.4k and decided to stop because I was getting hungry.

Turned out to be a great session.  There's nothing like going down early and coming back for a sizable win.