Bad beat after bad beat after suckout after bollocks after shit.

I have just hit a massive brick wall there after doing so well for ages. Suddenly, AGAIN, I can't win. The place is one hell of a roller coaster ride. I haven't cashed in about 11 $20 STT's now and just wasted 1.5 hours on an MTT. And how am I losing all the time? Simple, I am stupid enough to bet with the best hand! And every single time that I have been knocked out has been when I am pushed all-in and I have the best hand and it just doesn't hold up. And that is what is SOOOOO frustrating.

I just got knocked out of the MTT after flopping a flush. I was comfortable in chips, around average, down to about 130 players. But this guy with a big stack pushed all-in and I saw my chance to double up and be in a really good position so I called. I had him beat too, as I thought, but he hit runner runner for a full house to leave me sat here gobsmacked. And that is how it has been going all bastard week on there. I've had full houses beaten by quads, guys hitting 2 outers on the river on several occasions, runner runner flushes, straights and all sorts of funky crap.

I love the damn software, best on the market as far as I am concerned, but I can't keep bleeding cash to all these beats and suckouts. When I do actually double up, how do I do it? Easy, I push all-in when I am short stacked, I am behind and I suck out. I doubled earlier when I pushed with top pair top kicker but the other guy had trips. I said "nh" and I was virtually shutting down the table when I hit runner runner for a flush. I sat here shaking my head and I apologised. Even I thought that was sick.

I'm still about a couple of hundred dollars in profit on there but I can't take the shit it keeps throwing up. How I haven't smashed anything up is a miracle. Every day this week I have had to walk away and calm down. Every single day (and I am steaming now, you might have guessed. lol). There are even a couple of muppet donks on there that I thought only existed on PKR (lol, just joking). I've had A-A called all in with 7-5 off suit. A 7 on the flop and a 5 on the turn and it's goodnight. I've had big raises called by 6-4 off suit and they flop 2-3-5.

Watching other hands, the number of times the hand that is behind wins is unbelievable. The best hand does hold up soemtimes, don't get me wrong, but the ratio seems unreal. So it's not just me, it's happening to everybody.

So now, once again, I am thinking of moving. I may try PokerStars or PartyPoker or VCPoker. I know they don't do rakeback but it's no good having rakeback if I am losing. I wish PKR was bigger and had better STT blind structures, I would then play there a lot more. I made money there but everything is painfully slow, the worst being filling a 10 seater table.

One thing is for sure, I won't be playing at Absolute Poker. lol

But, as I stated, I do love the Full Tilt software so I will find it a wrench to move.

As a side note, Huck Seed is also having a bad time on Full Tilt at the moment. Using Sharkscope.com, I checked on him last week just to see how the big boys do and it showed he had made $66,000 profit (if only I was at this level, lol). I just checked again and it shows his profit is $49,613, so he is down about $17,000 on the week. I guess my $250 loss is trifling in comparison. hehe

lmao, I am a sucker for punishment I guess. I just thought I'd play one more time there before bed to maybe cash and get me in a good mood. I make decent progress and it gets to the bubble. One big stack, one medium stack and the other two of us on virtually the same, but he has about 200 more chips than me. There's no worries though. It's been another crazy game and there were 2 gone after just 7 hands as we had a couple of all-in freaks who got bust. So even though we are down to 4, the blinds are still reasonable and I am not panicing, plenty of time to make the money.

Then came the f****** sucker punch that has been hitting me all bastard week! I'm in the BB and get 7-7 dealt. The button (who is the guy with 200 more chips than me) does a minimum raise so it's an easy call after the SB folds. I flop a full-house! I check, he pushes all-in, I call. He has trips to the lower pair on the board. Yes, this is it. I finally get to cash. This will cripple him to virtual knockout him out ----- DON'T BE SO STUPID!!! What does he hit? God damn QUADS! Aaaaaarrrrgggh! I am beginning to lose count of the number of times I have now lost with a full house to quads on that site.

Now I know bad beats happen. I know suckouts happen. But time after time after time is unreal and it gets hard to take. The regularity of it on Full Tilt is scary at the moment. I saw it going like this a few weeks ago where I had another moaning thread (you may have guessed by now I come here to blow off steam. lol).

Now I can take losing. If I have been outplayed, or I make a stupid call, or I simply play badly, I am fine with that. I've been knocked out many times when I have been behind and was simply beaten. I am fine with that. I even expect the odd bad beat or two, that's poker. And I don't expect to cash all the time and indeed I wasn't. I was happy cashing fairly regularly and my bankroll was building nicely. Then this crap happened. This is by far the worst downswing in luck I have experinced so far in poker. To be ahead so many times and lose every time simply knocks the stuffing out of you.

