How long have you ran bad? Around 15,000 hands and counting for me.

[krazyace5]

I am on a 15,000 hand downswing/breakeven run. I play $50 6 max, this started when I lost 5-6 buy ins taking a shot at a maniac at the $100- 6 max. maniac kept beating me even when I had AA to their 10 4 os for example.

Baack to $50 NL 6 max. Anyway ever since then I have been playing breakeven slightly negative poker.

My big pocket pairs are not winning, my big hands are not holding up and when they do they are not getting paid off.

So whats the longest bad run in terms of hands played you have had, anything I should look for in my playing?

[amoeba]

I think a lot of my bad swings have been from going against maniacs.

I've lost about 6 buyins to maniacs and just misplaying with too much aggression with missed AK against maniacs.

[Suntzu00000]

This is not meant to be an inditement of your poker skills or talent, but at 15000 hands the problem is much more likely to be you than the cards. I have been in the same boat. If you dont have it already buy poker tracker. It will let you review all the hands you lost money on. I was surprised at how many hands I tried to bluff or draw without odds when I checked it for myself. I found that sessions where I thought my cards were awful were almost always filled with just as much bad play as bad luck. Also, there are a couple of books that will have you crushing $50 NL in about 5 minutes.

Pot Limit & NL Holdem by Stewart Reuben and Bob Ciaffone

Harrington on Holdem (2+2 Publishing) you can buy it at this site.

These books along with supersystem are the bibles of NL.

[poboy]

That is a very long downswing, my longest has lasted around 2-3k hands. When I went back and took a good look at what was happening, I found it had very little to do with my cards. What I found was that it started with a string of bad beats, but than I followed it up with a period of weak-tight-passive play. I think it is natural for someone to go into a defensive shell after a bad run, but this obviously doesn't make for good poker. I'm not saying that this is neccesarily what is happening with you but take a look and I bet you will find you are doing something differently. JMO

[kongo_totte]

I'm right now on the worse bad run for me so far. For the last 45,000 hands I have been up 10 PTBB/100. For the last 2,500 hands I'm -5PTBB/100.

Can this just be due to bad luck? I hate it. I get so insecure of my play. Still, I'm not sure if I'm playing badly or if it's the cards. I mean, alot of it are bad beats, but alot of the time, the money goes in when I'm a dog, but it seems to be alot of set over sets, PFR hitting his set of ducks on a 8 4 2 board etc.

Just needed to vent. Thanks

[amoeba]

yes I've been seeing this too. its not badbeats but more running in to big monsters and at the same time not getting your monsters paid off.

[Mercman572]

[ QUOTE ]
yes I've been seeing this too. its not badbeats but more running in to big monsters and at the same time not getting your monsters paid off.

[/ QUOTE ]

This happens to me sometimes too. I like the deep stack post on reducing others implied odds that was on the front page a few days ago. When people lable us as TAGs their implied odds go way up. So they call raises with their low PP and fold a missed flop: giving us small wins and big losses with big hands. This might not be the case for you guys but I know it was for me.
Sorry to the poster, I don't remember his name, but maybe give this a try:
" The solution lies in two parts:

1. just play good.
2. cut down their odds and improve shania by adding hands to your raising repertoire.
well, you raise the AQ etc. but you also raise the 67s with position once in a while. check this out: if they can only count on winning that big pot 1/4 of the time (say you have a non-big hand 1/4 of the time and the other 2/4 you're able to get away) then their implied odds are cut way, way down. "

I know alot of people don't even bother with table image at low levels, but I believe it is necessary to some extent. When people are seeing you follow most of your raises and show them down they might try to draw out on you. But if they are seeing you fold or check/fold a decent amount in a short time when your raises are called they may label you as Helmuth's "jackal." This may, tho unlikely, discourage people on trying to draw out on you, but it will probably (in my experice over the last 1500 hands even at the 25NL) lead to your big hands being paid off more.

[amoeba]

This is good advice, however I think some of my problem also lies in me playing my small hands like big hands as the majority of the time you miss the flop with 67s and have to extricate yourself by bluffing.

[PokerFink]

To put it bluntly: you are not playing well.

A winning NL player will not have a 15,000 hand downswing at NL50 if they are playing their A game (or even their B game). Period.

[PokerFink]

[ QUOTE ]
This is good advice, however I think some of my problem also lies in me playing my small hands like big hands as the majority of the time you miss the flop with 67s and have to extricate yourself by bluffing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Check, fold. Problem solved.

