You to me see a quite accomplished player just having a bad run.If you just drop to a slightly lower level and play well i think then you will be more happy to deposit for higher games,Good luck Jim spurs fan from Chelmsford.:):) Posted by cleaverjim
Shaun, over the last 5 years as a tournament player I have seen plenty of upswings and downswings. And the downs can get so bad that you do start to doubt your ability to play the game at all.
At the moment I am rarely playing the big tournaments, sometimes satelliting into the main events and Rollers. When you are questioning your own talent always seems to be the time when your kings run into aces or you make a crucial error. But I just see this as sound bankroll management.
Sometimes a break from the game helps, but only if you are not enjoying it. What you need to do is find ways of continuing to love the game while getting your form and confidence back.
Its crazy to be depositing regularly and just crossing your fingers that it will all come together again in a main event. Instead of spending £30 on one event, why not play 4 or 5 for the same money? There is almost as much fun to be had from final tabling a £5 tournament or even a £10 BH.
Personally I am against going down the sit and go route. It is something I have tried with only limited success in the past. Although I managed to beat the rake at lower levels, moving up its harder to beat those STT specialists, and more important it can affect your tournament game. Sit and go play is often more negative and then loses you that spark that used to win tournaments.
But recently I have started to enjoy cash, and now have a couple of hour long sessions every day at 20nl tables. I also play a lot of hilo omaha, and think I have a small edge over most of the players here (blatant brag ... I just won a £1.10 entry tourny as I am writing this, only a tenner, but every little helps !}
Playing cash and omaha stops me getting bored with holdem tournies, and am sure will help my tournament game long term. And this month it has more than paid for my tournament entries including SPT.
Tikays suggestion of playing the DTD is excellent. I won it a few weeks back, and it gave me great satisfaction and a bit of a lift too.
So variety is the spice of life, find a way of enjoying your poker, regenerating your confidence, and eventually the results will come.
I had a lengthy downswing last year, and the year before too. But both times I came back with 2 or 3 main event wins in a week. Thats the lot of a tournament player. I will never let a bad run interfere with fulfilling my poker ambitions and neither should you.
Thanks for all the replies. It is nice to ask a question and get loads of replies, none of which were 'nasty' or derogatory. I will be in the Main Event tonight and hope that my luck changes.lol. Won't complain if I don't cash/win, will just keep reading the books and praying that the downswing is arrested and the upswing begins.lol. Best wishes. Shaun the Villa fan in Bham.
In Response to Re: What Do I Do? You Decide.lol : Shaun, I MUST say this, even though it is part of my role to promote, amongst other things, Tourneys on Sky Poker. MTT's are VERY high variance. Even the greatest players sometimes go through a lean spell. In the Live arena, I know of any number of quality players who have suffered a "drought". (Mine is going in for 9 years now....). You need to give this some thought - Cash, & DYMs, are MUCH lower variance. Or why not try the new "Timed Tourneys"? - again, these have much lower variance, as a greater % of the field gets paid. The last thing anyone wants if for you to... 1) Go busto 2) Get "down" on yourself, & not enjoy your poker. As for tonight, for a whole £5, you can play the Forum DTD - THREE Tourneys, all deep stacks, for a fiver! Give the Main Events a rest for a week or two, play a bit smaller, & fingers crossed, it will turn for you soon. After all, even Villa won on Saturday. Good Luck. Posted by Tikay10
hang on!...i thought you said "quality" players....
good advice thought ,play smaller tourny's with a bit of cash on the side.and try to sat into main events(even if you dont win a seat these games are great value for £5 ish for a couple hours of poker)
NO change of luck in tonights Main Event. I got called by K,Q off with no pair no draw and got beat by two pair on turn and river vs my pocket 10's. Guess people will call with anything. I'll have to evaluate things tomorrow. It is starting to get beyond a joke now though. I am definitely not enjoying playing at the moment as I am expecting to get beaten every time. I get it in and know that they shouldn't be calling yet they do and they get there. I know Tikay will say something along the lines of, " You want them to call when you get it in ahead". I'd say, "Only if it holds up".lol. I know this is a moan, which I hate, but I can't bite my tongue much longer. How do I keep playing if the right moves are punished so often? Its OK to say that we want them to call, as in the long run we will make money. How big does the sample size need to be for that to bear out?
