Lost nearly 400BB this morning. Got bad cards, played some bad hands, got a couple of bad beats... What is a normal drawdown in cash games? I play microstakes and full-ring.

There's not really any such thing as "normal". Variance is random and the size of downswings depends on your winrate and your standard deviation. If you're losing 4 stacks in a single cashgame* session (depending on how many hands you were dealt), it could be a rare occurrence if you're a long-term winner, or it could be a common occurrence if you're really terrible.

* In tourneys, regs will frequently have days where they lose 15-20 buyins or more.

I'm playing @2k hands per session at 10NL and I experience swings of 200-300BB with careful table selection of wild players, whales and punters.

Playing vs regs swings are less volatile imo.

If we play bad hands and tilt a lot swings can be a lot bigger than 400bb.
I've had live sessions that I've lost 1000bb in matter of hours, playing vs whales and punters. Taken in mind that I had the problem of opening my range quite a lot in order to mix it up with them.

Thanks guys

I just can't win today. I thought I played it well... Got trips + good kicker... Should I have folded the set on the river? Or is it only bad luck and still +EV?


PokerStars - $0.02 NL - Holdem - 7 players
Hand converted by PokerTracker 4

UTG+1: 251.5 BB (VPIP: 57.14, PFR: 14.29, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 7)
MP: 110.5 BB (VPIP: 12.37, PFR: 9.36, 3Bet Preflop: 4.76, Hands: 303)
CO: 80 BB (VPIP: 64.29, PFR: 28.57, 3Bet Preflop: 0.00, Hands: 15)
BTN: 25.5 BB (VPIP: 18.75, PFR: 6.67, 3Bet Preflop: 11.11, Hands: 16)
Hero (SB): 124 BB
BB: 100 BB (VPIP: 29.59, PFR: 15.31, 3Bet Preflop: 8.82, Hands: 98)
UTG: 100 BB (VPIP: 6.90, PFR: 6.90, 3Bet Preflop: 7.14, Hands: 29)

Hero posts SB 0.5 BB, BB posts BB 1 BB

Pre Flop: (pot: 1.5 BB) Hero has K T

fold, UTG+1 calls 1 BB, fold, CO calls 1 BB, fold, Hero calls 0.5 BB, BB raises to 5 BB, UTG+1 calls 4 BB, CO calls 4 BB, Hero calls 4 BB

Flop: (20 BB, 4 players) T T 7
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG+1 bets 1 BB, CO calls 1 BB, Hero raises to 10 BB, fold, UTG+1 raises to 19 BB, fold, Hero calls 9 BB

Turn: (59 BB, 2 players) 9
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets 28.5 BB, Hero calls 28.5 BB

River: (116 BB, 2 players) 4
Hero checks, UTG+1 bets 112 BB, Hero calls 71.5 BB and is all-in

UTG+1 shows T 9 (Full House, Tens full of Nines)
(Pre 31%, Flop 27%, Turn 91%)
Hero shows K T (Three of a Kind, Tens)
(Pre 69%, Flop 73%, Turn 9%)
UTG+1 wins 250 BB


I don't understand why I suck so much at this game.

huehuehue.
It's fine man, just a cooler.

You mean I played it right? I knew he had the ten and I thought he might have a full house, but should I really fold my set after he goes all-in? He might have JT, KJ, etc.

Yeah, QT, JT and god knows what other 10's can a 2nl player might have in his range.
I'd just shrug call everytime on those stakes.
Only time I'd fold is probably playing vs an ultra nit, and then again would probably shrug call cause I'm a fish

Also, just a tip:

Poker involves a lot of losing, so if you're trying to make it in poker - get used to losing.
Sometimes it's going to be soul crushing, sometimes it's going to sting for months, but at the end imagine being able to profit from a hobby & something that you love. Feels good man.
Get all the cocaine & hookers with poker money, it's 100% worth it.

Hehe, maybe more good food and wine, but I get the idea! :-)

Maybe you're right and it was only a cooler.

It's difficult to find leaks. I'm a chess expert and at chess everything is so clear, so easy to analyze afterward. But now, I look at my play and still wonder what the hell went wrong...

Yeah, sometimes that's poker, so we just get used to it. Sometimes we lose with trips, sometimes with straights, flushes and full houses. All hurt, but we PREVAIL

Not a big of a chess player, but I assume you can't win everytime, and can't not lose any chess pieces in a game. Sometimes you lose a peon, sometimes a horsey and sometimes the queen herself.
You lost the queen in this hand

Yes but in chess I know when I do something bad and in poker I have to determine if it was bad luck or bad play. It's not easy! In chess I can analyze many variations or by a computer and I get the final word... In poker different people have different opinions and even replaying the hand again and again... still not sure if I played well.

Like this hand. You are right it's a cooler... But he went all-in and surely he knew I had the T, so he was sure he had the nuts... Could anyone fold this on the river? Don't know, I don't know...

Anyway, I need to find a way to prevail!

Yup, sometimes we just call knowing we're beat. It's okay man.
Don't beat yourself up.

Try investing into some coaching & software, at the end it comes up less expensive than learning from our mistakes in poker.
I never read a book or worked on my strategy before I started playing.
And I regret not doing so, because it did cost me a lot of money and time to learn simple things as don't open 22's 9max UTG and etc.

Also a ton of free content available on youtube and this forum

Thanks... Are you making money now? At what levels are you playing?

I just got two bad beats in a row... Set against a flush and a flush against quads. I just hope someday I'll be good enough to make the difference between a lost because I suck or a lost because of bad luck.

Yeah, I'm crushing 10NL at the moment.

But yeah, yesterday my session started unbelievably bad.
Lost 4 buy-ins the first 80 hands I played. AAvsAK, KK vs AJ, AA vs 88 all preflop and lost,
flopped a set of 6's on a Q 6 7 board and lost to a set of Qeens
Had to take a break 15 minutes after starting, just to steam off
Managed to profit $2.50 in 2000 hands

Brag.

I actually played against Bobby Fischer.

Knickerbocker Hotel, Hollywood and Ivar, 1962 invitational 50-table simo.

Dude.

Chess is not gambling.

Poker is.

When you get to be a poker "expert" you will also know when you do something bad.

As in "not +EV for that Villain and situation".

We can make the right play and lose.

We can make the wrong play and win.

So can they.

Confession: I am not yet a poker expert.

May never be.

But the foregoing is true nonetheless.

Is Bobby Fischer the all time favourite chess player of everyone? Cause sure it is for me.
I like Carlsen Magnus, proper young gun. But then again, don't follow too much chess.

Fischer for me.

Told the .gov to **** off when they wouldn't "allow" him to play chess, in Yugoslavia, which was "officially off limits" for US citizens way back then.

He solved that issue.

Never came back to the US IIRC.

A principled stance when there weren't any well known folks acting in a principled way.

Kind of like now.

Sorry for the derail, I will cease talking chess in this thread.

I like watching replays of Mikhail Tal's best games. He was the king of sacrifices and all-out aggression. If he played poker, I could imagine him check-raising and overbetting with air.

Will definitely check him out.
Thank you Arty!

I favour Karpov myself. Known as the 'Boa Constrictor', Karpov was the king of establishing subtle positional advantages.

Karpov is my favorite chess player as well. There is a position flow in his games, it's amazing.