Anyway, I get to play one more game on there then I am pulling out from the place while I still have some profit left. The reason I'll play is that one more game will release another $20 of my bonus, so in effect it's a free game. Let's hope I can scoop the $90 top spot to ease the losses of the past week.

I think I may give PokerStars a go for a new home. I just wish the interface there was better. For the biggest site the graphics suck and it's really hard to modify the crappy looking cards. But it's a solid platform with plenty of action guaranteed ... and Daniel Negreanu plays there

I've said it before - keep moving about mate. The psychological effect of a bad run on one particular site tends to mess up your future game big time (well it does for me). Forget your bonus (expiration etc) and play another site for a good 2 weeks. Go, run, leave!

:-p

I'm rocking on FT at the moment. But the moment I get a downswing I'll be scuttling back to Cake for some donkey spanking.

The best thing I learnt recently was to never ever, ever, ever, play any game on a site based on earning your bonus. It just makes you play ¨wrong¨ and forces you into games you would not normall play.

Best of luck dude!
Doctor Dodgey

hehe, thanks Dodgey mate

I have had a weekend off from poker and guess what - I'll be playing back at Full Tilt later

I don't play at Full Tilt for the bonus, although it does help. I play at Full Tilt for a number of reasons:

1. High traffic. 9 Seater STT's fill up in less than a minute most of the time. It can take a few more minutes at low traffic times, but it's never very long at all

2. Great software. I love the software at Full Tilt. I personally think it is the best on the market. I like all the features like betting the pot. I like the speed of it (not too fast like PartyPoker, not too slow like PKR) and I love the instant hand history that shows the last 50 hands in graphic form with text available to view too. It's also very customisable. I play in Racetrack view with no avatars and us my own card designs (I still don't know why the multi-million dollar companies have rubbish graphics for their cards) and everything is clear and easy to follow.

3. Rakeback of 27%. This means they pay me back $0.54 for every $20 STT I play. This mounts up nicely and obviously increases if I move up levels

4. It's not full of donkfest-fish-muppets who shove all-in with 7-3 off suit. Although there are naturally a few there but there are a few on every site I think. There are also a nice amount of bad players, which is always good (always nice to be called to the river by someone holding second pair who doesn't believe you have a straight). But, there are some good players there too which makes it a little tricky sometimes. A few times I have simply been outplayed

I haven't seen anything I like as much as Full Tilt, so even though I say I am sick of it and will be moving on, that is just me steaming I think (I love to come here and blow off steam, as you may have noticed ). I've had a horrendous few days with brutal beats and suckouts and I just lost it. lol

In my heart I know it's just a downswing and moving software won't help I don't think. It's part of poker, and I have to accept it however hard it is

Oh, and good to see you're running hot Dodgey. Good luck at the tables

:-) I see your spirits have lifted

I agree about FT - it's my main site at the moment. Never know - we might meet at the tables - I'm moving back to 11$ SnGs now - my game has got to a level I'm happy with again now. It's funny, over the last few days I've started to notice I'm geting really good reads on people all of a sudden - I think a lot of it has come from watching televised poker! Picking up tells on betting patterns and betting speeds mostly. Apart from the obvious when people miss flushes and straights, the big one I pick up a lot now is when people play top unpaired hands like AK, AJ, AQ, A10 and miss - they frequently give it away by backing off on their bet amounts post flop/turn and then a spurt of ¨bullshit¨ aggression on the river (edit) :-p , or uber quick raises that make no sense at all, or bets that just don't add up to what they are trying to achieve :-p

And yep - I like the rakeback :---P

At last! First game back and I cashed in second place.

Almost won it too. I had about a 2,000 chip lead heads-up. I raise, he pushed all-in, I called. I had A-Q he had K-10 so it was wide open really with me only a slight favourite. Unfortunately two 10's and a King hit to give him the full house. I couldn't recover from there but I am happy with how things went. My hands started holding up at last, managed a few bluffs too and squeezed in the odd steal.

I am getting a bit paranoid though I think about quads. I had K-K, naturally raised it up. Got one caller. Flop was 2-2-J. He checked, I bet out, he called. Turn was a 2. Trips on board! Now my mind flashes back to how many times I have lost to quads with a full house and I slow right down. lol. We both check the turn and now I am lost as to what he has. The river was an 8 or something, no threat anyway. So I'm hoping he has A-J or A-x but praying he doesn't have J-J or a 2. He checked and I couldn't bring myself to throw out a bet and just checked too. If he had put in a massive bet here, I may have folded! lol

Anyway, he showed A-Q and I took the pot down. But I realised how bothered I had become about quads. So I have to get over that little hurdle now. Thinking about it logically after the hand, I don't think he would have called a raise with 2-x. He wasn't a donk (he eventually won the STT) so I should have been more bothered about J-J (which was on my mind also, just not as much as quads!), which was a highly possible call.