Shaun, you understand that mtt's are a high variance game. Extended periods of poor results are part and parcel of being an mtt player and have to be accepted if that is your chosen game. Profitability can often depend on the turn of one card or the outcome of one hand, and that is the life of a tournament player. It's all highs and lows and invariably there are more lows than highs.
I've played online mtt's for approx. 9 years and had some wonderful runs and some extended downswings. It's all part of being exclusively a main event mtt player. I'm currently on a 200 game downswing and although I've had one main event win and a few cashes in there, it's been mostly losses. I'm not particularly worried that I'm in the midst of a downswing as I've encountered these many times over the years.
One way to even out the downswings is to up the volume with lower buy-in mtt's rather than going for the big one every night. When your game is ''off'' or you're in the midst of a bad run you will get very disillusioned paying out large buy-ins for little or no return and that in itself will affect your game. My personal way is to drop the volume, play when I'm in the right frame of mind, and see how it goes.
The advice about cash and stt's is good - personally it doesn't ''float my boat'' and playing just one or two mtt's a day suits me fine. Changing sites can work to give your confidence a boost, or, confirm just how bad you're running - so that's not really a remedy. The staying within your B/R is good advice if it applies. I get the impression it's more confidence thing with you rather than B/R management. Taking a complete break can and often does work wonders for some players.
So there are lots of ''remedies'' none of which are guaranteed to work for you. When you have considered your finances and made an honest assessment of how you are playing at the moment, try to work out for yourself what is best for you. We can all attempt to help you by giving advice relating to what works for us but the real solution is to find out what works for you. The way you react to your current downswing and the way you (hopefully) bounce back afterwards will stand you in good stead for when it happens in the future.
The only thing I can guarantee is that it will happen again in the future - it's an ugly but integral part of the game.
Hi Shaun, having read all the above posts i would consider most of them helpful but especially elsadogs and Pokertrevs. MTT's have great varience and if you are not running well you sometimes go into a tourney expecting your aa/kk/qq to be beat and so don't bet them properly for value or to build pots allowing worse hands to hit.I've been playing on this site for over 3 years now and in that time i have played.....3 main events! thats because i will only satellite into them for bankroll issues and often miss the satellite entry route because of work(time);but of those 3 times i definitely appreciated the thrill of the higher value tourney and it focused my mind and play, and enabled me to min cash twice and go out the other with aces v kings and turn was a king, C'est la vie ! A win is a win even at the £5/£10 level in mtts and can mean your bankroll doesn't suffer as badly. Cheers Dave the Arsenal fan in Rutland.
Shaun, you understand that mtt's are a high variance game. Extended periods of poor results are part and parcel of being an mtt player and have to be accepted if that is your chosen game. Profitability can often depend on the turn of one card or the outcome of one hand, and that is the life of a tournament player. It's all highs and lows and invariably there are more lows than highs. I've played online mtt's for approx. 9 years and had some wonderful runs and some extended downswings. It's all part of being exclusively a main event mtt player. I'm currently on a 200 game downswing and although I've had one main event win and a few cashes in there, it's been mostly losses. I'm not particularly worried that I'm in the midst of a downswing as I've encountered these many times over the years. One way to even out the downswings is to up the volume with lower buy-in mtt's rather than going for the big one every night. When your game is ''off'' or you're in the midst of a bad run you will get very disillusioned paying out large buy-ins for little or no return and that in itself will affect your game. My personal way is to drop the volume, play when I'm in the right frame of mind, and see how it goes. The advice about cash and stt's is good - personally it doesn't ''float my boat'' and playing just one or two mtt's a day suits me fine. Changing sites can work to give your confidence a boost, or, confirm just how bad you're running - so that's not really a remedy. The staying within your B/R is good advice if it applies. I get the impression it's more confidence thing with you rather than B/R management. Taking a complete break can and often does work wonders for some players. So there are lots of ''remedies'' none of which are guaranteed to work for you. When you have considered your finances and made an honest assessment of how you are playing at the moment, try to work out for yourself what is best for you. We can all attempt to help you by giving advice relating to what works for us but the real solution is to find out what works for you. The way you react to your current downswing and the way you (hopefully) bounce back afterwards will stand you in good stead for when it happens in the future. The only thing I can guarantee is that it will happen again in the future - it's an ugly but integral part of the game. Posted by elsadog
Thanks Elsadog. It is really nice to get such an inspirational message from you. It is a confidence thing, your right there. It is definitely affecting my game negatively too. I, like you, am happy to just play 1 or 2 Mtt's a night, but will consider the idea of playing a few smaller buy-in MTT's each night rather than the Main Event. Maybe I'm like a horse and need a run out in a few sellers to gain confidence.lol. Thanks again for your reply and I think your last point was the most pertinent, I need to try to work it out for myself and there is only so much that advice can do for me. I'm glad I started the post as it has given me a valuable insight into the strategies I can try to utilise to get out of a slump, I've also found that if I'm in need of advice in the future I can ask on here without worrying about getting barracked and laughed at. Best wishes. Shaun the Villa fan in Bham
I'm not an MTT player, and haven't got a great game, but like to play the 8pm tourneys, when I can.