[kongo_totte]

[ QUOTE ]


Can this just be due to bad luck? I hate it. I get so insecure of my play. Still, I'm not sure if I'm playing badly or if it's the cards. I mean, alot of it are bad beats, but alot of the time, the money goes in when I'm a dog, but it seems to be alot of set over sets, PFR hitting his set of ducks on a 8 4 2 board etc.

Just needed to vent. Thanks

[/ QUOTE ]

See what I mean?

Party Poker No-Limit Hold'em, $ BB (10 handed) converter (http://www.selachian.com/tools/bisonconverter/hhconverter.cgi)

CO ($73.45)
Button ($9.75)
Hero ($48.75)
BB ($50.3)
UTG ($62.04)
UTG+1 ($39.5)
UTG+2 ($44.25)
MP1 ($121.55)
MP2 ($49.1)
MP3 ($39.95)

Preflop: Hero is SB with A/images/graemlins/club.gif, 6/images/graemlins/club.gif. Hero posts a blind of $0.25.
UTG calls $0.50, UTG+1 calls $0.50, UTG+2 calls $0.50, <font color="#666666">3 folds</font>, CO calls $0.50, <font color="#666666">1 fold</font>, Hero (poster) completes, BB checks.

Flop: ($3) A/images/graemlins/spade.gif, T/images/graemlins/club.gif, K/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(6 players)</font>
Hero checks, BB checks, UTG checks, <font color="#CC3333">UTG+1 bets $0.5</font>, UTG+2 folds, <font color="#CC3333">CO raises to $2</font>, <font color="#CC3333">Hero raises to $7</font>, BB folds, UTG folds, UTG+1 folds, CO calls $5.

Turn: ($17.50) J/images/graemlins/club.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $8</font>, CO calls $8.

River: ($33.50) 2/images/graemlins/spade.gif <font color="#0000FF">(2 players)</font>
<font color="#CC3333">Hero bets $18</font>, <font color="#CC3333">CO raises to $40</font>, Hero calls $15.25 (All-In).

Final Pot: $106.75

Results:
Hero has Ac 6c (flush, ace high).
CO has 9c Qc (straight flush, king high).
Outcome: CO wins $106.75.

[pmuir10]

is it just me or have a bunch of the SSNL player been on bad runs since mid to late may? i know i sure as hell have

[kongo_totte]

[ QUOTE ]
is it just me or have a bunch of the SSNL player been on bad runs since mid to late may? i know i sure as hell have

[/ QUOTE ]

Thát's when it started for me.

[-Skeme-]

[ QUOTE ]
is it just me or have a bunch of the SSNL player been on bad runs since mid to late may? i know i sure as hell have

[/ QUOTE ]

Same. Not a huge bad run for me, but a small downswing.

[gulebjorn]

[ QUOTE ]
is it just me or have a bunch of the SSNL player been on bad runs since mid to late may? i know i sure as hell have

[/ QUOTE ]

Yep, cost me almost half my BR

[kongo_totte]

Wow. Is it really so that alot of 2+2ers have beens running bad lately. Maybe someone should start a poll? If it's really so, could this be due to anything but bad luck? Like, a different kind of players playing this time of year or something like that?

[theblitz]

I ran into this problem so I decided to look at my overall stats.
I compared my winning times to my losing times.

One thing that stuck out was my VP$IP and PFR% had gone down. They were way too low for 6-max.

So, I decided to play a few more hands that I would normally fold - especially in late position. Suddenly my numbers went up again!

This is just an example.

PT paid for itself in one day's play!

[theblitz]

You forgot the absolute 100% bible of them all -

Sklansky's Theory of Poker.

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
but at 15000 hands the problem is much more likely to be you than the cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had 10k hand stretch at -1 bb/100, followed by 10k hands at 13 bb/100, followed by another 5k stretch at -3 bb/100. Explain.

So are you saying that for 10k I played bad, then all of a sudden I decided to play good, then play bad again?

Please, if you are going to critisize someone else over the fact that just after 15k hands they are playing bad, then I think you obviously have never hit a bad run, so please STFU.

Lawrence

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
I am on a 15,000 hand downswing/breakeven run. I play $50 6 max, this started when I lost 5-6 buy ins taking a shot at a maniac at the $100- 6 max. maniac kept beating me even when I had AA to their 10 4 os for example.

[/ QUOTE ]

It's happenening to me too quite it bit the last couple of weeks and it's hurting the bb/100 dept bigtime.

[ QUOTE ]
So whats the longest bad run in terms of hands played you have had, anything I should look for in my playing?

[/ QUOTE ]

I went back to PT myself, looked at the hands where I loss most or all my stack and checked how I played them. I'd say out of a 100 hands where I lost most/all of my stack, 90 of them were played correctly or most likely correctly.

