Downswings.

[tomsOn]

(I apologise if this is the wrong forum, seemed the most appropriate)

There was a time, where I, like the majority of people frowned upon the idea that you could run bad for extended periods time, ranging weeks and months. Like others I assocciated that with, indeed, having bad luck, but more importantly playing sub par as a consequence.

That was 3 months ago. While I still hold this belief to be true, I changed my view on the length of runs that are based almost purely on bad luck. As it's easy to guess now I've been losing for 3 months. It's been around 85k hands, I'm down over 35 buy-ins (hard to say exactly, as it was different limits). I always try to be honest with myself so I naturally started reviewing my hands in PT. Unfortunately despite my efforts I couldn't find any visible spews. Naturally I make some mistakes, but nothing that would be clearly recurrent. I practise game selection, I consider myself a favourite in the games I play, I would be absolutely shocked if it was otherwise.

The reasons this is irritating is that I haven't heard of any good player having nearly 100k downswings stretches unless he was tilting, playing in bad games. Which would mean that I'm fooling myself by saying that I have been playing good, when in fact I am playing bad. This is the most logical assumption to make. However whenever I play a session nowadays and see the stuff that goes around and review it later on I just feel that I would be kidding myself if I told myself this is my fault.

And whenever you tell complain to somebody about this you can't really expect much. So you're sort of stuck alone with your problem, not really sure if you're doing something wrong or if what's going on is normal. That's poker I guess? I guess it would be a lot easier to cope with if there were some high stakes players that would tell you this is possible.

I just had a 2 week break, came back fresh, but 3 days later it just seems I'm getting spit on by the deck. Yesterday I said "[censored] it" and made the resolution to be playing the absolute best, more motivated and focused than ever, no longer than 2 hours per session. I will try to keep this up for as long as I can.

So are 100k hand downswings possible? Has anyone had something like that and honestly believes it was mostly bad luck?

[recallme]

I think i had a very lond DS from January to March. But obviously i wasn`t playing my best game. I wasn`t spewing, but i sometimes read the action wrong and chasing draws too thin.
Perhaps i am just running hot for my past 100k hands, but i think my edge was still huge in this times.

[ImsaKidd]

[ QUOTE ]
The reasons this is irritating is that I haven't heard of any good player having nearly 100k downswings stretches unless he was tilting, playing in bad games.

[/ QUOTE ]

IIRC cts had a 100k BE stretch, dunno if he was tilting or whatever.

[SlowHabit]

Downswings happen. 100k BE stretch happens. And obviously, there has to be some tilt in there. But you just gotta keep your head up and believe that the better days are ahead.

It's important to be smart about your bankroll during the downtime because once you're out of moneys, you can't make moneys [unless you get in no-risk staking deals obv].

[greg nice]

everytime i go on a biggish downswing it is no doubt caused from tilt/bad play

therefore i believe these huge downswings are NOT inevitable like most believe. the problem is that its so difficult to reverse course during it

[tomsOn]

[ QUOTE ]
therefore i believe these huge downswings are NOT inevitable like most believe. the problem is that its so difficult to reverse course during it

[/ QUOTE ]

I think the problem is most people haven't had downswings like that. A lot of players on the top haven't even played a million hands (not to mention live players who play 10x less), it's hard to imagine that some of them should have a 100k hand downswing. Which makes me think there is long-term luck that could determine that one guy plays nosebleed stakes, the other grinds on 5/10.

Like for example, when I read the well with sbrugby I was under the impression he didn't realise how fortunate he was to be able to move up the ladder so fast without much difficulties. I'm sure the fact he got there is no fluke, since he's approach to the game is phenomenal, but how fast he did it had a lot to do w/ variance and I know he frowned upon that idea/got pissed when people told him that. While I have an immense respect for him as a player (moreso than for any other) I think he never faced a huge downswing and his views on variance were a bit skewed. Until now I guess. Must suck to have your first one in the millions.

I have a friend who was a well respected 10/20 25/50 winner with excellent tilt control. He has been losing for over a year now despite moving all the way down to 3/6. He claims that it's possible the run worse than 99,9% think possible. I think it's possible in a sense that if we're talking about a 100k sample, people haven't played really that much more overall (I'd assume less than 1 out of 10 have played over a million on this HSNL forum), so long-term variance might differ from player to player.

I hope this doesn't sound like a "I run worse than anyone" story, because I don't want it to be that way. I'm very much open to different opinions (especially from the best players this forum has to offer) and appreciate your posts.

[teddyFBI]

I had a 125K break-even stretch a couple years back (over the course of 3 months) and, at the time, I was one of the bigger LHE winners around. In fact, I'll go so far as to say that I don't know a single great player who hasn't experienced a breakeven stretch longer than he would have thought possible (before it happened to him, that is). Since I've switched to mostly NL, I also had a 70K breakeven stretch earlier this year. I disagree with greg above -- i DO think that such things are inevitable, even for the best players. That being said, downswings/breakeven stretches have a tendency to make people deviate from their A-games, and I think that *some* of the mediocrity is no doubt attributable to poor play / tilt, but it's not like it can account for the whole thing.

Think of it this way, had I continued to play my absolute best / not succumbed to any tilt whatsoever, it's possible that my 525 BB downswing in LHE, or the 15-BI bath I took playing NL might have been "only" 475 BB / 13-BI respectively. But the point is that they still would have been huge, ugly downswings. So don't beat yourself up over it (although by anyone's standards, 35 BIs is quite large and I'd look for some leaks in your game). Sounds like you're just running terrible (as long as you were satisfied that u were a winning player before, which u don't really make clear in your post).

[Nookx]

I just wanted to add that I had an 84 buy in up swing in May and won everyday except for one. In June I lost the first 9 days in a row and got absolutely crushed. I was down almost 45 buy ins in 50k hands. I think these swings will happen to everyone if they play Millions and millions of hands over their lifetime.

[cero_z]

My opinion is that -30BI or so over 100K is possible for even an excellent player. I don't really have the math to back it up; it's just based on having been around the game for a number of years and seeing virtually all good (and great) players I know, including myself, go through something in this realm.

What I can say with confidence is that most people lie about their results. It seems that in this internet poker era, people are slightly more honest about their own results, for 2 main reasons: 1)More level-headed, scientific-type players are now playing the game at a high level, and these types are a little more likely to be honest than the old, road gambler types IMO (due to a little less ego-related attachment to results on the part of the new school). 2)Datamining, online forums, etc. make it easier than ever before for others to keep tabs on how you are doing, so high-profile people are slightly less likely to lie, knowing they might be caught.

That said, here's an example of the type of dishonesty about results that you'll find here: a couple of long break-even stretches were mentioned above. How do you think the people going through that "break-even" period were doing about 10k-20k hands prior to the end of it? My guess is, they were doing much worse. So actually, when you hear about a 100k break-even stretch, that is likely to be a 70k stretch where the player was -5bbs/100 or whatever, followed by a 30k stretch where they were +12bbs/100, or something similar. Again, I know this is not scientific, but I think people who have a lot of experience with high-stakes, highly successful players will agree that there's less honesty with others when the going is rough.

This is no crime, since your results are your own business and nobody else's, but it can have negative effects on others, when you get something like a public consensus (i.e. the ideas on this board) reflecting that dishonesty. Play a lot of HSNL, and you will experience some things that will turn your stomach, whether you're a nitty grinder or a world-class LAG.

[JMa]

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showfl...rt=all&vc=1