Last year, I made a nice profit through this (like I say, variance....!!).
During the year, I had runs of 14, and 15 tourneys, without cashing, and another period of 30 MTT's with just one min cash (which cost me over 700 pounds).
I also had two periods where I made 3 FT's within 2 weeks (obvious brag).
I was the same (unskilled) player, through all this time, but it's just how MTT's go.
(i.e. don't get too down on yourself during a bad run, they are going to happen to everyone at some point).
To support continuing playing at any level, you need to have the bankroll to withstand the 30 Buyin downswings, or accept the fact that you will go busto periodically, and have to take a break, until you can replenish your roll.
It's not for me to tell you what to do. It's your money.
But whatever you decide, factor in the worst case scenarios to your calculations, and you won't go far wrong.
shaun, as u know i am the offical team moaner, i know alot of these things are variance, but sometimes you have to clear your mind and vent(like ur KK getting done 14 times in one day by rag A)..
i play different games, my main is dyms, i love the mtt alot more now, it has improved my game and i even try cash when i am feeling lucky..
i find by playing the different types of game i can level my br still play my mains when i want and sometimes earn a nice profit.. i would suggest the new timed tournys. you can make profit in them for your br..
i have watched you play and by noway are you a bad player, this is just a slight down swing..
allan Man city through and through 35years and countin
as for dropping down levels in the bh. i wud only suggest going as low as the 5-75 games, because if you go lower than that you come across the ne 2 cards players, they will get lucky against you sometimes and make you think worse.
Shaun a thresd like this is only good if you are prepared to take the time to read carefully, extract the positive and ditch the negative from your game.
In my opinion and it is only that. Your eyes are only on the prize and not fully on the game!
The guys on here that hit the headlines in most instances have spent many hours doing the groundwork playing thousands of hands. It's unrealistic to think you can jump from obscurity and take down main events unless you are a better than the average player and have incredible talent.
The one common denominator for all the top players is discipline. In my opinion you haven't yet acquired that skill. I believe you need to work on concentration. I've heard your name read out more times on 865 than "Hose me Down" at the same time I've seen you playing and losing in the competitions.
My point is if you want to improve try out the advice offered on this thread in freerolls and micro MTT's until your confidence is restored and you understand better the complexities of the game. Try to eliminate distractions so you can concentrate and give 100% to your game. This isn't a dig! look at the way Orford has improved his cash game since he worked out a clear plan for his game! He's right up there with the best of them making money! Why because he went back to basics and worked hard on his game! You have potential but need to stop talking a good game and start playing one! Taking down a £50 Gtd is far better than finishing 245th in a main event! Good Luck Mate I wish you well!!
