Whats a downswing/Upswing???

[kiddo]

Lately there been much discussion about loosing streaks. What is normal? How big can they get?

But I am not sure I understand the concept.

I understand it as follows:

At any certain point you got a bankroll of X dollars. A loosing streak is the biggest gap between this X and your bankroll. For example: 1 january 2003 I got $1500, 1 february 2003 I got $500, 15 february I got $900, 1 march I got $300 and 1 april I got $3000. Then I can say my biggest downswing so far is $1200.

This is if I am normally winning at this level and that means: A winning player can only have downswing (the upswing is forever...) A losing player can only have upswings (he is losing forever...)

Is this the right way to look at up and downswings?

[scotnt73]

if on jan first you have 1000$ and then at the end of january you have 1200$ you are on a 200$ upswing. if you loose 200$ the next week you are on a 200$ downswing you are not even even though you have the same amount you started with. if you win 100$ the next week(you now have 1100$) you are on an overall 100$ downswing with a recent 100$ upswing.

[Griffin]

I think different players define streaks in different ways. Some look at it like you do. Others consider month to month. I look at it from session to session. If I start with $1000 and have one winning session then I've just started a winning streak. This streak will last until I have a losing session. That one losing session will start my losing streak, which will last until I have a winning session.

How big can they get?

I don't know about others, but I haven't played long enough to have one of those month long, tear your hair out losing streaks (I'm sure it's coming though). After only 200 hrs of record-keeping for 1/2 stakes, my biggest losing streak in terms of number of sessions is 3 losing session in a row (has happened 3 times). The most money I've lost in a losing streak for those records is $122 at a rate of losing 11bb per hour.