I am a huge BR nit. When I quit my job to play (temporarily) full-time (lol terrible life decision) I took ~$10k out of my BR and moved it into my LR/investment account. I then went on an immediate $15k downswing (3k at 10/10, 12k at 2/5) and was like "oh **** this is what people meant by variance/down swings."

I've then spent the next 14ish months grinding the **** out of games I should be easily considered "over rolled" for. And you know what? It doesn't really bother me. I grinded through 1000+ hours of break even in 2016 and still booked my biggest winning year to date, paid my bills/expenses and gradually grew my BR.

Now I'm in a position where I never have to worry about my BR again and once I get back to full time employment will be back to playing the biggest and most profitable games on the reg. Was I frustrated that I wasn't playing as big of games as I felt I could beat skill-wise last year? Absolutely 100%. But am I better off for minimizing my risk and positioning myself for the next 20+ years of my poker career? Yah I'd say so.

Don't give up man

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No actually you should give up. I mean that sincerely. Stop playing. You're head will straighten itself out but you need to take a break. Every second you spend at the table is costing you money right now.

I dont care what anyone says. If you lose 25 buy ins playing live. You're doing lots of things wrong. Its not just run bad. Its like alcoholism. Admitting it is half the battle.

Does anyone else not see/ agree with the point of keeping a separate poker and life roll. I mean, just get enough money where a few losses here and there won't matter to you, right?

In reality there isn't such thing as a poker roll. If life calls your poker roll will be used no matter what.

yeah, this. I keep track of what my poker "roll" is theoretically, but I don't separate it from my other $/savings/investments in any way besides just always having enough cash readily available to play.

I totally agree, even though its harsh. Losing 25 buyins in low stakes live games isnt just "runbad" or a "downswing".

I would say that for winning players at 1-2 or 2-5, downswings bigger than 10 buyins happens pretty rarely. Sure it happens, but when where talking more than 20 buyins chances are skyhigh that you have huge leaks and flaws in your game imo.

It's fairly innocuous. If someone wants a poker roll and a life roll, more power too them. If someone wants just their total liquid assets as a roll, more power to them. Whatever makes someone's brain think less about bad stuff and focus more on table stuff is what they should do. I separate, because that works for me. If someone wants to do it another way, great. I look at what people write about these subject more as suggestions and ideas rather than hard fast rules that need to be obeyed.

Tl;dr: find what works best for you and don't worry about the rest of the noise

Shuffle, I played full time 1-2/1-3/2-5 and 1-2-5 PLO for several thousand hours over the course of two years, and in hold 'em my biggest downswing was ~10 BIs. I think if you're dropping 25 BIs at 1-2NL you need to take some time off, do some reading and strategy review, watch some winning players on twitch, and get in some volume at low stakes NL online. The mentality that you approach the game with needs to be one of confidence and not doubt, and at this point you seem to be full of doubt. Good luck, hopefully you can get things turned around eventually.

Just read your post above me- I don't know what you consider 'standard' or whatever, but it sounds like the losing is really effecting you and there are probably some situations where you misplayed but have some type of strategy ingrained in your head that is not ideal for the game you are playing.

Sure man, and you have a valid point (alongside other posters like DGAF in the mid high stakes forum) that variance can be more horrible than the majority of players are capable of understanding.

I havent logged all my hours since i started out live for like 5-6 years ago, but i have played a pretty decent sample. Probably like 2000 hours or something around that. And i am sure i havent experienced close to the worst downswing possible.

Ive been through some rough stretches for sure, but not anywhere close 20+ buyins downswing.

And like you say, its time to take a break away from the table. If you dont its just gonna continue to lose you money like Spike pointed out. Its literally impossible to approach the game with the right mindset, not to mention play your A game with the state of mind youre experiencing right now. Ive taken weeks away from the tables before when i needed it,wich did wonderful things for me and i came back stronger than ever and more mentally balanced than ever,so just do it man- there is no way around it.

This. What happens is you get blind after a while, and youre probably having bias when youre reviewing your own plays. It may need other fresh eyes of a winning player to reveal your current blind spots.

yo shuffle - hang in there mang. I am currently in my longest breakeven stretch in several years. It is exceptionally painful cuz I have lowered my volume and am not cranking out hours nearly as hard as I have in prior years.

A couple of days ago I hit my "breaking point". First hand of the night dealt AK button straddle to 10 caller I go 40 2 callers orig limper goes 350 (Im like lol oh kay) me arrin for 500 effective hes got the 10 6 and wins. I spend the next 3 hours losing in the silliest ways imaginable. I lose 2k and say, "I am done for several days" I need to clear my head. This was sunday. I have not played since. I may or may not play today. My head is getting better...but I am not 100%

Recognizing when you have your sht together v not having it together is just as important as getting hours imho. I have spent the last 236 hours losing in the most fuct up ways I have seen in quite some time...and that sht takes its toll.

