Biggest Downswing of my Career - Advice Needed

[five4suited]

along with the usual "standard," I would advise you to ignore your pride and go back to 2-4. Beat up on your competition for a little while to get your confidence back. If you can't bring yourself to do that, play a single table of 3-6 -- like you bought in with the last of your roll. IMO, when it comes to small stakes, a lot of times the reason you're losing is a lack of concentration, or focus, or overconfidence. good luck.

[jrz1972]

[ QUOTE ]
Over 25,000 hands I have been averaging -.5BB/100hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I went through a downswing that was probably similar to this in December 2005. I dropped ~300 bbs in 8,000 hands, so if you were to pick the right 25,000 hand interval around that free-fall I'm sure you could get it to look like -0.5 bb/100 over 25k.

It sucked at the time, but I feel like I'm a stronger for having gotten through it.

Try taking a week or so off. Sometimes taking a little time to psychologically reboot your system helps a lot.

[Harv72b]

As Bob T intimated, don't overdo the statistics. You can compile "perfect" stats and still be a godawful player...focus on your own decision-making and on incorporating reads into your play, and the stats will take care of themselves. Keep in mind that CallMeIshmael used a compilation of many winning small stakes players to come up with those numbers, and that there were often pretty wide disparities among those players.

Secondly, and I don't want to open up a whole "the sky is falling" panic, the games have gotten noticeably tougher over the past month. At least, they have in my own experience...I'd grown used to whipping up on the godawful players at Party for an insane win rate, but in the post-UIGEA world I'll admit that I've been struggling to adapt to the tighter, more passive full ring games on Full Tilt and PokerStars. I don't know if this applies to you or not, but I'd imagine that a lot of long-term winners are suddenly finding out that we aren't really as good as we thought we were.

The standard advice is always true...read these forums, post some of your hands, and participate actively in the discussions. Review your sessions, not just your stats, and look carefully at the individual hands. If it helps, keep notepad or even a pen & paper handy while you're playing, and jot down a quick reminder whenever you run into a difficult or interesting decision during a hand. That, of course, is assuming that you aren't already an active member of the forum who created a new screenname for this post. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Every player here has gone through something similar to what you are now, or if they haven't yet then they will. Take some time off if that will help clear your mind, or maybe change things up and give O8 a brief shot or something. Just remember that you've obviously been doing something right all this time in order to build that bankroll up. Probably as not as right as you could have done, but none of us are perfect. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[TripleH68]

[ QUOTE ]
I don't know if this applies to you or not, but I'd imagine that a lot of long-term winners are suddenly finding out that we aren't really as good as we thought we were.

[/ QUOTE ]

You can speak for me here. I am guilty of playing a lot of 'cruise control' poker this year and that just is not going to cut it anymore. Time to answer the wake up call.

[ohgodthissux]

Thanks for the respons guys, Harv you called it I am an active member of this forum already.

This month has just felt like a brutal fight, being knocked off my feet so many nights that I feel sick. I do believe I am a winning player as I follow all the logic in posts and have had great past success. However I could have handled this downswing better and I will be more prepared for the next time. The fact is that at this moment I am not playing my best game as I feel physically ill betting and raising with made hands that I expect to be drawn out on. I have lost most of my confidence even though objectively I can say that most of the downswing is a result of negative variance.

I am taking some time off from the game to persue another venture. When I have the time I am going to reread a couple books. When I'm ready I'm going to enter back into the game at brick and morter. Throw around some chips and feel good about the game again.

As for the games getting tougher, I really don't know about that. Everyone from aParty it seems have come to Full Tilt and it is not difficult to sit down at four table each with three or four 30-40 VPIP guys at the right time of night.

It's just so goddamn frustrating typing this, I know I can beat these games, the drawouts are just effecting me way too much right now. My attitude has always been the correct one - glad to see a player draw out on me, that's dead money in the pot for the next hand. But during this swing I get angry and this anger causes me to play like crap.

I thank all posters for their excellent help in building my game and I will continue to look here for help in the future. But I need a break. I already can't wait to come back.

