blonde poker forum

Just a general post, a little abstract perhaps, but I would like to ask fellow blondies how many successive MTTs without cashing, would start to be a concern to you?

I have now played 27 consecutive live tournaments without a cash, and although I have bubbled once and finished just one off the bubble three times (aaaaghhh!), I am beginning to think there might be something wrong with my approach to tournament play.

I have been playing  £20 tourneys mostly (I won't move up whilst I am not cashing at this level, which seems reasonable), usually freezeouts, and the same thing seems to keep repeating -

a)  I rarely go out very early

b)  I usually go out with about 20 - 25 players left

c)  I have been receiving some beats for sure (more than my share) but also misplaying a few key hands just as my stack is starting to dwindle

d)  I have been making some good reads / folds (the ones I have seen at showdown) keeping me in the tournament, but when I have to push later on, I usually run into a bigger hand  (aaaarrrghhh!)

e)   I think it might be variance because I'm not even hitting flops, had I stayed in the hand pre-flop

Am I running too tight? I know I have to accumulate chips throughout the tourney but I am finding this difficult for two reasons - I am particularly card dead in tournaments (I get better cards in cash games) and when I use position against 2 or 3 players, regardless of cards and raise it up, I just get called or re-raised anyway which tends to screw things up a bit.

Is this a particular problem at these price tournaments perhaps?

I'm beginning to think that maybe I'm just crap at MTTs. Or could it just be a bad run? I do much better on the cash tables.

I shall re-read Harrington on Hold'em to see if I'm missing anything but I would like some feedback as to whether this is a run (27 consecutive non cashes) that is normal, or indicative of something being wrong.

I am applying M and 10xBB or less is time to push etc, and I am aware of seeing value flops, but I have to wonder when my Queens get called by 10,7 suited and I am parking my chair under the table....!

Also, my online MTT record is much better, so this may be a live thing.

This is not a moan, I believe in good karma and that if I keep at it, things will improve, but I recognise that I might need to change my approach.

Anyway, I await some comments, hopefully

Pyso

P.S.  Played the Stoke Circus £20 + £2 deepstack tourney last night (..of course I didn't cash) - it's dealer dealt with 8000 chips and seems a good crowd. Well worth the 45 minute trip, even if trying to find the casino was particularly difficult without a map, phone, sat nav, or indeed any idea where it was!

Wish we could get a dealer dealt tourny for £20 + £2 in the South... Minimum is £100 + £10 in Southend really...

And deepest stack is for the same buy in for 7,500 chips...

£20 + £2 is a rebuy night... And £30 + £3 is a freezeout with 3000 chips...

I need to head up north

63 consecutive online tournaments without a cash is my online record

"temporary blip" is what i put it down to :D

By the sound of things this is mainly varience, 27 is by no means outside the realms of probability.

As with alot of varience in poker you are probably making mistakes which doesn't help, whether they are fundamental or lacking confidence/tilting as you go through this run is hard to tell. Be honest with yourself, re-reading Harrington doesn't seem a bad idea and maybe post some hands on here or talk to someone who's game you respect.

I have no doubt it will turn around and live mtt's are the worst for this kind of thinking as you don't get to play that many compared to the internet. Also MTT's have massive varience anyway.

Good luck.

Why do you play tournaments?


why not just stick to making money playing cash games?

Having had a similar spell Oct-Dec 2007 I can sympathise

From my own perspective I feel that some bad luck/outdraws soon led to bad play and lack of confidence, which becomes a difficult cycle to break

I only did so recently, with a win last week

I spoke to a few peers, posted more hands up on our hand analysis board to double check some stuff and read widely. I also played a few comps below my normal buy-ins (live and online) to try a few things out.


 

I didn't cash in MTT's for sodding ages last year. (Live I always did good though)

27 is nothing if you're playing to win the tourney rather than cash...but you might want to look at the difference between your online style and live-style of play. Live you see less hands and you have to take that into account.

Thanks TightEnd, Longy, boldie and matt674

I genuinely feel better now. Confidence is a fragile thing...

In response to matt's very sensible question, I play tournaments mainly because I enjoy them and for the same reason I play cash - to make money (hopefully!)