Shaun a thresd like this is only good if you are prepared to take the time to read carefully, extract the positive and ditch the negative from your game. In my opinion and it is only that. Your eyes are only on the prize and not fully on the game! The guys on here that hit the headlines in most instances have spent many hours doing the groundwork playing thousands of hands. It's unrealistic to think you can jump from obscurity and take down main events unless you are a better than the average player and have incredible talent. The one commondenominator for all the top players is discipline. In my opinion you haven't yet acquired that skill. I believe you need to work on concentration. I've heard your name read out more times on 865 than "Hose me Down" at the same time I've seen you playing and losing in the competitions. My point is if you want to improve try out the advice offered on this thread in freerolls and micro MTT's until your confidence is restored and you understand better the complexities of the game. Try to eliminate distractions so you can concentrate and give 100% to yourgame. This isn't a dig! look at the way Orford has improved his cash game since he worked out a clear plan for his game! He's right up there with the best of them making money! Why because he went back to basics and worked hard on his game! You have potential but need to stop talking a good game and start playing one! Takingdown a £50 Gtd is far better than finishing 245th in a main event! Good Luck Mate I wish you well!! Posted by cleansweep
+1 Palace fan from deepest Suffolk. (Had to get that in today !)
Hi Shaun. Just read this thread again. There has been some good advice from many respected players on this site, so hopefully once you have had time to read over it all again, you can pick out the parts that work best for you.
Just a quick note to say, your not on your own m8y, I myself am on a downswing in MTT's at the moment, the only difference is, I have implemented most of the advice that has been given in this thread now and on more than one occasion in the past and it has certainly helped to limit the losses, whilst allowing me to continue to play the game I enjoy.
Good Luck - I hope you're swinging upwards again very soon.
Well Shaun you brume bum.(being a brume i can say that) im not going to try and advice you as all the above posts do just that. all i will say is remember the word patience. ive played dym in a big way when i first joined sky. and cash now and then. i thought i did quite well but was making deposits on a regular basis. for the last 9 months i only play mtt,s the main and the mini every night oh and the dtd. i can honestly say that 95% of my bust out hands ive had my chips in good. so haven't won a main or mini yet, that's mtt for you mate. i still consider myself lucky tho because i haven't made a deposit in the 9 months, and i have a healthier bankroll. ive had months of fun seating there with my mug of whisky chatting with a lot of nice people( even you mate villa fan an all) i just think one word when i suck out now that's patience lad it will come. at the end of the day we will all get our 5 minutes of glory. chin up mate see you in the next main
Comments
At the moment I am rarely playing the big tournaments, sometimes satelliting into the main events and Rollers. When you are questioning your own talent always seems to be the time when your kings run into aces or you make a crucial error. But I just see this as sound bankroll management.
Sometimes a break from the game helps, but only if you are not enjoying it. What you need to do is find ways of continuing to love the game while getting your form and confidence back.
Its crazy to be depositing regularly and just crossing your fingers that it will all come together again in a main event. Instead of spending £30 on one event, why not play 4 or 5 for the same money? There is almost as much fun to be had from final tabling a £5 tournament or even a £10 BH.
Personally I am against going down the sit and go route. It is something I have tried with only limited success in the past. Although I managed to beat the rake at lower levels, moving up its harder to beat those STT specialists, and more important it can affect your tournament game. Sit and go play is often more negative and then loses you that spark that used to win tournaments.
But recently I have started to enjoy cash, and now have a couple of hour long sessions every day at 20nl tables.
I also play a lot of hilo omaha, and think I have a small edge over most of the players here (blatant brag ... I just won a £1.10 entry tourny as I am writing this, only a tenner, but every little helps !}
Playing cash and omaha stops me getting bored with holdem tournies, and am sure will help my tournament game long term. And this month it has more than paid for my tournament entries including SPT.
Tikays suggestion of playing the DTD is excellent. I won it a few weeks back, and it gave me great satisfaction and a bit of a lift too.
So variety is the spice of life, find a way of enjoying your poker, regenerating your confidence, and eventually the results will come.
I had a lengthy downswing last year, and the year before too. But both times I came back with 2 or 3 main event wins in a week. Thats the lot of a tournament player. I will never let a bad run interfere with fulfilling my poker ambitions and neither should you.
Superb Post, Tony. There speaks a man who, umm, speaks.
Best wishes. Shaun the Villa fan in Bham.
good advice thought ,play smaller tourny's with a bit of cash on the side.and try to sat into main events(even if you dont win a seat these games are great value for £5 ish for a couple hours of poker)
Shaun, you understand that mtt's are a high variance game. Extended periods of poor results are part and parcel of being an mtt player and have to be accepted if that is your chosen game. Profitability can often depend on the turn of one card or the outcome of one hand, and that is the life of a tournament player. It's all highs and lows and invariably there are more lows than highs.