For example, shoving an all-in preflop raise with KK or AA against another raiser and getting called, and losing to whatever they hit. This stuff takes a huge toll on variance, but I'm fine with it as PT tells me this this move is still very profitable.

[Lawrence Ng]

[ QUOTE ]
A winning NL player will not have a 15,000 hand downswing at NL50 if they are playing their A game (or even their B game). Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously a "WINNING" NL player won't have a downswing, otherwise they are winning. Thank you for stating absolutely nothing and trolling this thread.

Lawrence

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A winning NL player will not have a 15,000 hand downswing at NL50 if they are playing their A game (or even their B game). Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously a "WINNING" NL player won't have a downswing, otherwise they are winning. Thank you for stating absolutely nothing and trolling this thread.

Lawrence

[/ QUOTE ]
By "winning" he means "someone with a positive expectation in the game." But it is still ridiculous to think that they can't have big downswings. It is also very likely that the downswing was deepened by poor play. My guess is that the OP is a winning player when not tilting but that he had a bad run and compounded it with tilt. Obviously that is just a guess, but that seems to be quite a common pattern (*cough* me *cough*)

[amoeba]

heh isn't that the truth. I think we bluff too much while on tilt.

btw, I read your history and it seems like almost exactly how I would play alot of them.

I won't be home today so I can't send you history until tomorrow.

But yeah, we gotta bluff less.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
heh isn't that the truth. I think we bluff too much while on tilt.

btw, I read your history and it seems like almost exactly how I would play alot of them.

I won't be home today so I can't send you history until tomorrow.

But yeah, we gotta bluff less.

[/ QUOTE ]
Did you like the TT/66 hand? I had the perfect read. Maybe I should have just pushed the flop.

[poboy]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
but at 15000 hands the problem is much more likely to be you than the cards.

[/ QUOTE ]

I've had 10k hand stretch at -1 bb/100, followed by 10k hands at 13 bb/100, followed by another 5k stretch at -3 bb/100. Explain.

So are you saying that for 10k I played bad, then all of a sudden I decided to play good, then play bad again?

Please, if you are going to critisize someone else over the fact that just after 15k hands they are playing bad, then I think you obviously have never hit a bad run, so please STFU.

Lawrence

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow. Never have I seen someone so completely misunderstand something. The poster was offering a very valid piece of advice, which is more than I can say for your post. Are you implying that just because you've had a 15k bad run that it is normal and doesn't merit any analysis? Is that the extent of your advice?

[amoeba]

thats the one where you try to bluff the Ace but he called you down anyways right?

yeah I liked it. unfortunately it didn't work out for you.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
thats the one where you try to bluff the Ace but he called you down anyways right?

yeah I liked it. unfortunately it didn't work out for you.

[/ QUOTE ]
Yup. His large preflop raise screamed QQ-TT. So on the Axx flop I check min-raised his bet and then put him in on the turn. He called with TT. Bah.

[amoeba]

I forget, was the flop rainbow? I think this works better if it was, well at least against a semithinking player.

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
I forget, was the flop rainbow? I think this works better if it was, well at least against a semithinking player.

[/ QUOTE ]
I don't remember, but who the heck calls off their entire stack with TT on an Axx flop? I think it was too incremental. I should have just pushed the flop and I probably would have gotten the fold. That guy was the biggest calling station in the world, though. I should have really just folded. Good to see that my read was spot on though. Too bad I had to drop a buy-in to confirm that fact. /images/graemlins/frown.gif

[beset7]

I think everyone who is "running bad" should do themselves the favor of adding "Gambling Theory and Other Topics" to there reading list. Though it can be a little dry it helped me to stop speculating so much about what is or isn't possible in terms of downswings and get a somewhat more informed understanding of certain mathematical concepts that poker players tend to play fast and loose with (variance, standard deviation, confidence level, etc). Just a suggestion.

BTW, I was running so bad playing NL in April that I switched back to playing limit hold em and limit stud high and stud h/l for a while. I went on a kind of a meta-tilt after a 5k hand NLHE downswing that I just had to switch things up and it's been great for my game and helped me turn things around. Downswings playing limit are just much more tolerable because it is a death of a thousand lashes instead of an a-bomb. Slowly losing 150xBB over a week with little ups and downs in between is one thing, losing 7 buyins in an hour after getting your money in as a big favorite each time and then going on mega tilt and putting your whole bankroll on the line playing pot-limit omaha 5/10 blinds, now thats another thing completely /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[poboy]

[ QUOTE ]

I'd say out of a 100 hands where I lost most/all of my stack, 90 of them were played correctly or most likely correctly.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you realize how utterly ridiculous this sounds. You're saying that you got your money in as a large favorite 100 times and got sucked out on 90 times? You are either the unluckiest person on the planet or you are wrong. I'm going to put money on the latter. JMO

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

I'd say out of a 100 hands where I lost most/all of my stack, 90 of them were played correctly or most likely correctly.