Go out and treat yourself to some fun...whatever it may be. Take some time off and reflect. then when you are ready come back strong

+1

I think I would nit it up to the extreme just to get your feet under you. You really need confidence to play speculative hands / tricky situations, and right now that confidence is probably at an all-time low, so simply avoid those situations.

GgoodluckG


Yeah, that would probably be my guess too. However, it took me 1800 hours until I went on a 9.5 BI downswing (up until that point I hadn't even officially been on a 5 BI downswing), so that was a bit of a shock. I still haven't done worse than a 9.5 BI downswing in 3376 hours of 1/3 NL, so a 25 BI downswing does seem a little out there.

However, the more I play and see (not just with my results but others at the table), the more I begin to see the variance beast the truly lurks in this game (both positive and negative). My guess is that if you play enough, there's an outside possibility you could encounter some horror like this while not playing too terribly bad.

GgoodluckG


Keep in mind that results over 17 hours is fairly meaningless.

Assuming you just play poker for enjoyment and that your poker BR could be replenished by your job if you go bust, no harm in sitting in the game for entertainment purposes.

If you're just getting your feet wet at live NL, I would probably recommend sitting with a $200 stack at 1/3 NL, which is a very easy stack to play. The larger your stack becomes, the more difficult poker is for non-experienced players. As your experience / BR grows and you become more comfortable then you can consider whether a deeper stack strategy is more advantageous to you.

GgoodluckG

Who would have guessed?

The people that can't wrap their head around large downswings are likely the ones playing in tighter games with smaller buy-in structures. I'm looking at Mike and gobbledy here.

When your game dynamic regularly sees all-ins at 50/50, 60/40 and 70/30 splits for well over 100 BB's then it's not hard to imagine how a nasty downswing occurs.

I've lost 5 buyins in one orbit and gotten it in as the favorite on every single one of them. Short term luck (and long term for some outliers) can be very very far both above and below expectation.

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Yeah, I probably should have stated that game conditions obviously have a huge affect on downswings, and I have no idea what type of game Shuffle plays in. If he's playing in a 100bb max BI game like I am where 300bb stacks go in exactly never, then it's a pretty out there downswing, but again, I've fully admitted that if you play enough hours it's probably entirely possible (and obviously moreso if you are playing in deeper / action games).

GcluelessgameconditionsnoobG

I ran JJ<A9s today for 50bb. F*ck poker. Taking two weeks off.

I now have 25.5 BI

Even if you go on a 25 BI downswing, you still have a 0.5 BI left to keep you in the game, nice nice.

GthismanknowshisBRmanagement,imoG

I know your post wasnt directly headed against me Johnny, but from my experience and also my honest opinion: 20+ buyin downswings seems to be incredibly rare in live low stakes poker from proven long term winning players. Ive played in alot of different conditions and logged plenty of hours both in homegames,underground games,private games and casinos. 100 BB cap games, and very deepstacked games where 1000 BB pots happens several times each game.

GG says his biggest downswing is like 10 buyins or less for more than 3K hours played. I have logged more than 2K hours and havent had a downswing bigger than 8 buyins. My friend i often play with have logged over 2K hours and havent had a downswing bigger than around 6 buyins.

Like, i am not saying it coudnt happen even when playing your A-game for all of those 20+ buyins. But what i am saying is simply that if this sort of downswing happening to you, that should set off some alarmbells when it comes to examining your own game- wich regarding to what i said about blind spots earlier should include other pros/proven winners to review some of your biggest hands and stackoff spots at the very least.

Just curious what people mean exactly when they say a 5 or 10 buyin downswing... What's an N buyin downswing for somebody playing in 200+BB max BI games, where they always buyin for the max?

Do you 1/2 players always consider an N buying downswing to mean (N) 100BB buyins, or 150BB buyins or what? What about 2/5 players - if you play a 200BB buyin game, is a 10 BI downswing 10k or is it only 5k?

Going on a 10K downswing at 2/5 if you're a good somewhat laggy player and always buyin for max 200BBs - not really all that uncommon. 15K would be pretty terrible runbad, but still very possible... Obviously it helps if you know how to manage your variance (and play in ways to reduce it when a downswing begins), but if you're sufficiently rolled you get past the point of trying hard to manage/reduce variance.

I usually buy in for 100 BB each time, so my definition of a downswing is how many of those 100 BB buyins i lose in a row over x period of time.

Some people use the actual dollars amount when they are talking about downswings, so good question cause its important to know we are discussing the same thing.

A downswing should be considered from max bankroll to lowest point after reaching your max IMO, not just a losing streak... So if I lose 1k, win 500, lose 1k, win 500, lose 1k... that's a 2k downswing.

Exactly, i mixed it up there- sitting here with a flue/headache and rambling We are on the same page though.

Converting to BB's would clear up any inconsistency.