I've played online mtt's for approx. 9 years and had some wonderful runs and some extended downswings. It's all part of being exclusively a main event mtt player. I'm currently on a 200 game downswing and although I've had one main event win and a few cashes in there, it's been mostly losses. I'm not particularly worried that I'm in the midst of a downswing as I've encountered these many times over the years.
One way to even out the downswings is to up the volume with lower buy-in mtt's rather than going for the big one every night. When your game is ''off'' or you're in the midst of a bad run you will get very disillusioned paying out large buy-ins for little or no return and that in itself will affect your game. My personal way is to drop the volume, play when I'm in the right frame of mind, and see how it goes.
The advice about cash and stt's is good - personally it doesn't ''float my boat'' and playing just one or two mtt's a day suits me fine. Changing sites can work to give your confidence a boost, or, confirm just how bad you're running - so that's not really a remedy. The staying within your B/R is good advice if it applies. I get the impression it's more confidence thing with you rather than B/R management. Taking a complete break can and often does work wonders for some players.
So there are lots of ''remedies'' none of which are guaranteed to work for you. When you have considered your finances and made an honest assessment of how you are playing at the moment, try to work out for yourself what is best for you. We can all attempt to help you by giving advice relating to what works for us but the real solution is to find out what works for you. The way you react to your current downswing and the way you (hopefully) bounce back afterwards will stand you in good stead for when it happens in the future.
The only thing I can guarantee is that it will happen again in the future - it's an ugly but integral part of the game.
Your scope says your doing fine )
I would suggest playing with 1% of your BR in MTT’s if your not already.
Winning at cash to pay for your MTT entries is what I do and would advise anyone else to do the same.
But yeah as everyone has said you can go long periods not winning nothing then boooooooom, good example is the recent winner of the jackpot.
Variance was hurting him then booooooooooooooooom, thank you very much.
Chin up, just accept your going to win nothing the majority of time you play MTT’s.
i play different games, my main is dyms, i love the mtt alot more now, it has improved my game and i even try cash when i am feeling lucky..
i find by playing the different types of game i can level my br still play my mains when i want and sometimes earn a nice profit.. i would suggest the new timed tournys. you can make profit in them for your br..
i have watched you play and by noway are you a bad player, this is just a slight down swing..
allan Man city through and through 35years and countin
In my opinion and it is only that.
Your eyes are only on the prize and not fully on the game!
The guys on here that hit the headlines in most instances have spent many hours doing the groundwork playing thousands of hands.
It's unrealistic to think you can jump from obscurity and take down main events unless you are a better than the average player and have incredible talent.
The one common denominator for all the top players is discipline. In my opinion you haven't yet acquired that skill.
I believe you need to work on concentration. I've heard your name read out more times on 865 than "Hose me Down" at the same time I've seen you playing and losing in the competitions.
My point is if you want to improve try out the advice offered on this thread in freerolls and micro MTT's until your confidence is restored and you understand better the complexities of the game.
Try to eliminate distractions so you can concentrate and give 100% to your game. This isn't a dig! look at the way Orford has improved his cash game since he worked out a clear plan for his game! He's right up there with the best of them making money! Why because he went back to basics and worked hard on his game!
You have potential but need to stop talking a good game and start playing one!
Taking down a £50 Gtd is far better than finishing 245th in a main event!
Good Luck Mate I wish you well!!
+1
Palace fan from deepest Suffolk. (Had to get that in today !)
Just read this thread again.
There has been some good advice from many respected players on this site, so hopefully once you have had time to read over it all again, you can pick out the parts that work best for you.
Just a quick note to say, your not on your own m8y, I myself am on a downswing in MTT's at the moment, the only difference is, I have implemented most of the advice that has been given in this thread now and on more than one occasion in the past and it has certainly helped to limit the losses, whilst allowing me to continue to play the game I enjoy.
Good Luck - I hope you're swinging upwards again very soon.
Pokertrev (WBA Supporter from the Midlands)