If I set the graph to dollars instead of big blinds, it actually looks less swingy from the middle to the end. That's because I moved down two levels in stakes after the massive loss and then back up one as I started to level out a bit.
Since this will be really long, I'm putting the remainder behind a "more" link so that this post doesn't take up the entire front page.
To begin fixing things, I started in steps.
The first thing was, I needed to stop the bleeding. I had blown a few months worth of work in a few days. I looked at how deep the hole I was in, and how it seemed to be getting deeper each day. I realized the most important thing I could do was stop digging. This meant drastically changing what I was doing, even if what I was doing had up until recently made me a (fairly consistent) winning player.
I put less hours into playing, and more into reviewing my biggest losing hands and studying (vids, books, forum posts). I can gradually increase volume again as things improve.
I also quit playing, either for the day or for a few hours when I'm either losing over a certain amount (stop loss), or if a particularly bad hand frustrates me. I stop playing if I don't feel like I'm playing well or if I start to get distracted. My new motto is "A-game or no game."
I also decided to try just playing some break even poker. This meant doing a few different things...
Whenever I was in a marginal situation, where I wasn't sure what to do, I decided the correct answer (for that particular moment at least) is to fold. I'd rather make a small mistake by folding and lose a little money than make a big mistake by calling or raising and lose a lot of money.
I started avoiding big pots whenever possible unless I had what was almost 100% certainly the best hand. One of my biggest leaks has been over-valuing top pair/overpairs or two pairs on wet boards. That KJ two pair isn't so hot on an K9J8 board, and continuing to put money in when facing action is lighting money on fire... no matter how terrible your opponent is.
I started folding hands preflop that a lot of times I would've called a raise with. Hands like AJ, which can be okay to call with. I'd just dump them out of position, and if I had position on the raiser, I'd have to make a decision based on reads/stats.
I've been trying to internalize and emulate what I learned from that Dwan vs Antonius heads up video that I mentioned in this post. One of my little reminder notes to myself, and something I find myself mentally chanting while playing sometimes, is "Fold like Durrrr!" Being able to fold strong hands when you know second best, and not let it get to you is hard to do sometimes.
I dropped down two levels. I was playing two seperate levels and I dropped down to the next one below the lower of the two that I had been playing.
I did this for a few reasons. One was that I no longer felt like I was comfortably rolled for the higher limits that I was playing. I follow a slightly more strict bankroll policy than most players. Most players move up when they have 20-30 buy-ins for the next subsequent level. I waited until I had 30 buy-ins for two levels up (60 buy-ins for the next level) before I moved up.
1) Playing at the lower level meant when I lost, I lost way less money. I wasn't worried about losing bringing me closer to ruin.
2) Playing at the lower level let me rebuild my confidence.
3) Not to sound arrogant, but at the lower level, I did have a skill advantage over the other players.
4) Due to the skill advantage, I was able to play more tables than I normally do, and I could auto-pilot a bit. I did have to alter my game at the lower level by tightening up considerably. As you go down in stakes, players will call down with any piece of the board, and play any two cards. You can't steal as often, and when you 3bet it has to be for pure value usually. Forget thin value betting.
5) I also don't have to do any table selection, since EVERY table is full of fish. It was nice to just sit down without having to worry about what sort of players were going to be on my left or to my right. Since people don't fold, searching for tables where I could get nits that would be to my left was pointless. I wasn't going to get to open many Buttons to steal anyway.
The major disadvantages of moving down were...
1) The players are incredibly bad. There are bad players at every level, but I had forgotten how exponentially worse they get each level you move down. You see some incomprehensible things at the lowest stakes.
2) Hand reading is virtually impossible when people are playing any two cards.
3) You're losing less money, but you're also winning less money. Generally, each time you move down or up a limit, the money increases or decreases by half. Losing half of what you would've lost is great. But it also means that it takes at least twice as long to make money.
4) Less money = less player points. For instance, I wasn't able to clear my VIP level on Stars. So now I'm making less FPPs (Frequent Player Points). Those points can be spent on things like cash bonuses or items (like TVs, Xboxes, etc.).
Once I regained some confidence, I moved back up. (This time with just 30 buy-ins instead of 60 for the next level.) But I dropped down to just two tables.
Generally, I've been winning. My worst day since moving back up, I lost a 2 buy-ins. When I do lose, I usually make it back the next time.
Pretty soon I plan to add another table back in. If things aren't going well and my bankroll dips back below a certain amount, I'll drop down to 2 tables, and if necessary, back down in stakes. As I continue to recover my bankroll, I plan to add back in a 4th table. (I generally only play 4. I've done 6, but doing that I had to play completely robotically. I know some people play like 24 tables, but I don't see myself doing that. 4 feels right to me, and maybe I could do up to 8 maximum someday. But I've read to get better and move up faster, just play 4 maximum.)
I ran badly for my last session of the month. I made one or two stupid plays as well. I lost a buy-in, won almost all of it back and then proceeded to drop that first buy-in again and lose a second. My five biggest losing hands added up to that loss. Two were bad choices, two were marginal, one the villain got lucky. Realizing that I wasn't playing my A-game, was running bad, and had lost enough for one day made me quit. Now a month ago, I would've stayed until I lost another two or three buy-ins. So I'm still making mistakes, but I am trying to plug my leaks and minimize my losses.
Hopefully by the end of the year I'll have recovered my losses, at least be close and able to move up again. It sucks, but I've got a long climb ahead of me, but I can do it (again).
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