I've played poker for a living for years. I took a break during Covid because the games stopped, but I started up again about two years ago. I started my career playing 1/2 and eventually moved up to 3/5. I've been pretty consistent, winning most months. I've never had two consecutive months in the negative until this event.

But recently I have been getting dragged through the mud. It's been four months now of an absolutely awful downswing. I have been two, three, and four outed more often than I can remember. I've had KK run into AA several times and lost every one. I've had AA run into KK several times, and I've lost every one of those also. In fact, I have literally lost EVERY single pot that I've been in that was $1000 or more. In most of those pots I got the money in good. The exceptions are the KK vs AA hands and one AK suited hand that ran into KK. I've been 70%, 80% and even 90% to win with all the money in the middle and I just lose every time.

I'm not playing perfectly of course, but I'm playing very well. I've made some big lay downs correctly. Like having the nut straight and folding it to a flush. Or folding QQ to the Old Man Coffee who overbet four bet jammed $500 into a $70 pot and he shows aces after I fold. But over and over and over, for four months now, I get the money in as a big favorite only to watch the pot get shipped to someone else. Just today, I got it all in with KK vs 89 on a 2 5 9 board. Of course he hit an 8 on the river. Then again, all in with QQ on a 10 high rainbow flop versus AQ. Of course he hit the A on the river.

I'm really at my wits end and I don't know what to do about it. Or if I even can do anything about it. This downswing is insane. What the hell am I supposed to do? I keep playing expecting this streak to break eventually, but it won't. I just get more and more frustrated. The only good thing is that I picked up another source of income during Covid, so poker is not the only way I pay my bills. But still, I'd like to get back to winning most months.

3 months , 25hh per hour , 8 hours a day

18k hands , you can have 500k hands downswings , you're not a professional

I've logged over 10,000 hours at the poker table, most of those playing poker as my sole source of income. If that doesn't make me a professional, what does?

I'm in a big downswing as well. The thing with poker is it is up to variance so just being HUMAN it cause in my experience in my own play to kind of try to be more in control of a hand which isn't optimal. You have to kind of have a care free attitude and have fun playing its in its nature a almost evil type of game if your taking it to serious and aren't detatched. You have to take it serious but remain detatched, basically you have to have more fun playing and your decisions won't be as serious imo "feelings" wise but still serious from a mental perspective. If feelings become involved than the game becomes "personal" while when mental it isn't as personal. Have good feelings towards your human opponents and don't have feelings for the game. Just my observation of my own play.

Can you invest more time into your other source of income? Scaling back on your poker activities for now might be the best path forward. You can always come back to the game. Also consider dropping down to 1/2.

You sound like a whale. If you've legitimately logged 10k hours of poker, then you'd understand how variance works. I'd suggest googling a variance calculator and playing around with it.

You've obviously just been on the better side of variance of your career - that in itself shows how much variance is involved in poker.

I don't know bro I'm just having a hard time getting past you playing live at those stakes. I don't feel like it would be possible for someone to squeak out a living wage at those limits without some really nice variance backing them. Maybe just count your blessings and find a new path in life to walk.

I guess I have to say that 100K hands is nowhere near the long run ... let alone a few months worth. I think I share some of the experience of OP of having smooth sailing for so long I was clueless about upside variance being behind it. Pretty sure I only had one 10+ session downswing over decades of play, and only a handful near the 10 range. Need to caveat that in the old days the level of competition was VERY weak compared to today. But when the flip side arrived in my results, it was 100K hands of utter death roll. Suddenly I had the worst month ever, thn the next month reset the worst ever. Pure ... a great stat. Like some mysterious force saved it all up then delivered it like it was alive and designed. I had heard at least one pro describe such an experience and, not that I didn't believe it, but didn't appreciate it. Now I do.

I'm curious, how much have you lost during this downswing?

I'm just a rec player who has been playing too much lately, because I have been running good, and I figure if I had 7-8 losing sessions in a row that would be enough for the fun to disappear and I'd end up taking a very long break. I did recently sustain a 4 session losing streak of about $4000 at 3-5NL.

Apparently after talking to a couple people my opinion is shifting a bit to the side of maybe you can make a living at these stakes, however with variance and the stress of inevitably losing for months at a time I would not want to do this with my life personally.

That’s poker, folks.

how big is the downswing in terms of $ and hours played? Its very tough to have a breakeven stretch beyond about 200 hours or so of live poker without having major leaks in your game.

