What to do during a downswing

[FieryJustice]

Thank you for the posts, everyone. I am considering getting a punching bag. I planned on taking a 2 day break but then I realized that today was friday, so I plan on playing for about 3 hours tonight, as my results have always been good on the weekend nights. I believe I am handling the downswing well...I havent broken anything yet and I still push when I am supposed to even though I know that if I get called I will be taking 4th. I suppose I shold look more at the total results and not just the results of 100 game blocks. If I just looked at the last 100 games, I think i'd want to kill myself. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] So, I will start looking in 1000 game blocks. If I lose over 1000 games, I guess I will be a garbage man or something. Seriously though, Thanks for all the advice. It is greatly appreciated.

Jcardshark

[raptor517]

i should be a garbage man then.. holla

[Rojosox]

raptor- where the hell are you? In CA?

[Voltron87]

1. Go out and party tonight. Don't think about SNGs.
2. Go out and party Saturday night. Forget what SNGs are.
3. Go out and spend some money Sunday night. Don't think about poker. Whats 2-3 more buy ins?
4. Monday at 6pm, play poker.


This is the toughest part of poker to master in my opinion, the mental toughness, endurance, and focus to keep playing well. We have big upswings, and it works both ways, we have big downswings.

It's easy to underestimate the short term luck in SNGs as well. I had a terrible day yesterday, literally, I could not win. Down big. I was just losing no matter what. AK to AQ, AA to JJ... then I hit a set on one table and was ready to win. Oh wait. He had a bigger set. @#$)@#*($!. Then I started up one set and everything went right. I ended up moneying in all 4, winning 2 and getting 2nd and 3rd in the others, getting all the way back to even in one set. All that happened was I won a couple 50 50s and was in a good bubble position. And my AK held up against J9. I was steaming pretty bad before the last set, I was still playing ok, but I was pissed. The last set kind of put it in perspective, I felt I played just as well in it as in the others, I just won the 50 50s in them and held up. And that can be the difference between -10 buy ins and net zero. I'm rambling, but coinflips are so big in determining whether SNG players have even days it isn't funny sometimes.

[gumpzilla]

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It's not the chips themselves or the STTs on Stars themselves...it's that a good player can increase ITM/ROI due to more starting chips...

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This seems pretty self-contradictory.

Another factor in Stars having a smaller variance is 9-handed instead of 10-handed play.

[Freudian]

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Do you have any suggestions on ways to improve or strengthen mental toughness when dealing with bad swings? Right now I am re-reading some sections of books that deal with areas I feel are some of the causes of the bad swing, but are there any other suggestions?

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The best way to deal with them is having experienced them before. The fourth-fifth time you have a huge downswing you should have learned that it is not an intergalactic conspiracy but simple variance and that it won't last forever.

I think there is no ultimate strategy for handling downswings/bad beats etc. Much of it is how you are as a person. For some keeping busy (via multitabling) works great in making you let go of past hands, while for some they need to stop playing for a while to get in balance.

[byronkincaid]

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some people are now calling me with absolute trash, which happens to be better than the trash I push with

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I can't believe all these people telling you not to change your game. This is absolute nonsense, you need to be thinking about and improving your game all the time.

Is everyone saying that you are the greatest sng player ever so you don't have to change? Even if you are the best sng player in the world if people are getting a handle on how you play then by being intelligent you can work out ways to throw this back in their faces.

Think and grow rich dude [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

As far as changing your name, there are two ways to look at it. I've just changed my names because I like being anonomous, I play in a way where I'm quite happy to be thought of as a fish. But on the other hand if you're known to be a good player then other good players will try to avoid you leaving you to carve up the fish yourself. ZJ or Dali being 2 obvious examples.

I was running terrible at the start of last month. I went out and got drunk with some friends, came home and played 2 sngs and really got into and enjoyed the games. So I cut down from 6 to 2 tables after that and tryed to concentrate on playing and enjoying the game again. I was surprised just how many moves I was putting on people that I would never have thought of 6 tabling. I stopped recording my results I have no idea what my ROI is or even how many sngs I'm playing now, as far as I'm concerned it's just the money at the end of the month that matters. I'm back up to 4 tables now but if I get stale again then I'll cut back. Running over tables is fun. Churning out 50 sngs a day got to be like working on a production line to me.

Hope some of this is of use to you.

Good luck

BK

[Route246]

I'm guessing that your 500 tourney rush probably made you think you were a better player than you really are. I know getting on a rush does that to me. Unfortunately, a downswing always brings me back down to earth. I've never experienced a rush with an ROI like you have but I've suffered through my share of downswings to the point where I'm pretty humble. Aggressive and cocky, but nonetheless humble to the poker gods. And I've been playing holdem for a little over 25 years now, starting in Reno when Sklansky used to live there, when the players were so bad that you just walked into the room and scooped up the money (almost).

A 100 game block is pretty significant. A 500 game heater like you experienced is unreal, especially for someone who has never had a serious downswing. I'm also guessing that you haven't considered the fact that you may only be experiencing what players refer to as, "The cards breaking even," but in your case, breaking even in the wrong direction. At the level you're playing at there are many very good players who know far more than what you can read in books or on forums like this.

Your psyche appears to be shot, or at least wounded. Losing every coin flip for a sustained length of time is part of poker. Any seasoned veteran here knows that. Some will recommend playing through it, others will recommend taking a break. There is no right or wrong answer. It all depends on you.

A deep self-evaluation is probably in order. When you were on the 500 game rush were you getting lucky more than your fair share? Were you flopping sets more than 12% of the time when you held pocket pairs? Were you winning far more than 50% of the coin flips you were involved in? Did you ever play hunches and win?

These are the sort of things you need to step back and evaluate. Everyone looks like a champion when they get slapped in the face with the deck. A true champion knows money management first and playing cards second.

"It's money management, Stupid" (wise old poker pro I knew)

[ QUOTE ]
Thank you for the posts, everyone. I am considering getting a punching bag. I planned on taking a 2 day break but then I realized that today was friday, so I plan on playing for about 3 hours tonight, as my results have always been good on the weekend nights. I believe I am handling the downswing well...I havent broken anything yet and I still push when I am supposed to even though I know that if I get called I will be taking 4th. I suppose I shold look more at the total results and not just the results of 100 game blocks. If I just looked at the last 100 games, I think i'd want to kill myself. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] So, I will start looking in 1000 game blocks. If I lose over 1000 games, I guess I will be a garbage man or something. Seriously though, Thanks for all the advice. It is greatly appreciated.

Jcardshark

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