Running Bad: A Perspective (LC)

[beset7]

I've been playing for a living for a while now. I have a family of four that I support playing poker while I finish off my last year of law school. I've got great job prospects for after school and I would never consider poker to be a long-term viable career for me. But it has paid the bills and my results have been very solid over the last 6 months.

I've often talked about "running bad" or having a "downswing." This has usually ment that I had a couple days in a row where i dropped 2-3 buyins. Or, a week or so were I'd end each session down a buy-in. I play about 10k hands a week if that puts these swings in perspective for you.

Then, 3 weeks ago after making my mid-september cash out i began what I have now discovered to be a REAL downswing. Not just a few bad sessions, but a legitimate, honest to god dehabilitating downswing. Over 20k hands I am down 12 buyins. I have had:

[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Set over set 11 times
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] KK v AA all-in preflop 9 times
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] Set v. suited TPTK who hits runner-runner flush 5 times (3 times with very deep stacks that got all-in on the flop or turn)
[img]/images/graemlins/diamond.gif[/img] An abormally low number of sets with low PPs

Much of these occurences just happened to come to be when stacks were deep.

I'm sure I could list more statistical improbabilities. Myself and 2 other players that I trust and respect have poured over my pokertracker DB and found no major leaks in my play. There are always things to work on and I learned a lot from this process but I was by no means hemmoraging money through bad play. This is a REAL downswing. If I was a live cash game pro this would amount to a losing year I suppose.

I share this only because I think at times in these forums there is a remarkable naivety concerning what constitutes a real downswing, what type of win-rates are actually sustainable, etc.

On the positive side, i believe i will come out of this a better poker player, with a more marked detachment from results and a clearer understanding of what type of fluctuations are possible in the outer margins of winning and losing.

Unfortunately, too boot, after playing tilt-free poker during this hailstorm of improbabilities, i decided to take a shot at some bigger games (chasing losses. I know, i should probably go to GA) and my bankroll now lays in tatters. Luckily, like any good player should, i have living expenses stored up. But now I have to build up my roll as I can only live on savings for so long.

You guys have helped me immensely over the last year or so and I attribute the 150k hands I played at 8ptb/100 over 3 different limits in large part to that. So, may you all run well! I'll be back to the 100 and 200nl games to give swolfe misery soon enough.