Project that out over about 40 years of play and see how many times it gets violated. Yes standard variance stays within those limits. The ends of the bell curve don't.

Whats the point of this talk?
It's gambling...
You take the risk of getting unlucky,, constantly

Trying to get a sense of how big variance is, and how much skill can buffer you from it.
If I ran bad and lost 10 sessions in a row, I'd probably quit poker. I really hope that doesn't happen to me, but I guess there's not much I can do to prevent that except play my best and hope.

I'd feel better if multiple people posted and said they've never really had a prolonged downswings...

Maybe say to yourself I'm going to play and I have 30 buy ins.

If you lose those 30 buy ins you're probably not a favorite or at least a big winner in the game and you should move on to something else.

What is a buy-in? The minimum or the maximum, or just your usual chosen amount?

Funny I saw this post after another terrible day on the felt. By no means am I a professional but I take the game seriously, try to play smart and know when to raise or run away. None of that is doing me any good. I have had so many people hit their cards against me in the last month it isn't even funny. So, today I've decided to quit the game for the foreseeable future. I will play again but until I've take a long break. I've already put my poker bankroll in my checking account. Of course, I can still take it out of the ATM whenever I want. But that's too much effort when I'm used to simply taking it out of an envelop. But in all seriousness I've really stopped enjoying the game. I don't like the people and I don't like the atmosphere. No doubt this has probably hurt my game because under those conditions it's harder and harder to concentrate. So my advice to the poster is to just take a break until your head clears a bit. Anyway, IMO.

I ran very hot for 5 weeks, which ended in the first week of May. Since then, I've lost 8 of my last 13 sessions, and am down about 5 buy-ins over that stretch. I deposited my bankroll into my checking account yesterday. I'm taking a break from poker, we will see how long it lasts. Hopefully at least a few weeks. I am free for the next 4 hours, and would have been at the poker room, but am now trying to get motivated to take a bike ride!

not with the winrates you can generate live, usually win at over 20bb/100

I'm down $1,000 at $1/2 over 200 hours. Definitely no major leaks. The last 10 overpair vs overpair I've had the lower pair (KK vs AA in a button vs straddle two days ago.......JJ vs QQ yesterday).

I'm down $3,000 in EV on all-ins pre-flop.....Lost the last six all-ins AK vs underpair (guys sticking in $150 with 33 and 77).

Opponents hitting EVERY big pot flush, 5 outer, 3 outer on the river. Me missing EVERY flush in decent pots. I haven't dragged a pot over $100 with a flopped set in more than a month.


I've played more than a million hands (6 years of professional live poker). I've never run this bad. Winrate ~$25/hour for my life. $33/hour last year in the same games.

I used to think it was tough to have a break even stretch over 200 hours. Pretty sure there's evil forces at work. I haven't run the variance numbers, but this is non-sensical. Guardian devils taking a dump on my poker luck. Seriously.

The point is........ what is normal luck or bad luck? If you lose 15 coinflips in a row, you might want to check the coin because that's unheard of.

15 coin flips in a row would be 1/64 000 roughly. Not likely but it happens.

So you’ve played professionally for 6 years, playing 105 hours/week with no weeks off to get to a million hands, you’re still playing $1/$2, and you think a sample of 200 hours is enough to think you’re experiencing nonsensical bad luck because you obviously have no leaks.

Say that slow 3 times.

Not what I said. I've played more than a million hands, 6 years of live poker. The vast majority of my hands played were multitabling online. Six years of live poker is a big sample size.

It wasn't six consecutive years either. It was two years.....then 10 years later another 2 years......10 years laters another 2 years. I never plan to play professionally. It just winds up happening.

200 hours is a full-time month of poker. This is my first losing month in 6 years of poker. I play a super nitty low variance style. "No major leaks" is different than "no leaks". Everyone can improve their game. Yes, 8,000 hands of losing money with the idiots I play with is insanely unlucky.

In a short session today, I played with people who:
1. Misread their hand and called a river bet with j-high thinking he had a straight.
2. Called $200 (100BBs) pre with 66.
3. called a pre-flop raise with Q7o. He bet and re-raised all-in for $300 on a Q32 flop (lost to KK).
4 Called a big river bet on a 4-straight, 4-flush board with a set and was shocked and angry he lost.

You can be leaking like a sieve and still beat these oppoenents. They're beyond bad.