How long is too long for a cold streak?

[YoDuff]

I’ve been playing and winning long enough to be fairly confident (a few years at about 8 to 10 hrs per week). I made the jump from Limit to NL about 9 months ago and have been doing very good. But for the last couple of months (about 5k hands), EVERYTHING has gone wrong. It is getting very painful, and I’m now starting to lose confidence. I’m starting to think I’m playing poorly. Which is seriously messing with my head. I starting to question my decisions, and then questioning if I made a poor decision because I was questioning my decisions. When I analyze my play, I see a lot of very bad luck. There are definitely some mistakes too (but nobody plays flawless).

I’m considering trying new tactics, either playing more TAG, or more LAG. I generally run about VPIP = 20 to 22, PFR = 10 to 12.
But since I’ve been pretty profitable in the past, (I’m guessing about 5 to 8 bb/100 hands, but I just started using PT, so I don’t really know), I’m also thinking about riding out the storm and sticking with my current style.

So – am I jumping the gun? How long can a cold streak go before it’s officially just bad play?
Thoughts?
Thanks

[trader01]

There is another thread in this forum called "What is your longest downswing/upswing due to variance?"... check it out.
Incidentally, 10% PFR sounds a little high to me... personally I never raise unless it's AA, KK, or QQ... AK and AQ seem to always get cracked for me, especially in early position... plus they are great hands to sneak in with.

[Nookx]

Play another 45k hands and then if your still loosing. Then its most likely not a cold streak. 5k hands is nothing when your talking about 2 long for a cold streak. Good luck on the tables.

Trevor

[raze]

5k hands is a routine bad stretch even for top players.

Don't obsess over your stats. A better check-up on your play is to do a hand swap with someone better than you who can analyze your post-flop play.

[Stake Monster]

Don't look at the end results, but rather how you played.

For example, last night I had KK in the BB. On the flop we went all-in and he catches a Q on the river to make a set of queens. That was a 240bb pot lost, but I did not play it wrongly, tho in perspective I should have probably pushed him more pre flop.

If you look at the end results only, your gains/losses, it's easy to feel bad about your game, but if you know you've done the correct plays on most of those, and learned from the mistakes you did make, then you shouldn't feel down at all.

And 5k is nothing, play more and keep making the correct plays and you'll win in the end.

[Cent]

I disagree with the other posters. A 5k hand losing streak is not routine for good players and there's no way you can just be unlucky playing that many hands. I've been a full time poker pro for over a year, and the only time i've had a bad losing streak was when I was playing badly. Otherwise, I rarely ever lose a session. I'ts possible that you're playing at a level above your skill, or you're just not playing confidently. Often when we start losing we start getting desperate and making bad plays so we lose even more, it's a vicious cyle sometimes. I'm also a poker coach, so if you'd like me to look over your hands to find your leaks, send me a PM.

[holyfield5]

i just had a 2k losing stretch, but cent is right in that very few of the sessions are losing ones. but if you are only a marginal winner i think its very feasible......and top pros have 5k losing stretches or more all the time(though dont take the easy road and claim thats the answer, re-eval your game).

P.S. 10% is low for PFR in 6max, not sure about FR

[Majik]

I think you'll soon enough be finding 5k stretches to be nice and relaxing. You won't beleive that there is such a thing as 20k or 30k stretches or 10-15 BI downers until they smack you in the face. At least I didn't beleive it.

But if 5k stretches were the "mother of all downers" then poker wouldn't be a very harsh game.

10 BI downers will hit you, and some people experience several 10 BI downers each month. If your expected winrate is 5ptbb/100 your expected time to recover is 10k hands alone. Add in some variance and you can easily see why 20k+ stretches will happen quite often for these players.

It also depends on your style of play of course. If you're playing a 25/22/5 style you'll be seeing more swings than a 19/16/3 fellow of course. However you might see a better winrate as well if you're a solid player.

[YoDuff]

Thanks for all the replies. I'm glad to hear that it's a fairly common losing streak, but I'll take the tips of not taking the easy road and re-evaluating my play.

Some think 10% pfr is too low, others think it's too high. I realize this is a style issue. But what about the gap between vpip and pfr? It’s a little big, but I figured it was fine, because I figured it could be the attributable to the levels I'm playing at the moment. I usually play full ring, and I'm playing mostly 200 NL right now. At that level, you get a lot of limping (esp at full ring). When I have a small to mid pair or suited connectors, I like to limp behind limpers, but if I'm opening the pot, I usually raise, sometimes limp, sometimes fold (depending on the table, the players in the blinds, etc…). I think at 6 max or higher limits my gap would be tighter. When I was playing higher limits, I’m pretty sure I did less limping, but that was before PT, so I don’t have the stats.
Does that sound right?

[Xanthro]

Remember, you can run cold for a long time, but also not play optimally as well. Just because someone gets lucky, still examine your hand. Such as stake monster wrote.

[ QUOTE ]
On the flop we went all-in and he catches a Q on the river to make a set of queens. That was a 240bb pot lost, but I did not play it wrongly, tho in perspective I should have probably pushed him more pre flop.

[/ QUOTE ]

He made the right play, got his money in as a big favorite, and got unlucky, but he still examined the hand to improve play in the future.

I once lost 13 consequetive showdowns starting with AA, and 6 of those times I made a set of Aces. While I got exceedingly unlucky, I also made mistakes playing a number of the hands which compounded the poor luck.

Also, remember it's far easier to remember something like losing with AA because you got unlucky, and forgetting the times when you were the BB with crap and it's checked to you and you flop a boat and someone who misplayed a strong hand loses a bunch of chips.