Longest Downswing?

So I'm new to poker in all aspects. Got my first good upswing out of the way good n quick (about 9 buyins in 4 hours).

Now I'm on a downswing (playing fine, running bad). I'm inexperienced here, so I was just curious as to your downswing experiences. How long do the bad ones last? How many BI do you lose? What's been your longest swing?

NOT a whine post, I just want some more experienced players to shed some light on this part of the game that I would like to know more about.

I ran at 7.5 pt bb for like 60k hands, and i have had a breakeven stretch of like 60k hands as well immediately following that. In one case I ran ridiculously hot, and the other case I ran ridiculously cold. It really actually fucked me up in the head as a player and made me change some things I was doing very well in the first place, to something that was very poor play. The variance of poker can really fuck you up in the head if you're not careful, its always a good thing to look at yourself from an outside objective point of view every couple weeks to make sure you're not on month long semi-tilt and don't even know it. I knew I was when I realized that I was 12 tabling for a month, yet I KNOW deep down I can't handle more than 10 tables at once.

Are you at all related to the Sliggy that made some VOD commentaries a while ago?

I will tell you from some experience that downswings and variance are a very difficult part of poker, and they truly do develop discipline quickly. You can run badly and become so confused about the game; your perception on it becomes skewed without you noticing. Long hours, many tables and a lack of conscious perseverance for improvement will leave you down long, winding roads. Focus only on the decisions you are making, and constantly try to improve and analyse your play. Play few tables, and focus on developing reads and thinking through all your hands. Try to find the greatest edge on your opponents, and play relaxed, but focus only on the game and make the right decisions.

Short answer: You can run poorly for hundreds of thousands of hands. Poor play can settle in without you noticing. Good luck.

One day you will run worse than you ever think was possible.
Of course bad run cause play bad. Always keep a 80 buyin strong bankroll.
Don't play drunk or hungover. Don't use coke to keep you awake. Stay away from LSD and diet pills (they make you tilt, the suicide rate for normal people taking diet pills like rimonabant is 0.5%).



this was a while back

3 months

of course bad run is always mixed with bad play, so it should be much less

yeh im the sliggy that made RWAs and was generally immature and sucked at starcraft. i'm putting a little more effort into poker though because there's income involved :D



JESUS hundreds of thousands of hands? How do people who make their living on poker deal with that? How many days is that in crazypokergrinding hours?

i had a 32k month in may at 2/4 3/6 and 5/10 (most of the profit was 2/4 and 3/6) and then i had a 200k breakeven stretch [basically i had 13k downswing and took me like 200k hands to make it back]

On February 25 2009 23:04 GiYoM wrote: One day you will run worse than you ever think was possible. Of course bad run cause play bad. Always keep a 80 buyin strong bankroll. Don't play drunk or hungover. Don't use coke to keep you awake. Stay away from LSD and diet pills (they make you tilt, the suicide rate for normal people taking diet pills like rimonabant is 0.5%). this was a while back

giyom thats what u get for sucking out on me 9 months ago. see karma comes back for us all -.-

still going strong imo.

ive read over and over that you will run worse then you ever thought possible and you just have to deal with it

man you high stakes players run at $276.49 a day and that's a downswing?

276$/day sucks

i want it -_- plz send 276 to sliggdogg @ pokerstars so i can move up to your limits asap!


:D j/k obv

(but feel free anyway)

i ran bad (not winning at all) for 6-7 months playing like 10-20k hands a month

yeah i thought a downswing was losing money, not just gaining very little :/

running bad leads into frustration scared play + bad play. Most depression then u go down big -10bis then build back and then bang happens again.. and build up and 3rd time -10bis and u say god what i have done that do it to me .... and those are not bad play mostly loosing huge pots being ahead and getting sucked out. Atm my limit is no money for me i just wanna build roll from 0 to big ..but it hurts then u work hard and get 0 results for so long.

i wouldnt really consider a downswing as much as a degen fest though

http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/626746/Worst_Downswing_.html

On February 26 2009 00:27 Fayth wrote: 276$/day sucks

I should have edited my graph to only get the downswing part. Obviously i had won money before otherwise the downswing would have ended with me having no more money to lose. I was running great at 8bb/100 for 22 days. Then came the miss.

1 - 1,5month, about 100k hands

Depends on game selection, playing style and tilt issues IMO

am i the only one who`s never had more than -10 bi swing over 400 k hands?

edit: and even those werent that bad. I was always thinking i can play it back in 1-2 sessions.

People are way too quick to blame prolonged downswings on variance tho. Losing more than a day in a row in 25nl or below is an achievement more than anything else. I broke even for like half a year, not playing all that much. That being said, I had no delusions of it being variance, but simply bad play. I guess it depends on how you define downswing though, since it is so common to prolong these stretches and make them even worse by playing like shit. Luckwise, I'd say something like 50k hands starts to be at the top of "possible überbad run" in most cases on the stakes I've played on, but most of the times it's more like 20k hands when the shit really hits the fan.

ezo, I think -10bi over 400k hands is not caused by variance

That`s not what i said. I said that over 400 k hads I`ve never had a stretch of losing more than 10-12 bi and losing for over 100 k hands never even crossed my mind.

