Are the peaks and valleys this gut-wrenching???

[seahawktd]

To make a long story short, last week, I felt like I was invincible- a stone cold killer on the poker table.

A week later- I feel like a stone cold.. well, a cold stone. Anything and everything is going wrong, and I feel like I can't do much worse.

Is this normal in poker??? Thanks in advance.

[Pepsquad]

In a word...yes. However if the swings are "consistently" wild, you could probably be making some adjustments in your play.

[axioma]

"Is this normal in poker???"

youve not provided any figures, but i still think the answer will be 'yes'.

[reubenf]

I think the first step to take is to curb the highs. Try very hard to understand when you're running hot that you aren't invincible, that you don't deserve to win every big pot no matter how well you play, and that you don't play perfectly anyway.

If you overestimate yourself when you're up, you'll fall from greatness when you're down and it will hurt. And if you allow yourself too much joy from the luck of the cards, you might start to crave it, and it'll hurt more when you don't have it and you might even play worse trying to get it.

[seahawktd]

Wow, that was a fast response, doesn't anyone sleep at this time of night,lol?

Yes, even though it's nice to get on a rush, I still try to remain objective and remind myself that I was getting good cards and flops and I wasn't getting killed on the river.

I've also noticed opponents really treat you differently when you are winning. One guy next to me asked me if I read poker books. Then another lady said, wow you must pay for your college tuition playing poker. Now if you're losing, people think wow this guy's a sucker, a loose cannon. The guy next to me is not asking if I read poker books, but rather feeling sorry for me and trying to give me advice. The advice he should have given me is not to have the A- high flush when someone hits their full house on the river, lol

[JaysonWeberFCP]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow, that was a fast response, doesn't anyone sleep at this time of night,lol?

Yes, even though it's nice to get on a rush, I still try to remain objective and remind myself that I was getting good cards and flops and I wasn't getting killed on the river.

I've also noticed opponents really treat you differently when you are winning. One guy next to me asked me if I read poker books. Then another lady said, wow you must pay for your college tuition playing poker. Now if you're losing, people think wow this guy's a sucker, a loose cannon. The guy next to me is not asking if I read poker books, but rather feeling sorry for me and trying to give me advice. The advice he should have given me is not to have the A- high flush when someone hits their full house on the river, lol

[/ QUOTE ]

You are absolutely right, unless you are playing with some people who are normally at the table and see you win consistently, a losing night is often a night where they will see you as a sucker and call you down. This is a good thing though, unless your bluffing all the time (and as a consistent winner online you probobly aren't) When you do catch your few good hands on the bad nights, or weeks as it goes, you will often win a few extra dollars just because they view you as a "sucker"

[jailhousejoe]

savour the feeling.. after your 20th peak and 20th valley, you'll barely notice the swings.. just your mistakes.

[LinusKS]

[ QUOTE ]
The advice he should have given me is not to have the A- high flush when someone hits their full house on the river, lol

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a good one.

Other words of wisdom include "never hit a set when someone has a higher one," and "try to draw out, but don't let them draw out on you."

It's all in my book, "Try To Win."

Email me, and I'll send you an copy.

[Piers]

[ QUOTE ]
To make a long story short, last week, I felt like I was invincible- a stone cold killer on the poker table.

A week later- I feel like a stone cold.. well, a cold stone. Anything and everything is going wrong, and I feel like I can't do much worse.

Is this normal in poker???

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes

[SenecaJim]

To make a long answer short--yes. Though partly depends on how long you have been playing. I know not to let results affect you emotionally.

This is just one aspect of the game you work on and develop as you gain experience. Does Dave, Mason, or Ed get like that after wins or losses,,no. But we all have a few light years to go before we are in that company. So don't get discouraged, just try and focus on how you played.

[kevstreet]

YES. Two weeks ago I was posting the same question. I went 13-15 SnG tournaments in a row out of the money. Bad beat after beat lead to bad play and finished with one hell of a night on tilt. Finally I gathered myself, dropped limits, tightened up and played my way through it. Two weeks later I won back all that I lost (slowly) and capped it off with a first place finish in an 1100 person MTT. Hang in there, rest assure the good days are right around the corner.

[Goodnews]

yes, but what I'd like, and the advice I'd like to impart is that everyone gets the occasional wave of frozen cards, the difference between a good player and a great player is that the good player will lose 3 stacks of chips and the great player will only lose 1 stack. I find that when I start catching cold cards, I nurse my stack alot more than my usual very aggressive play.

[olavfo]

A few days ago I enjoyed a good streak of +270BB on 1000 hands, but yesterday I lost 70BB on 400 hands, and there was not much I could do to avoid it (only a few hands worth playing, and most of those I played were beaten). Perfectly natural, I'd say.

I find it helpful to look over the hands I've played after a particularly good or bad session and write some comments in my "poker diary". For example, I've noticed that I become slightly more loose and aggressive when I lose, so now whenever I have a bad downswing I think about these weaknesses of mine whenever I make a critical decision. Helps me ride through the bad streaks.

olavfo

[Dov]

Just make sure you get there by the river.

[JackedUp]

You'll always go through the peaks and valleys. What you do during your downswings really says more about your level of play than your bankroll, or lack of.

I had only been playing on line for a few months and took my $50 deposit up over $500 in a short amount of time playing limits no higher than $.50/$1. I thought, wow what a bunch of fish swimming here on line. Then I dropped back below $200 in less that two sessions on a lot of bad beats. The bad beats suck but the worst part of it is that they caused me to make some questionable calls on hands that I'd normally lay down. Pushing to hard to get it all back is a sure fire way to lose more. The best advice that I got was to take a few days off and then get back at it with renewed focus. I did that and managed to get the bankroll back up.

