How do you deal with significant downswings? Mentally and emotionally I find it very discouraging. I began a bankroll with $20 and built it up to $1500 playing 1-1 and 1-2 over about a month and recently had 9/13 losing sessions and dropped my BR down to $400.

I think partially it is because I have been reading a couple of Ed Miller's books (How to read hands, Playing the player) and I am changing my game up a bit so I am trying new plays at the table, but other than that I feel I have been running cold and begin to doubt myself.

What do you guys do to adjust during a downswing? take time off? or grind at lower stakes? Thanks.

There isn't any way of dealing with downswing if your roll is literally 200 to 400bb.

Wait what ... you started playing with a BR of 10 BB's?

Curious :thumbup:

Well playing home games at .25/.25 I built it up to a few hundred and moved to 1-1 or 1-2 when I would play at my casino.

So what I meant was my initial investment was only $20.

red lines and blue lines and purple lines and zig zag lines yadda yadda aren't important at all, spending 3 seconds thinking about them is already too much

My few cents:

Yes, taking som time off and regroup yourself is very important when fighting a downswing/runbad period. I have faced it several times myself during my 2 years of regular liveplay,aswell as my online background.

The main reason why i believe taking some time off the tables i because your judgement get manipulated in a way when your running bad and the 2,3 and 4 outers just rain down on you. Youre starting to question yourself as a player, your abilities and your selfesteem. If you keep on playing with that kind of mindset you can very possibly start to spew/or play a losing style of poker due to my experience.

The break doesent necessarly need to be a long one, a week or two could be enough. What i recommend is that you fill that time with something that makes you happy. A girlfriend, another hobby, hangout with good friends or whatever fills up your energylevel, and makes you happy. Get your batteries charged, your mindset refreshed and then come back to the table.

Ready for the RP standardized poker aptitude test!

I consider myself a tight player I play ABC poker since there is not much room to bluff at 1/2 and 2/5 way too many stations and fish who will call you down with a one pair kind of hand ( needless to say they pay you off when you do have a monster ) I have no idea on the level of play in 5/10 should I just stick to my game or what changes should I make

Been preparing for a switch to 50/50 between 1/2 and 2/5, I'm not a stats wizard but I've done pretty well I think. Let me know how my stats compare or what else to include: (All Live btw)
*Bankroll: $9500ish
*~$12/hr over 780ish hrs (20% at .25/.50; 50% at .5/1&1/1; 30% at 1/2&2/2)
^there a better way to structure this?
*Roll only from and for poker
What else to include? I got an app full of data, graphs etc.

hey guys, any links to good articles about playing position in poker?

I was looking at the "Best of LLSNL" thread, and lots of advice there, but too much to sift through.

Or someone post some cliffs notes about exploiting late position, and specific stuff. Like 3-betting lighter, c-bet flop....etc...

I just want to implement that into my game. thanks.

Read the stickies in full ring micro

Wilverine,

I would try to first play closer to 100% of 1/2 to 1/3 only, to get a feel of the player's abilities and comfort level with variance/br swings, then slowly incorporate some 2/5s when the game is good, and slowly increase the % of 2/5 to 50% if it's going well.

I almost exclusively do play 1/2 now (only 1 weekly 1/1) and the main one I play is a very big one. Raises average 10-25 pre, $5 straddles are plentiful, stacks average 150bb and I've been buying in for 300 to prepare. I'm working my way there but my stats are over the past few years and include lots of lower limits. Your advice still applies tho and is appreciated.

Currently in a $1800 downswing. Wr has varied between 13-22hr over 456hr sample(yea its small don't judge), roll roughly 3.2k play 2-100 spread. Help me not lose my mind and roll plz

How?

This right here folks is why poker will never die

Oops shouldn't have recommended him micro fr stickies in that case. Way too much content in there. Who wants that?

why?

im not sure you get where redline profit comes from... you seem to be laboring under the misconception that saying "redline is a major component of beating 2/5" is the same as saying "bluffing is a major component of beating 2/5". This is not the case.

A player who is "valuetowning" his opponents should have a pretty good redline provided those opponents are just regular bad and not super bad. DUCY?

(not saying bluffing necessarily isn't... just that the issue is seperate from redline)

I have had.break even stretches longer than your.entire sample. You will be fine. Just don't tilt. Ever. =]

In live poker not.tilting and.value.betting well make.u more.money than hero calls. Soul reading. And. Other.common "poker skills"

I'm asking for a specific link to late position playing. There's like 50 articles there, none which addresses that topic specifically.

Don't think I haven't read the other stuff. Get off your high horse.

What I want is specific threads on LATE POSITION playing. I have tried to search and look through other stuff. guess you too cool to help out a newbie huh.

This book may be too advance, but so are some of the concepts behind late position plays:

http://redchippoker.com/store/late-position-ebook/

Had a pretty awful January but played a ton of hours (over 180!). Was averaging about $3/hour after a big downswing mid-month including my longest losing streak ever (8 sessions), biggest losing session in a 1/2 or 1/3 game ($1800), and the worst run-bad I can remember over that 8-session span. Was probably -$5-6k all-in EV for January, lost a lot of $800+ pots getting it in way ahead.

February was great, but was out of town for two weeks so not many hours played. Think there is one or two short 2/5 sessions sprinkled in, but most of this is at 1/2 with a few days of 1/3 at the Palms when they were giving away all the jackpot money.

January:




February:




1/2 stats to date since I started keeping track of hours in November:




2/5 stats to date since November: