A request for experienced winning players re: inevitable downswings

[psyduck]

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ive made a few posts like this in the past. let me first say that i play a lot. ok great. so now look, variance happens, variance sucks, but you know what? you can prove how it happens with statistics.. and its not likely for a 15% roi player to go ootm 26 in the row, it WILL happen over a big enough sample. some players are lucky enough to run well over their entire careers. (well meaning not god awful enough to drop 26 in a row anyways..) however, it could take hundreds of thousands of sngs to see both ends of variance, and see everything. no one. and i mean no one, will ever get to that point. some people will see good runs, some willl see bad, some will see both.

i dont doubt that a LOT of players that could be VERY solid sngers have quit because they started off wrong, went on an awful run, ootm 20+ in a row, something like that. i agree with lacky that i have NO clue how recreational players can deal with that. ugh, its awful. anyways, now im gonna talk about me..

ok, so ive played more 55s than prolly anybody over the last 6 months. i 8-12 tabled them about 100 hours a day. anyways, i had THREE 50+ buyin drops, 18 ootm in a row, 22 ootm IN THE SAME DAY AS THE 18, then 26/27 ootm. it was funny because the 18 and 22 was in a 12 hour period, but so was a 13/14 itm run which kinda helped it bounce back. as irie said, was i playing perfect? no, i never do. was i on tilt, possibly, but not that it would affect my game in a huge degree.. anyways, these things DOOOOO happen.. donbuttons is a good friend of mine, and recently in the 109s he had something awful like a 65 buyin drop. SIXTY FIVE. that blows. we talked a lot about variance, and basically complained about how awful it can be.

in the 109s and 215s, ive had a 50+ buyin drop in EACH Of them, but no ootm in a row over 14. just a matter of time though.. anyways, best advice i can give is to keep yer head straight, play at a level yer comfortable with, and KEEP PLAYING. play through it. in the end, it will make you a much stronger and better player. holla

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just wanted to thank you for that post.

[Newt_Buggs]

not sure how much this will help since I haven't had any downswings out of the ordinary at the $50s. After that nice heater for the first 230 I hit a frustrating cold streak though, then another around 1100.

[Mr_J]

"since I haven't had any downswings out of the ordinary"

That's a very nice graph, very nice roi as well.

[curtains]

I look at things the exact opposite of how raptor does. My conclusion is that Party is rigged. Especially during the last 4-5 days. Before that everything was normal.

[johnnybeef]

i had my first losing month ever in june....part of it was due to playing above my head, part was due to a 50 buyin downswing that happened at the middle of the month. previous to that my largest was 20 buyins, so 50 was very frustrating. the beginning of it was due to a few bad plays, but the end was due to variance. it seemed as if i lost every coinflip that mattered, or lost whenever i was all in with the best hand. it sucks, but every big swing has caused me to improve my game. just bust your but, and review your game, and you will come through it.

[jon462]

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i had my first losing month ever in june....part of it was due to playing above my head, part was due to a 50 buyin downswing that happened at the middle of the month. previous to that my largest was 20 buyins, so 50 was very frustrating. the beginning of it was due to a few bad plays, but the end was due to variance. it seemed as if i lost every coinflip that mattered, or lost whenever i was all in with the best hand. it sucks, but every big swing has caused me to improve my game. just bust your but, and review your game, and you will come through it.

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Also, you were probably folding K4o to pushes on the bubble way too much. Just a guess.

[johnnybeef]

spite bitch

[skierdude1000]

How the hell everyone make such nice charts?

[tjh]

You know.. this all works both ways.

So a winning player can lose dozens of SNG's in a row. This fact can lead a player in the midst of a downswing to think one of two ways.

<ul type="square">[*]I am a winner just having bad luck [*]Perhaps I am not a winner at all [/list]
You HAVE to look at both possible truths. You must continually evaluate your play. The more games you play the closer your results will reflect wether you are good or not. Keep playing yes but never stop thinking and evaluating.

I have played less than 300 SNG's. I started to get serious a few months ago and kept a diary and notes on each game. Played a hundred and came out ahead, notthing huge but between 1 and 2 dollars a game at the 11's.

The story at the 22's has been different. I have logged about thirty and I am down about $120 or six buyins. No big deal but six down at the new level feels like 12 at the old. Oh yea that is because it is the same as 12 at the old level.

I know my sample size is puny and it feels good to know that Irie and Raptor and Daliman have all experienced serious drops. With each game I play my game should improve.

I dunno, I guess what I am saying is that if you lose 26 games in a row it does not automatically mean that you are just having a downswing like the pros all have from time to time. Losers have downswings of 26 games too. You may be a loser. Keep playing and sooner or later you will find out. Lose more money than you can afford to and you are a loser by anyone's standards.

Really think about it, post some hands, add your input on hands and see if it is inline with the experts reasoning.

Lost a coinflip ? Did you have to flip the coin in the first place ? Maybe yes maybe no. When I lose a game I begin my post game analysis by seeing what I may have done wrong. If I truly got unlucky so be it. But I also need to make sure that I made the correct play.

You can not chose the cards you are dealt but you can chose what you do with those cards.

Learning to play good poker is hard, actually playing good poker can be pretty friggin boring. Stange truths about your character may surface, I found I was to impatient or inquisitive or something to actually stick to the game plan that I laid out for each game. I learned over time but it was wierd when I KNEW how to play a better game but just could not make myself PLAY a better game.

Oh and seat number 6 is cursed, and J 8o is my lucky hand [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img].

[Newt_Buggs]

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How the hell everyone make such nice charts?

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