... and we all dream of that big win, don't we?!!!

everything being equal and assuming a 10% get paid structure the odds of going 27 in a row out of the money are only about 16/1 or just under 6%. that's variance for ya.

gatso,

I'm not being funny, but when you say "that's variance for ya" do you mean, in my context, that because the odds of going 27 MTTs without cashing are 16-1, that the reasons for not cashing must belong to me,

or,

do you mean that variance can skew the odds?

I must be missing something here. Please put me right!!!

My biggest dry spell is about 45 MTTs without a cash. Then I won the next one which covered all the buy-ins for those 45 plus quite a bit more.


He means that, if you are a break-even player, and play as well as everyone else, the chances of you not cashing in your next 27 MTTs is 6%. That is what variance is. Otherwise a break even player who had gone nine MTTs without a cash would be 100% certain to cash in their next event to keep the one cash in ten ratio consistent.

I know players including myself who have gone long long periods of time without cashing at the various levels they play......
This question is a bit like the one I did many many years ago at A Level
"Discuss the causes of the Industrial revolution"

Difficult question....so many contributory factors. Just like your post. Firstly a big up for wanting to sit down and analyse what might be going wrong.

Now here comes the first contrary piece of advice.............stop analysing and start playing. In reading your post you seem to be playing by a book. If you get the urge to push on the first hand then go ahead and do it. In a deepstack tournament raise out of position early. Have some fun with your chips. As you relax the cards will come.
Secondly if you are waiting for good cards then you will be put on a narrow range of hands too easily and therefore probably not win as many chips from your good cards as you might.
Thirdly find your motivation. Is it to win, make money, have fun????
If it is to have fun then there is no problem how long the run is.
If you want to make money then this run is a little alarming. I have just come out of a run that lasted 8 weeks. Couldn't hit a card. If I did I got Dingdelled. Really nightmare stuff. This week I split one tourney and won a satellite in one the following evening. Such is poker. It is always easier to smile when you are winning. I wish you every success in ending this run.

I mean that on a completely level playing field where neither you or any of your opponents has an edge the odds of not cashing 27 times running are about 16/1.

Take it out of the context of a poker tournament and put 10 cards, the ace through the 10 of spades face down on a table and get someone to shuffle them up. Now try and pick the ace. The chances of you not getting it 27 times in a row are also 16/1, not that likely but also not particularly unusual.

Or, back to poker, look at the chances of hitting a 3 outer on the river, again about the same odds. Again not too likely but we all see it happen often enough.

So, 27 in a row is not necessarily that unusual, variance affects us all and much more so in MTT play.

But, don't just put it down to variance, it may be the answer but then again it may not, it may be down to something you're doing wrong.


This is very true, once you start to notice a bad run it's very easy to start to adjust your game as the confidence goes, sometimes changing things that don't need changing.

Thanks, that's much clearer!

I agree, it is probably a bit of both. I am going to go back to school and re-read Harrington first to see if that helps.

ok, don't know where I got that ridiculous example from. This is better.

a)Chances of losing 4 coin flips in a row = 6.25%

b)Chances of not cashing 27 times in a row = 5.8%

not a lot in it but I'm sure you wouldn't find a) to be that strange if it happened even though it's about as likely as b)

It was a good example, I wasn't being sarcastic!!

Oh, the joys of the internet!!

And, what's more, if you play a lot of MTTs, not only should you not be surprised at a losing run of 27, you should actually expect it to happen at some point. If you sat there flipping coins all day you'd be surprised if you didn't have a run of 4 tails in a row.

when it comes to not cashing in tournaments there have been 60 (sixty) seperate occasions where i have not cashed in at least 15 consecutive tournaments.

The only conclusion i take from this is that i play too much poker :D

I must say that i am on a similar run online at the moment, which coincided with my biggest ever win and withdrawal.

am I doing anything differently?? don't believe i am, however I am still able to cash ( small only) and not had a sniff of a final table for nearly a month now.

all it means is my bankroll has taken an absolute beating, and i've now switched to stt's to try and grind my way back up

Good statistical points well made gatso and AndrewT.

