Downswings..Have I had them and just not noticed?

[WannaGoPro]

I have been playing poker online for almost a year now and I have played almost 200,00 hands.

I keep waiting for the inevitable downswings that everyone keeps talking about and I find myself wondering how I will react to them.

Numerous times over the past year I have had downswings of 100BB give or take.

They have never bothered me as I knew I would bounce back.

Are downswings of 100BB or so the "swings" that everyone is talking about?

Or are there worse swings to come?

[helpmeout]

Its not always the BB amounts that matter its more the continual losing sessions that start to hurt.

[Blarg]

Honestly I can feel that way too a lot. The BB amounts can matter plenty, but sometimes it gets to be a big downer just to post many small losing sessions in a row. Just a short while ago I lost about 10 bucks, but it took 9 days to do it. The amount couldn't matter less, it was losing 8 out of those 9 days that was really the major frustrating drag.

[GuyOnTilt]

Are downswings of 100BB or so the "swings" that everyone is talking about?

No. It really depends on what game/limit you play though. Multitabling 15/30 online I was down 90 BB's in the first 30 minutes of my session yesterday. An hour later I was up 40 BB's overall. That is a very aggerssive game with larger than normal swings though. If you play the 2/4 online, you probably won't experience anything larger than 200 BB's. The 15 game, 300-400 BB swings will probably happen.

GoT

[uw_madtown]

[ QUOTE ]
The 15 game, 300-400 BB swings will probably happen.

GoT

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Mother of GOD...

That scares me.

[joker122]

Would you say the 15 game or the 10/20 6m game is more swingy?

[bisonbison]

If by 200,00 you mean twenty-thousand, then yes there will be larger swings.

If by 200,00 you mean two hundred thousand, then I don't believe you.

20,000 hands is not much.

[Lawrence Ng]

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The amount couldn't matter less, it was losing 8 out of those 9 days that was really the major frustrating drag.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aye, I've lost 8/10 sessions, but for about 50 BB. It's the continous losing sessions that can hurt, not the losing of BB itself.

[imitation]

Yeh I'm just going to parrot the losing sessions thing they hurt, dropping 100BB in a session full of suckouts isn't really horrible, especially if you have some stellar performances around it. But its when you play 10k hands at breakeven that it starts feeling like a grind.

[Cerril]

The longer your sessions in hands the more likely you are to have milder downswings. Obviously good players can have terribly huge downswings, but if you play very long (in terms of hand #s) sessions then you won't have nearly as many bad sessions in a row.

On the other hand, if you played relatively few hands (if there's a missing 0 that's not really true, but if there's just a misplaced comma then 20k hands is *relatively* few) then you might have just hit a smooth spot in variance.

100BB isn't nothing though, my biggest swing at about 20k hands is 75BB or so over a week (unfortunately it came after double-jumping limits way over my bankroll).

If you can take 100BB downswings without flinching then it's likely that ones twice as big won't bother you either. If you haven't been taking out a lot of money from your bankroll then it'll just be a drop in the bucket after figuring in your wins (assuming that you're showing 2BB/100 or better) and you can look at your bankroll without seeing an unpleasant effect.

There are definitely good and bad times to hit your bad swings, and they come along infrequently enough that even among equally skilled players and massive numbers of hands you'll still see some whose luck played a large role in their overall success (due to major downswings or upswings hitting just at a change in bankroll, or during financial crises).

[MicroBob]

good catch bison. i didn't see that it was a zero short after the comma...thought he had played 200k hands and I was pretty impressed with his lack of significant downswings.


20k hands in diddly-squat in the long-run. after 100k hands or so I expect most winning players will have a 150-200BB downswing or larger.


if it really is 200k hands then you've probably gotten pretty lucky if you really haven't had a downswing greater than 100BB.....but it is possible I suppose.
But at some point you will have a 100BB downswing over a couple days or longer.
Then maybe you'll win 20BB of it back and start to think you'll be on your way back but you'll end up negative 50BB for that session....
and then you'll have another 50-75BB downswing (with a couple of ups but mostly downs) over the next couple days and before you know it you'll be 200-250BB's in the red.

It happens.

If the original poster (wannabe pro I think was the name) could come back and clarify whether it was 20k or 200k it would be appreciated. If it was actually 2k then I guess we're due for yet ANOTHER talk on how long the long-run really is. 20k just isn't enough to tell AT ALL.
I've had runs of 10k or longer where I would have been thrilled to be just break-even.


FWIW - my longest downswing was 450BB but that was a combination of really unlucky beats AND inferior play. I definitely would have had a big downswing with the beats I was taking....but it wouldn't have been nearly so bad with a few better decisions in there.

[nykenny]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
The amount couldn't matter less, it was losing 8 out of those 9 days that was really the major frustrating drag.

[/ QUOTE ]

Aye, I've lost 8/10 sessions, but for about 50 BB. It's the continous losing sessions that can hurt, not the losing of BB itself.

[/ QUOTE ]

if your hourly rate is 2BB/hr and you play 3hrs a day, in 10 days you are "supposed" to be up 60BB. in stead, you were down 50BB, so you are 110BB behind, in other words.

usually, that's how I feel - anything that has negative impact on my hourly rate, I will feel bad, otherwise, fine.

am i the only one who feels this way?

Kenny

[sourbeaver]

I haven't experienced the horrible and "inevitable" downswings I've read about numerous times. Sure, I'll go down 75-100BB (I play NL so that's not very relevant though) in the midst of a session but I'll go back in positive territory almost every time, I went through my excel file and could only find 2 down sessions which make up for around 0.5% of my time played.

Note : My number of hands played is not considered "long term", so bare with me.

[nykenny]

[ QUOTE ]
Are downswings of 100BB or so the "swings" that everyone is talking about?

No. It really depends on what game/limit you play though. Multitabling 15/30 online I was down 90 BB's in the first 30 minutes of my session yesterday. An hour later I was up 40 BB's overall. That is a very aggerssive game with larger than normal swings though. If you play the 2/4 online, you probably won't experience anything larger than 200 BB's. The 15 game, 300-400 BB swings will probably happen.

GoT

[/ QUOTE ]

that's right on the money!

[nykenny]

[ QUOTE ]
Would you say the 15 game or the 10/20 6m game is more swingy?

[/ QUOTE ]

probably still the 10/20 6max games...

[Schneids]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
Would you say the 15 game or the 10/20 6m game is more swingy?

[/ QUOTE ]

probably still the 10/20 6max games...

[/ QUOTE ]

Definitely 15/30 fulls and it is not even close.

[dogmeat]

Kenny,

I feel the same way about my "non-wins". If I play for a week and win only 10BB, then I had a terrible week. I'm trying to think more along the lines of monthly income, instead of the hourly, but it's tough.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[nykenny]

Mike,

hmmm, it seems like we have different experience on the 15ring and 10short...

well you might be right. it could just be my lack of adjustment in 6max...

Kenny

[Blarg]

That's how I feel. I know that even one or two bad days brings your average plunging way, way down. So sometimes I'll lose no opportunity to beat myself up about it.

Like noted above, it's not just the negative results that make an impact directly, but the fact that they replace positive ones in the same time frame. If your expectation is 50 BB and you lose 50, you're 100 BB behind, not just 50. So even trivial losses or breaking even affects your average earn quite a bit.