Re: Downswings.
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Hey Lefort,
Lots of good points. Along the lines of what you were saying about variance making larger upswings and downswings more likely, I think people who run very good before they run very bad are conditioned to think of the running good period as closer to "normal" than the running bad period. This can be a dangerous trap if you expect things to eventually revert to a place you consider normal, but which is actually an unlikely hot streak.
Yeah I totally agree. And to make matters worse, I think a very large portion of the player pool started out their poker careers running hot. Because otherwise, they would have busto'd a few times and quit before they "blossomed" into real players. I think this concept has been discussed before... kind of like a "survival of the luckiest" until people develop the knowledge/skills necessary to stay in the game, then from there we all get "normal" luck.
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its disturbing how accurately these two posts sum up my first 4 months playing online poker seriously. ran like god in my first month and a half, built an oversized bankroll, and then ran like absolute [censored] for the next month, figuring that i was just running bad and ignoring all the leaks in my game.
thankfully ive managed to turn that around and become more realistic in terms of my skill level and how i approach playing poker. in hindsight i think that learning to deal with negative variance and being able to work through it and not tilt or give up is the most important and most difficult skill to develop. it definitely was for me.
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