This week I played 9 sessions. I lost 7 out of the 9 and ended up being stuck 3.2k on the week playing 3/5, $500 max. Over 850 hours (including this last week) I am a $31.5 an hour winner in the game dating back to September when I started playing live as an income. This downswing is really odd to me because I didn't lose more than $900 in one session I was just constantly losing. Not gonna go into bad beat details or whine on here but idk it seems a little concerning to me. Is this normal? To just never gain traction? I've had downswings before but they are normal spread out over a longer period with some winning involved. Really odd to me. Anyways I am taking a break until next Thursday. Thanks for anyone who can give some advice on the subject.

Don't know if it will make you feel better but seems very possible. Maybe you tilted a bit chasing your loses or became too passive at times but even if you played ideal, such a swing is in the normal realm of variance at your level.

Take it 1 session at a time and be prepared for such swings in the future. Although it does sound pretty rough, it's not the worst swing I've heard of. You said $500 buy in and down $3.2K? So 6.5 buy ins? Not unusual in poker.

This in unremarkable. Over a sample of 873.5 hours I have a win-rate of $44.11/h. My two worst downswings were -$6844 in 50.8 hours and -$7364 in 136.6 hours.

These were my session results for the first one.

-750
-1201
18
-600
286
-683
-1600
-1314
-1000

9 sessions, 2 wins, and those wins were hardly wins at all. I just had a 50 hour stretch of pretty consistent losing.

Don't get worked up about it. Poker seems hard now, but eventually you will start running good or even and it will seem easy again.

At some point you will run worse than you thought possible, and when you think things can't possibly get any worse, they will. The downswing you are describing is probably not even a -2 SD event. Expect much worse as you continue playing.

Downswing is normal, I had a buy in of 15 times once and got over that after I ran good twice and covered most of my losses. I learn from that even if I had loss 40 buy ins or even 1 I need to control my emotions and it is part of the game, literally .


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2/5 NL Holdem this week, I had a guy UTG raise 5x BB. I had pocket 10s and reraised him 3x that and he called with 56o. 56o! We were heads-up, he had nothing and he was chasing an open ender after the TURN and hit it on the river. I just could not get him out of the hand.

Had AA twice, AK twice, and KK once in an hour and a half and still ended up down. The only mistake I made was chasing one of the AKs. That's all it takes is one mistake.

You can do everything right and still lose. Sometimes there is just nothing you can do.

I agree with all of this.

I will also add that in my worst downswings, the first handful of buy-ins lost were invariably from running bad with an unusual cluster of terrible run outs in big pots, mixed in with long periods of being card dead. However, typically the last couple buy-ins I lost were the result of poor play from some form of tilt i.e. overplaying my strong hands (can't let them get there on me again!!) or playing far too passive. That's a leak I'm still working on but I'm guessing most players fall into a similar pattern. If you can avoid doing that, it will make a huge difference on your win rate. Taking a few days off to try to reset is a good idea. Once you hold up and scoop a big pot poker will feel much, much easier.

Yeah man, that happens.

If your goal is to get him out of the hand... you're doing something wrong.

First 2 1/2 weeks of March, I was on a similar downswing that had me at a net loss of $5.7k live playing 2/5. This is my biggest downswing since I started playing higher than 1/2, 1/3 last June. In back to back sessions, I was 2 outed twice and the next session I lost 2 multi-way pots holding the effective nuts; once for $3200 and again for $3700. I'm fortunate (somewhat) that I can refocus on my day job. I have played very few sessions and have chosen to study over the last week. I am taking a break until I feel less emotionally attached to losing. It's pretty defeating taking beat after beat, session after session. Good luck, OP! Hope it turns around.

its normal variance,

two examples
500 hours and down 3.x buy ins down
1500 hours and 1.x buy ins down

both spot we feel playing well, but just need to play more hours and get on the good variance eg up 11 buy ins in 4 hours......

Today I played 2 tourneys.
Sunday Warm Up, $215, played too ****ing patiently but I was so ****ing card dead and got beaten by at least 3 kickers.
Plus 1 cooler.
Sat in the Sun Milly, $215, good start, got 1.8x starting stack in an hr, got dealt KK in SB, played slowly, got coolered, by set of 8s turning into a full ****ing house, lost all of it.

I ****ing hate the cards. Card dead totally in first tourney, and then get cooler in the 2nd one.

Its impossible to win Sunday tourneys.

not out of the norm at all.
this is why having the proper bankroll and bankroll mngt is critical.
under rolled players will tend to tilt and change play .