And matt674, I clearly don't play enough poker!! LOL

my statistics are all online related though and yours are live poker - obviously you're never going to play as many live tourneys as you do online :)

Good thread, cheered me up a bit too :D

I switch games when I can't cash for a while and play some sng's or cash games.   

lol, the switching game thing was a help to me also - when i had the consecutive streak of 63 non cashes my record was just two cashes in one month playing a total of 84 games during Feb 2006. my two cashes in this month were an omaha hi tourney and my only ever final table at in a stud hi/lo tourney.

sometimes when i feel as though my hold'em game is getting a little stale i fire up a horse tourney or something just for a bit of variety.

being an mtt monkey i stick to the tournaments though - switching to cash would probably empty whatever bankroll i had left from the losing tourney run i was on :D

Thanks snatiramas (that's difficult to spell first time round!), I somehow missed your reply earlier.

Yes, I am a bit too by-the-book, although I realsied this and started mixing it up, but it didn't have a noticeable effect. (Yet?)

I play to enjoy it, win, make money and have fun!! I think we all do really!

I shall keep plugging away, you never know I might be about to turn a corner.

matt's idea of trying some non-holdem also has some merit I'm sure.

I didn't think you were, I wrote the second example while you were replying to the first one so hadn't read your reply.

Indeedy...Omaha tends to be my fall back. What I would say is that everybody at some point goes through something like this.......welcome to the worlds most non exclusive club

I have had the same problem, after my biggest ever win I now cant even win a sit&go. Its a mixture of over confident play and bad luck my statisticaly expected run of losing situations.

ALL stoke stanley tourneys are dealer dealt 7 nights a week,  thanks to the cardroom mgr  andy    aka blazing saddler.

a million variables here to contend with , but  the young freezout crowd today  only play  harringtonesque imo      more is rqd     especially   at 21-26th placed levels   short handed,  when blinds escalating and opening hand requirements are lower imo.

i was at table 3 all nite in this comp and chopped at at 445am chipcount  did we encounter each other ?

gl

Claw your way back Matt, when you get to 75 be worried...

Hi Portfolio,

I was on another table (won't say which one, which will shortly become clear) so we didn't have the pleasure.

I agree (or am rapidly beginning to) that Harrington's tournament concepts can be a little rigid. I'll read it again however to see if my own feelings about it all have changed.

All tourneys being dealer dealt at Stanley Stoke sounds very good. Although the dealer on our table was a little slow and even at one stage made a comment about a play in progress!!! The dealer realised straight away that it probably wasn't the best protocol (!!) and apologised, and luckily everyone took it well......

He/she also let slip that they weren't aware of the minimum-twice-the-previous-raise rule, but I suppose complaining too much is churlish. I'm spoilt at DTD and it is great not to have to deal in a casino.

ive been running bad since november after having the most amazing september and october..i know that i started playing bad trying to get things happening.
my confidence was at an all time low..i tried taking a break but when i played again it was the same story.i was heard by a certain blonde outside dtd saying that im never playing again,lol.

this morning i had 6 pounds in my blondepoker account..i won a $5 30 player stt and that made me feel much better..(the little trophy that pops up helped,lol)

i hope things improve for you,i know it can get you down..ive decided to play through my dry spell as i just miss poker to much if not..im now convinsed a result is round the corner,well if i dont think it no-one will:-)

Thanks for the kind words lttlemissc.

Keep smiling.

I shall be back for more, starting tonight!!

me to,lol

Dont take one persons word as being gospel - as you will probably find when you read all the posts on one thread there are so many different styles to the game that what works for one may not necessarily work for another, so just because one book tells you one certain concept or style it may be that the style in question doesn't suit your natural style and approach to the game.

Ask the same question to 10 different players and you may well get 7 different answers - its about then taking all the best bits from those 7 answers that would suit your game and going from there.

I'd also question what many people think Harrington actually says about the style you should adopt, and also how 'rigid' his starting selection is.  Harrington does advise that people should play their own 'style', and often says things like 'the call here was a little loose for me' - so he's not saying it's wrong - just different.

The second book (the red one) really does move a long way from the advice regarding premium hands at the start of a tournament and the advice in it is excellent (IMHO).  I'd recommend any player reads it, if only to know the rationale behind lots of other people's play.