How much "swing" to expect

[TxSteve]

hi all..

ok...party 2/4

i'm about 7000 hands in (i know..it's a small sample)

over the first 4K hands or so, my cards are on fire..every tptk holds up...draws are hitting...etc. etc. and i'm up 150bb or so

then the bottom falls out...cards go cold on me...and i catch a lot of second best hands which i call down with

i also notice a downward trend in my play (ie i start making bad decision etc.)

over the next 2K hands i lose about 150bb (so i'm back to the beginning)

now..i know for a fact my bad play was a factor in the losing streak...i played too loose...refused to get away from hands...looked at a lot of turns with mid pair when the pot didn't justify it etc.

i'm finding that giving myself a "brush up" course by re-reading some books is helping me get back on track and feel more comfortable again..

but my question is....when playing well...how much of a swing can be expected?

thanks for any input...is there anything more frustrating than knowing i could have minimized my losses during a bad run of cards...but instead i chose to play like an idiot and donate to my fellow players?

[Bob T.]

Check the archives, I think this one gets discussed about every 2 months.

For LOW LIMIT players, I would say that 100 big bet swings probably happen to almost every winning player, that is only about a dozen average sized pots, and you would have to believe that you could at some point have a swing where you were ran a dozen pots below expectation. Even worse, it is only five monster pots, and you might go a while seeing all those monster pots go the other way.

It seems that almost noone has a 200 big bet swing unless they are either very close to breakeven player, or they play a very volatile game.

Good luck,
play well,

Bob T.

[bicyclekick]

I've had 2 12k streaks of [censored] now.

One 250BB downswing at 2/4 when I didn't really know how to play that well.

Since I've had 2 or 3 100's and more 50's then i can count.

[tripdad]

party 2/4 is too damn tight right now. 1/2 is even worse.that's the problem. i've moved to greener 3/6 pastures.

cheers!

[Joe826]

This is related in a round about way, but i've been having tremendous inter-session swings. These last few days i've been up $XXX and then down $XXX and then ending either up or down $XXX heh. I'm still coming out on top but it's really hard to get use to. It probably has something to do with the new limit (3/6) and/or playing more aggressively. I either didn't have them as much at 2/4 or they didn't bug me. Are these sort of swings normal?

[Homer]

Check out the "Streaks" thread from a couple months back.

[bicyclekick]

[ QUOTE ]
party 2/4 is too damn tight right now. 1/2 is even worse.that's the problem. i've moved to greener 3/6 pastures.

cheers!

[/ QUOTE ]

3/6 is even tighter still. I don't understand.

[MrBlini]

[ QUOTE ]
It seems that almost noone has a 200 big bet swing unless they are either very close to breakeven player, or they play a very volatile game.

[/ QUOTE ]I guess I have a volatile game these days, because I'm well beyond the breakeven player point long term. Short term, I'm at about -154 big bets at various limits between 3/6 and 15/30 right now, but that was after an incredibly good run in the other direction last weekend that more than covered this downswing. Even if the runup hadn't covered the drop, my bankroll would have taken care of me. That's what it's for.

I have been playing in some incredibly soft games lately. A good friend of mine pointed out that good returns often come with much higher variance, even at the same betting limits.

[sthief09]

does anyone else find it refreshing to read a post where someone actually admits he's the reason for a cold streak and not aliens tapping his brainwaves?

[TxSteve]

thanks sthief...

i'm just looking for answers/help/encouragement...

can't expect to get those if i'm not honest about the situation...

one of my biggest issues right now is not dumping AK or AQ when the flop misses me....i couldn't even call it a leak...more like a spigot