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
I know I can beat these games, the drawouts are just effecting me way too much right now. My attitude has always been the correct one - glad to see a player draw out on me, that's dead money in the pot for the next hand. But during this swing I get angry and this anger causes me to play like crap.

[/ QUOTE ]

Been there, done that. To the tune of two 200 BB downswings in the past 45 days. I think that during one 3 hour session I counted 7 losses to runner runner "draws". To the point where I considered making a post like this myself. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

[Bob T.]

For what its worth, a couple of years ago, I had two consecutive losing months. Although, there were a lot of bad beats involved, I also noticed a lot of cruise control poker. I actually did a couple of things to get myself away from that.

First, I recognized that if I'm not actively playing the game, I probably am not going to be able to beat the game. There are a lot of players out there with enough talent, so that if they are paying attention, and I am not, they are just going to beat me. So I decided that if I was going to play, I had better have the mental strength to be playing the game, and not just floating along.

Second step, and this relates to the first. I gave myself a lot of reasons, why I could quit a session. I limited the number of hands that I might play. I limited the amount of time that I might play. I decided that I wouldn't play just one more lap in a bad game. I also resolved that if my heart wasn't in it for any reason, I wouldn't play.

Reducing the number of hands, and number of hours that I played, meant that I spent more time playing fresh, and probably was more alert to the nuances of the games that I was involved in. I still play a lot of hands, probably about 3000 a week, but I don't get stuck at the computer for 6 or 7K hands in a week.

If your playing part time, and you can afford to play a little less, I think that this makes the game a lot more enjoyable. This summer, I played a lot less, and spent a lot of time fishing, and doing other things. When it started getting cold, and I started having more time inside, I was really fresh, and eager to play, and I've been running good the last couple of months.

Third thing I did, was have fun, and experiment with other games. I love playing deuce to seven, and I can see why the guy who wins that tournament every year is a great poker player. That game takes a lot of tactics. O8 is also a game that plays a lot different than holdem. You need to let your arithmatic side out, and try and count all those outs, and combinations that you are dealing with, and also work on your exclusion/inclusion tactics ( where you either protect your hand, or get better odds for your draws).

Playing NL can also give you a different perspective on the game, because those big laydowns, that you shouldn't make at limit holdem, are something that you need to make occasionally. And the ability to figure out the timing to win a pot with a bluff is also a more important part of the game.

Finally, I try to average playing a tournament per week. Final tables are probably the most exciting and nervewracking thing that you can do, and its also a good time to experiment and let your lag side out, to see what it can do ( you need to in most tournaments, because you have to find situations where you can accumulate chips, just to stay in the game. )

[ QUOTE ]
I have lost most of my confidence ...

[/ QUOTE ]

As you recognize, this is something that is probably hurting your game.

I'll tell a story that I have posted before, but it applies here. When I was younger, I played soccer competitively. I was a forward in the highest amateur league in the state, for a time on one of the best teams. Our team usually had two matches a week on Sunday, Tuesday, and Thursdays. We also had a team that played on Mondays. So you could always get enough playing time in, in addition to practices on Saturdays and the days we weren't scheduled for a match. One thing that I also did, was play on Fridays, in a recreational league, where I could always score, and I would get two or three goals, and then work on getting my teammates goals. After scoring a couple of times every Friday, I always had confidence that I could score when the competition was tougher on Sunday afternoon.

You can do that too. If you are running bad, step down a couple of levels, and practice against opponents that you know that you can beat. It doesn't matter that you only made $8 in a .50/1.00 game. You got used to winning again. When your confidence is at a low point, don't try and beat the toughest game you can play in, beat the game that you are most likely to be able to beat. After you post a win in the easy game, you proably will feel a lot more confident getting back into your regular game.

Hope this helped, good luck running good when you get back to playing.

[JimmyDxyz]

What are the losses like (Are you tilting off the money in chunks, or is it a slow bleed). If it's in chunks I would suggest a 2 week break to recharge batteries. If a slow bleed, have you read Sklansy's Small Stakes Hold'em, Winning Big with Expert Play? I feel it uncovers a lot of potential game holes.