[/ QUOTE ]

Do you realize how utterly ridiculous this sounds. You're saying that you got your money in as a large favorite 100 times and got sucked out on 90 times? You are either the unluckiest person on the planet or you are wrong. I'm going to put money on the latter. JMO

[/ QUOTE ]
Villain raises in MP you re-raise with AKs he calls. Flop comes xxx two of your suit. You bet, he check/raises, you call. He bets half pot on the turn blank, you call. He bets half pot on the river, you fold. You played the hand correctly, but you lost a lot. Doesn't mean it was a suckout.

[poboy]

If you read his original post he is talking about suck-outs. I don't know I just find it hard to believe that someone is playing 90% of their hands correctly and losing money. Hell I find it hard to believe that anyone is playing 90% of their hands correctly, win or lose. In your theoretical hand wouldn't it be better to push or fold the flop after his C/R? JMO

[TheWorstPlayer]

[ QUOTE ]
If you read his original post he is talking about suck-outs. I don't know I just find it hard to believe that someone is playing 90% of their hands correctly and losing money. Hell I find it hard to believe that anyone is playing 90% of their hands correctly, win or lose. In your theoretical hand wouldn't it be better to push or fold the flop after his C/R? JMO

[/ QUOTE ]
I kinda agree with you that it is unlikely for someone to play 90% of their hands correctly. But not impossible and Laurence is a very good player and the players at SSNL are fairly straightforward for the most part, so I believe it is possible that 90% figure is accurate. Although of course it can also be an exaggeration. He is definitely right though that when you get sucked out on a few times and you draw with correct odds a few times and miss them all and when you flop monsters just to lose it all to bigger monsters, you can get some really horrendous results for a fairly long time even when you are playing well.

[swedeD]

Some of the leaks are not due to the wrong strategy. I haven't had such a long downswing as 15 k hands, but when I had longer downswings at the "easier to beat" NL25, I made a lot of mistakes, for sure, but most of the mistakes depended on a lack of concentration, making wrong reads or no reads at all. When I just looked at a loosing hand in retrospective, I couldn't find any big mistake, but when I also tried to remember what my read of the player was, it was just blank. I was playing like a robot with a un-changeable strategy. And poker felt more and more frustrating.

What you need after a long downswing like this is:

A WEAK WITHOUT PLAYING POKER

I always works for me. After a weak of no playing at all, maybe just reading some theory or thinking about my play, everything feels more clear and easy to handle.

If you have had a break, but it still feels like you are stuck, it can also help to "invest" some of your bankroll to play at higher stakes/different games to broaden your understanding of poker.

When I was throwing up at the NL25 tables and my winrate was slowly decreasing after every session, I moved up. Poker became fun again and I think my understanding of the game have received a boost. If I suspect I'm not good enough for this limit, I will move down again. But even if I loose a few buyins, I still think it's +EV for me in the long run.

[Macquarie]

I think that long bad runs are perfectly normal, particularly for very tight players who get involved in far fewer large hands and so are more sensitive to a few bad beats.

I was looking at some numbers. Say you're running 5PTBB/100 at NL50. 15k hands -&gt; 750 dollars profit. Now bad beats are part of the game, and a certain number are to be expected during 15k hands. But what if during your 15k you get a few more bad beats that expected? Each extra bad beat for your stack actually cuts your profit by $100 (a $50 dollar win becomes a $50 loss). So it actually only takes two or three extra bad beats in 15k hands to destroy your PTBB/100.

People often say that you need 10k hands before you start discussing your win rate - i'm sure this is true, but I believe that you need _far_ more hands before it the error on your win rate is much smaller that the win rate itself.

[PokerFink]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
A winning NL player will not have a 15,000 hand downswing at NL50 if they are playing their A game (or even their B game). Period.

[/ QUOTE ]

Obviously a "WINNING" NL player won't have a downswing, otherwise they are winning. Thank you for stating absolutely nothing and trolling this thread.

Lawrence

[/ QUOTE ]

I think it's funny you called me a troll when you totally misunderstood what I said.

First of all, as TWP said, a "winning" player is someone who has a positive expectation in a game. I would expect you to know this.

