How long can a bad streak last?

[winky51]

How long can bad streaks last???

When should you think "hey I think its me and not my cards!"

Just a curious question.

I figure that when you lose a week straight you gotta examine your play because your making mistakes.

Usually my bad streaks last at most 3 days. Usually its one day. It also is usually being beat on the river, missing almost all of your draws. and losing AK to junk heads up when they flop a pair and you don't.

Whats your experience?

[Alobar]

It depends on how many hands you play. I don't think I've had a bad streak so far that was longer then maybe 4K hands. Thats about 2-3 days for me. For someone that might be a whole a month.

[Bob T.]

It depends on how many hands you play.

It also depends on how aggressively, how well you play. If you put youself in a lot of thin situations, your variance could go up, and depending on what your true win rate is, it could take a long time for your win rate to overcome the variance.

Good luck,
play well,

Bob T.

[umdpoker]

forever and ever and ever. or at least it can seem that way. anything is possible, but i would say that at 5k hands, you should be a little worried if you are down a significant amount.

[BugsBunny]

Worst bad streak I went through was something around 17-19K hands. In that time I never went below about 190BB down.

This was almost entirely playing 6 max games - which have greater variance to start. In reviewing things later I didn't help matters by playing too LAGish even for shorthanded games, so tilt was definitely a factor in prolonging the streak - but a lot of it was just bad cards. Fortunately I play with sufficent bankroll that dropping down was never a serious consideration - but it defintely played serious games with my head. I was, literally, at the point where I started to think I might never win again and started to dread playing. It ultimately lasted about 3+ weeks.

That's the bad news. The good news is that after that downturn I went on a hot streak that more than made up for it. That bad streak also, ultimately, helped me improve my game, possibly by quite a large factor - which may be part of the reason for the hot streak.

With all that said I hope you never run into one as bad as I did. But it was my first real bad streak in about 6 months of play. Before that I was looking at bad streaks that lasted a day or so. Or I might run flat for an semi-extended period.

Edit: when it did turn around it turned around fast. Within less then 2K hands I was back on the plus side for the entire set (call it 22K) of hands - and haven't looked back since.

[LetsRock]

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How long can bad streaks last???


[/ QUOTE ]

This is unknowable. They last as long as they do. You can't predict when or if it will end.


[ QUOTE ]
When should you think "hey I think its me and not my cards!"

[/ QUOTE ]

You should be reflecting on this for everyhand you play, don't wait for a bad streak to happen to be looking closly at your play. I review every session and try to find mistakes that I made, even if it was a winning session.