Let's hope it continues back to normal now and I can recover last weeks losses

Chant: "I know quads are rare" ... "I know quads are rare" ... "I know quads are rare" ..........

haha! - I know the feeling - getting burnt a few times by long-shotters has a long lasting effect! - At one stage I got it into my head that three of one suit on the board meant someone simply HAD to have a flush! - then after watching televised poker a lot, I noticed it's far more rare than you imagine. I would ALWAYS assume someone had made a flush. Now I take into account pre and post flop betting, where the suits are on the board, and then susequent betting. More often than not, the flush is not there, or if it is, it's fairly obvious.

Takes a while for a string of bad beats to leave your memory... :-)

lol, it's definitely time to try somewhere else I think. This week, I am slightly in profit so it's not too bad, but I am so sick of seeing wierd beats and suckouts. This isn't because they are bad players calling with any rubbish either, but time after time I see the best hand lose on the river. It's getting sick. lol

I just played a STT and once again, AA came out 6 times to my knowledge. I had it twice but was never called and I saw it 4 times. So it could have been more. I was lucky when I pushed all-in with top pair when short stacked and the guy turned over AA. I hit trips on the river. A few hands later, the new short stack is all-in with A-5 and I had called with A-J. A Jack on the flop all but ended it but he hit runner runner hearts to put 4 hearts out there so he gets an Ace flush! And I finally get knocked out in a race after taking the lead. I had A-10 suited and was all-in. Called by 7-7. Flop was 10-9-3 rainbow. Nice. Turn 8, river 6 to give him the straight.

And I keep seeing this. Not just with me but other players. River hits so often and runner runner keeps giving out crap.

Time to withdraw my funds while I still have profit I think and try somewhere else.

The sad thing is I really like the look of Absolute's software. lol

Mate, I think you are probably a better player than me, judging by your profits and stakes you play, but I am wondering after reading your last post - perhaps you are seeing too many rivers and getting into too many races? Just a thought.

On the subject of bad beats (well, my bad play I think). I was holding A 10 Diamonds. Flop is 9X3 of which two are diamonds. He bet rather large, so with the flush draw I called - was a 1/4 of my stack but I was doing ok and I could afford it.

Now the maths I'd done in my head made me stop even thinking about WHY he raised big and what he must have made on the flop.

So the turn is a diamond. WICKED ! - I have a big bettor and a nut flush in my hand with no straights visible.

I decide to milk this, and check.

River is a 9

All-in by him - I insta-call. Never stopped to think . He had a pair of 3's - full house. I felt like such a noob. I forgot to think through why he bet how much and when. Duh!

lol, easy to forget about the other guys hand and think only of your own.

As for seeing too many rivers, most of these whinges of mine are all-ins from the short stack position when the blinds are fairly big. I have to admit that things are fairly normal and straight forward most of the time. But when it does come down to the all-in moments, and I don't mean just me, I seem to see a lot of bad beats and suck outs. Maybe I am just reading too much into it.

I have seen many players knocked out by two or three outers on the river at an alarming rate. And although I am always happy to see someone else go out, it still makes me cringe. And I have been lucky enough myself to catch a two outer on the river a few times.

One thing I hate at the moment though is flopping the nut straight. I have lost twice with it big style. One where it came river river flush for the other guy and the latest one he rivered a higher straight! (I had 8-9 suited, he had Q-10. Board came down 7-10-J-8-9. lol)

I also witnessed yesterday for the first time AA v AA. I have never seen that before, so that was quite amusing.

I don't know, maybe it is just me being daft. Maybe I am just bitter at getting knocked out with weird crap. Take my A-10 v 7-7 posted earlier for instance. If the 7's had just held up, I would have taken that on the chin no problem. He won the race. No problem. But when it throws out a 10 to give me the lead then proceeds to river river a straight for him, that's what gets me wound up. lol

And anyway, I'm not sure I am a better player than you Dodgey. You seem to have your head screwed on and make some wise comments. I am definitely a better player than some of the muppets I have come up against, but I also acknowledge that there are better players than me in some of the STT's I play. And I don't doubt that there are better players than me on these forums. I wish I was Daniel Negreanu ... but I'm not lol