Second, I have never had anything even approaching a 15,000 hand downswing. I haven't had anything approaching a 5,000 hand downswing. I doubt I've ever lost over 2,000 hands, but it's quite possible. I don't need PT to tell me this, I don't even have PT. I can just look at my logs.

Granted I usually play one table, so 2,000 hands is a long time for me, and I don't screw up as much as most people since I have better reads and feel for my table.

But, a player with a positive expectation in a soft, baby no limit game is only going to lose if they are playing poorly. I played about 250 hands this morning over two tables, doubled up three players with flush vs higher flush, boat vs higher boat (which I admittedly played horribly and re-raised the river when I should not have) and QQ vs AA overpair vs overpair. And after all that, I lost a whopping 5 bucks (NL100) because I was on my A game (minus the aformentioned full house hand that I butchered horribly).

I refuse to believe that over 2 samples of 15,000 hands if you have a 13PTBB/100 and -3PTBB/100 that you had the same quality of play over both samples. That is total bull.

Suckouts are a mathematical fact; how well you play is not.

The hand to hand variance of how well you play is infinitely more important to how much you win or lose than the mathematical variance of suckouts.

[Jocke_F]

me too, went really well in mars and april, but may and the beginning of june has been a total disaster. My big hands either doesnt get paid of, or they get sucked out by ridicilous bad beats which puts me on tilt and then the session goes bad.

[swedeD]

I think it can happen that you have a downswing of 15 k hands, but I don't think it's normal. A downswing of 15 k hands equals around 200 hours of poker at one table. So for a proffessional live poker player, this downswing equals more than a month of playing without making a profit. At low stakes like NL50 I think you have to take a step back and look at your strategy and play.

[Nato76]

May was a bad month and June isn't looking too good either.

[Macquarie]

[ QUOTE ]
I played about 250 hands this morning over two tables, doubled up three players with flush vs higher flush, boat vs higher boat (which I admittedly played horribly and re-raised the river when I should not have) and QQ vs AA overpair vs overpair. And after all that, I lost a whopping 5 bucks (NL100) because I was on my A game (minus the aformentioned full house hand that I butchered horribly).


[/ QUOTE ]

Dropping 300 dollars and recovering again it in 250 hands is a great example of why NL is so volatile, and how statistical "anomalies" like running bad over 15k hands are to be sometimes expected.

The reason that the sound advice of having 10-20 buy-ins to play at a level is correct is that a winning player will occasionally drop a big fraction of these buy-ins through no fault of his own.

[poboy]

I don't think anyone believes it can't happen. It is certainly possible that someone could catch some really horrific luck for an extended period of time, but it is more probable that there is another explanation for it. I really don't think it is normal for a winning player to have a long downswing while he is playing as well or nearly as well as he is capable of. I hope I'm right about this because I'm not sure I could take a 15K hand downswing without losing my mind. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[Finite_Risk]

ditto...same Bat Timing...same Bat Losses

[crazygoose]

Pokertracker is key. When I'm running bad I review some hands and find that it started with some bad beats followed by bad play. I post a lot of the hands I lost money on to find out if it's me or the cards. Usually its a combination. Read the books and you'll be fine. PS At 50 NL full ring I'm even over 15k hands while at 50NL 6 max I am running at 12 PT BB/100 over 4k hands. I am playing better now but I wasn't really playing all that worse at full ring. Anyways, GL.

[Snag]

I've had cold swings like that too, man. What's helped me is a week or two away from the game to relax, and help myself realize that I am a winning player, and that my game is good. If you take 15 bad beats in a row, your play will suffer, because you'll constantly be questioning how you could have avoided each beat - and thus questioning your play.

[PokerFink]

[ QUOTE ]
Dropping 300 dollars and recovering again it in 250 hands is a great example of why NL is so volatile, and how statistical "anomalies" like running bad over 15k hands are to be sometimes expected.

[/ QUOTE ]

It was actually 200 since two the of players were half buy-ins, but I see what you're getting at.

The inherent mathematical variance in the game can screw you up over a morning of play. Over 15,000 hands, the mathematical variance in the game will even out to a much greater degree than over one morning.

The variance of how well you are playing, however, does not even out on its own, and can cause extended downswings.

People blame it on "running bad" but usually they are playing bad as well.

[Suntzu00000]

my bad, of course the TOP

[Suntzu00000]

Hey man you need to chill. You WERE playing worse when you were losing, its just that simple. 15K is not the long run granted, but its hardly the short run either. Take ownership of your results. I suppose its easier to believe that when your winning its you and when your losing its the cards.

[edge]

My bad runs tend to last around 3k hands, and I drop about 5-10 buyins in that time. I tilt way too much during these downswings, so I would hate to see myself in a 15k funk.