The point is, you're going to go through the downswings, but don't compound it with stupid play because you're pushing. Take a step back and when you return you should do fine. If the swings really get to you, drop down a level or two. You'll win less total, but lose less too.

[k_squared]

[ QUOTE ]
yes, but what I'd like, and the advice I'd like to impart is that everyone gets the occasional wave of frozen cards, the difference between a good player and a great player is that the good player will lose 3 stacks of chips and the great player will only lose 1 stack. I find that when I start catching cold cards, I nurse my stack alot more than my usual very aggressive play.

[/ QUOTE ]

Do you think that nursing your chips when you have been cathcing cold cards is good? That seems to be a mistake to me. Anytime you change your playing style for reasons other than how a change in how your opponents are reacting to you is a mistake (of course I also mean changing more than the typical changes that result from different positions, and varying of hands to keep opponents guessing)... If you 'slow' down becuase you have been losing then you that is a problem because you are letting the results from past hands directly affect your play (note there is an important and fine line between slowing down because people are playing you to the end because they think you are playing weakly, and so you change your style to account for how they are playing you, and simply doing so because you are catching cold cards... one is a good adjustment, one is a bad adjustment). If you are giving away money by being too aggressive, you should stop being so aggressive regardless of whether or not the cards are cold. I think one reason that a good player does in fact give a awy less money when they get cold cards is because throughout the cold run they manage to continue to play smart poker. They play as aggressively as it is appropriate to, and don't go no tilt... they don't simply tighten up!!!

oh, and peaks and valleys are definately inevitable and brutal! Recently, the last 4 times I have sat down online I lost 30 bets in the first hour or two. I have also looked back at my play and hile it is certainly not perfect a lot of my loses come from having AA crackeb 6-7 off in a heads up pot, or a set of Q's cracked by AK hitting an inside straight draw. Just remember it happens to everyone... and that in the end we want people to play poorly and get lucky because it keeps them coming back.

-k_squared

[Tboner7]

Wow, I'm glad I found this thread. I just went through the same thing. I had $60 a couple weeks ago, turned it into $120, but now am down to $19. /images/graemlins/frown.gif Lots of bad flops. I have been constantly get AJ, K10, type cards but then the flop is like, 6 3 4 suited (not my suit).
And also like others said on here, when I do bad, the table seems to think I'm just some dumb fish and they go after me constantly raising me. Got them a couple times, but not enough to get my stack up.

[EliteNinja]

Just moved up to 2/4

First 2 sessions won $60 total
3rd session lost $186
4th session won $62

Swings are normal (at least I keep telling myself that).

Just take look at your SD/100, make sure it's less than 20.

[Avonal]

Hi,

I started on the internet with $500 in $.50/$1 and moved up the limits to $5/$10 and a $2850 bankrole over a few months.

A fairly steady rise.

Then one fine evening, after reaching $2950, I crashed down to $2300, all in $5/$10, all in one session.

I had been down hundreds many times before and come back and gotten a win, or at least narrowed the lose.

This time it never turned around.

Bad beats that would make you cry if you were a girl, or stuck on your feminine side or something.

Draws ran dry, subtle tilt, a horror show.

Over the past few months I've been between $1700 and $2500 four or five times now, up and down like sysiphus pushing a boulder up a hill only to watch it roll down again in disbelief, dissappointment, shagrin, confusion, pain.

Just what is the deal? Why?

The hardest part for me is that it seems so inexplicable.

I'm studying, gaining experience and would love to understand this.

I appreciate this forum and your question. Perhaps some of the wiser and more experienced minds will shed some light on what must be a common experience.

[Kurn, son of Mogh]

The swings are only gut-wrenching if you let them be gut-wrenching.

[Knyte260]

The solution is to just try your best to forget about the money on any given night. Its ironic I'm posting because I went through a tough session last night. I lost $2100, my worst lost to date thus far at the table limits I play. I drove home without feeling much regret at all, knowing that in the past year I've won more than tenfold the nights loss. When you want to win money over the course of a year, you must stand to lose bad on some nights!

I play the live game NL tables in AC, 5-10s or 10-20s, and I somehow manage to rarely experience bad swings. I will leave the casino down on the night 1 in 7 trips, usually to the nature of $500-1000~. I walk away anywhere above 600 when I feel comfortable and depending on how many hours I put into the session. I am financially secure outside of my poker income, so I have a bankroll to support any loss. You need to believe in yourself, and have the money to lose, as hard as this sounds. If the game is right, I'll put $50,000 into action.

Someone above in this thread posted - savor the feeling while you can, because after a while, you won't even feel the emotions of the ups and downs. As you grow as a card player this is very true. I don't feel the difference on the drive home much between a loss and a win.

-Chris
(I've been creeping the boards for a year, I finally signed up) =D

[Viscant]

The peaks and valleys are probably highest for the complete maniacs (even they have to get periods of good luck). But after that, as a group, we're probably 2nd highest. If you ram and jam the pot with your good draws and raise and re-raise your good hands, when you're running well, you'll be raking in the cash. When those draws aren't hitting and the other guy is sucking out, you're way way behind. Accepting that variance is a good thing is one of the hardest things I've had to do as a poker player.
Yesterday and today I was clearing off the Multipoker.com reload. Yesterday I was down $320. Long long 0for on my draws, and when the draw would come in, someone would have a better one or a boat would hit the river. Bad beats, blah blah, nobody cares. Today the bonus cleared and I cashed out, +$275 for the bonus chase. Draws were coming in ahead of pace, big hands were holding, the 74o suckout guy was just not pulling out that runner runner today. These are the swings you go through when you're playing aggressively. The swings are big, but the overall result is usually up. Let variance have it's way with you in the short term, and let math take effect in the long term.

[AncientPC]

Yes this is normal. People have gone as long as 15k hands of break even before picking up again.