I mean if i was losing for 100 k hands I`d just assume I`m loosing , no problem

running bad causes red/blue/green lines to act like a cheap hooker imo

People like to blame their bad luck for their huge downswings but most of it is bad mindset/play. If you're in a downswing you start every session tilted and spew a little bit of money in a lot of minor -EV spots.

Those are also the people who say stuff like 'if you didn't have a 40 BI downswing yet, you haven't had a real downswing yet so stop whining'. The ones not having 40 BI downswings are just better players.

I heard that Guy LaLiberty is in a downswing since he started playing poker

my last 100k hands
biggest "downswing" if you wanna call it that that ive ever had (might just be because i suck that bad - not sure) hehe

Not really downswing. But breakeven stretch for 140k hands. I have played around 1.4mil hands online lifetime

agreed w/ twisted and muhweli but at the same time got to consider its impossible for anyone to play as well when theyre losing so it should almost go without saying long downswings include some degree of tilt and b-game subpar play. i think its only worth mentioning to people who dont realise this and think their 40bi downswing is purely sustained bad luck with 0 degree of lessening winrate as a result of frustration to compound it. but even when you know and consider this, a big downswing or breakeven period is still usually a lot of bad luck even with this included.

i personally dont really have big downswings almost ever above 10bi (had some 20bi + 30bi but very rare tho) because im prob better than most at taking time off, playing less, cutting down on tables, dropping down stakes, etc whenever it starts to happen. So when I run bad I tend to break even-ish overall with a lot of swings over a long period of hands instead of get a huge downward slope. I think my cashgame graph for the last couple years consists of big upward slopes when its going good and periods of breaking even when its going bad. had several 50k - 100k hand breakeven stretches (fewer hands but same amt of hours in stretches like that more recently because I play way fewer tables on avg now than I did 1+ years ago)

final thoughts: yes brutal stretches of unfavourable variance are possible that you can do nothing about and will produce downswings, and yes how you deal with them will have a significant effect on how big your downswing actually is and how much you lose + how quickly before you can recover and get back on track, and this part you can do something about. and no there is no good way of measuring just how bad youre running purely luckwise without the effects of worse play taken into account (no ev graphs are not a good way). but take it from anyone whos been playing this game fulltime online for a decent period at least over a year, there will 100% be some crushing bad times where you'll feel hopeless and devastated that will affect all other parts of your life, and most people who try to 'go pro' don't last as long as they would like to and become forced to withdraw from poker. As the saying goes, it's a hard way to make easy money......

like 300-350k hands break even stretch for me, was like the 4th last month or so... at least I'm not down. There are many reason here mostly having big leaks that stayed and playing bad when tilted... just spewing a few bis here and here that added up pretty quick. I've had way too many huge ds my main focus is really no tilt ever strangly it only comes in the really really bad downswing else I will probably play like my B or C game. I guess it does deteriorate too fast. Anyway GL!

sad but 80% of the people who posted in here didnt get the topic..

its about downswings and not breakeven stretches ;o

for me.. 15bi over 2xk hands

Lp'ers are too good to have actually downswings luckb0xx, duh

currently in the middle of my biggest one ever

just passed 80k hands and like -7k or something

Downswings totally suck, I'm in one right now. But just for some perspective, I feel like this article really nails it well:

Poker is a Whore Be warned the article is pretty long but I think it's well worth the read

On February 25 2009 23:26 YoMeR wrote: still going strong imo.

25 CM. Oh wait

ket should just be like the /thread master with his serious posts.

and to add some personal perspective, this graph is all 2/4 PLO, and note how many days it is.

there's a 30bi downswing and a recovery in under a month. so, don't say you weren't aware of what you're signing up for with poker.



edit: this isn't the full graph i meant to post but you can just trust me that i made a full recovery cause im the best

lol

100k hands breakeven stretch once, lasted like 3 months.

I agree with ket cause I've noticed that downswings usually start with variance kicking your ass and are prolonged by tilt, as you start each session in a bad mental state and do worse and worse.

I've actually been doing what Ket mentioned and whenever variance starts making me its bitch I stop playing, take breaks, drop down limits, switch styles (from 6max to HU or SNG's or something). Dropping down limits is the best thing though cause then you can get extremely anal'd by variance for several thousand hands and move back up when it's over and it ends up basically being a breakeven stretch.

On February 25 2009 23:04 GiYoM wrote: One day you will run worse than you ever think was possible. Of course bad run cause play bad. Always keep a 80 buyin strong bankroll. Don't play drunk or hungover. Don't use coke to keep you awake. Stay away from LSD and diet pills (they make you tilt, the suicide rate for normal people taking diet pills like rimonabant is 0.5%). this was a while back

thats not a downswing thats standard ipoker doomswitch : )

I've been on a steady downswing for about 3 months. Down something like 35 buyins.

You can show a graph and whatever.

But in general be a man and get over it, if you had hard times doing so (like i sometimes do) stil be a man and get over it. Read enough stuff and you'll get there. And also learn a lot.

Not like i'm there, but i still try. Everyone should. xx

also insert bad ev graph here but fuck that. ev says shit and i hope most winning players will get over it.