RUNNING HORRIBLE!

[jacksquat]

wow!! call it what you want, but the luck factor is a huge component in poker. sometimes with you and sometimes against. i never use "running bad" as an excuse to soothe my fragile ego, but bad luck does happen. when you lose every coin flip for weeks on end, or go card dead at the final table, or get sucked out on the river every time you have the best of it during a session, it is not imaginary, in fact it is quite real. yes, you can use it as an excuse, or you can take it in stride as being part of the game. saying there is no such thing as being lucky or unlucky, especially in the short term, is, in my opinion wrong.

to the op, i just keep playing and reevalulating, trying to make sure that it is not my play that is causing the downturn.

[danxd]

Bad luck does happen. I know some say it's an excuse, so I set out to prove it. I have, for about a year, written down almost every hand of poker I have played. In one stretch, I went 122 hands without a win. In that time, I played 34 hands on the flop; 11 with so called premium starting hands. This included Aces twice, Kings twice, and AK, QQ, JJ once each.

I have documented hand after hand where I have lost on the river. Not bad beats per say, as the other players had mostly legitimate calls. Just bad luck. My 16 outer versus a 2 outer...and I lose. I have many, many examples.

I also document my stupid plays. When I didn't raise enough, raise on the flop, limp in with marginal hands, or fail to read to board properly. I average about two stupid plays which cost me a pot per session (way too many).

The killer is that I haven't had a winning session in months; and only five or six since I started this process.

So I call it bad luck. Prior to this, I averaged 80% winning sessions. It happens. And there is not much to do but play through it.

[Edge34]

Carl,

While I wasn't the OP, here's the deal:

If you don't believe in "luck" then you've drank some strong kool-aid. Never have I NOT accepted that its possible to lose every hand, never have I NOT accepted the decision I make to sit down in any game I play.

I am always trying to improve my play, but completely DENYING the luck factor, as you seem to be doing. The true answer seems to lie somewhere short of your extreme belief. I don't dwell on downswings...I'm in the middle of a hell of one as we speak. But I'm still playing as well as I can. I push my edges where I can, knowing that there will be an upswing eventually.

I appreciate your Zen-like approach to poker, and Zen and the Art will be my next purchase (been meaning to get it for a while now), but denying the "external force of luck" is amazing. "Running Bad" is simply the name I use for the inevitable downswing that follows and precedes upswings.

[Acein8ter]

Take a short break
If you want to play, drop down in limits
If you play cash games, switch to S&G's or MTT's
Read your 2+2 books again

Everyone goes through the variation downswing... You wait for a decent/good hand and it gets busted. It will turn around and you'll be on a heater, it takes time. Continue to push your edges.

[blankoblanco]

[ QUOTE ]
Your problem is that you believe in something that doesn't exist. There is no such thing as 'running horrible' or 'running bad.'

As long as you always play your best game, use proper table selection, and maintain good bankroll management, you'll never 'run bad.'

'Running bad' is an imaginary construct players irrationally use to protect their ego, instead of accepting accountability for their own results.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is incredibly misguided "advice".

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
Your problem is that you believe in something that doesn't exist. There is no such thing as 'running horrible' or 'running bad.'

As long as you always play your best game, use proper table selection, and maintain good bankroll management, you'll never 'run bad.'

'Running bad' is an imaginary construct players irrationally use to protect their ego, instead of accepting accountability for their own results.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not necesarily. It's just looking at it in hindsight is all. This is like saying it's promoting one's ego to say they're running good. But that still doesn't mean one should discount looking at their game. I agree there. But they should be doing that regardless of how they're running.

I've run bad the last 2-3 months. It sucks. But you have to just keep plodding away.

I do love the line I just read on here awhile ago:

Luck is probability taken personal.

b

[PantsOnFire]

[ QUOTE ]
What is it called when good players go on unlucky streaks if not "running bad"?

[/ QUOTE ]
Variance.

[ QUOTE ]
Bad luck exists, and its not something to protect your ego or anything like that.

[/ QUOTE ]
Of course is alright for you say you have had "bad luck". I just call it variance.

Poker is game of making decisions. Luck should have no part in making your decision. If you make a good decision and have a bad result, some may call that "bad luck". But it should have no effect on your next decision other than perhaps using a "bad luck" table image to your advantage. You will likely get paid off more and be able to bluff less with this image.

To me, "running bad" is when I make a string of bad decisions. I can even profit when running bad by getting good results. But I am certainly not happy when running bad this way.

In the end, the term "luck" is applied to the result of a decision and is something that is beyond our control. Some poker players don't dwell on this sort of thing since they are focussing on the actions within their control.

[CarlSpackler]

I think some of us may be talking past one another and we may be dealing with a semantics issue here. I do not equate luck with statistical variance. Luck is an imaginary force. Luck is not real. When you hit a 2-outer on the river it's not because of luck, it's because it was one of the possible results, and it just happened to be one of the two results which was good for you. In this example you're not lucky -- you're not anything. It's that simple. There's no magic or mystical force called luck involved. To quote many a professional athlete, "It is what it is."

Variance, on the other hand, is very real and it obviously plays a huge role in poker on every hand, as the deck has no memory and anything can happen no matter how unlikely. It's common for these unlikely events to occur multiple times in a session much more than statistically probable, and it's not uncommon to have a string of consecutive sessions where the statistically improbable happens over and over again.

If your definition of luck is the same as the generally accepted definition of statistical variance then we're basically on the same page, although I think it's hazardous to interchange the two words freely.

Now, back to variance. Every winning poker player should know that the statistically improbable can occur many more times than likely in a session, and this series of unlikely events can continue session after session for x amount of time. Everyone should know this going in. Practically speaking, everyone should also know that this isn't going to continue forever. For the sake of clarity, if these unlikely events occur in your favor, I call it positive variance, and the opposite, I call negative variance.

At some point, you, me, and everyone else will experience positive or negative variance during single sessions, and eventually over a series of sessions. Virtually everyone loves positive variance, but they loathe and despise negative variance.

Here's where I think differently than most people. I too, like everyone else, love positive variance. I also, however, love negative variance. I embrace negative variance. When I lose my stack in a tourney or cash game to a 1 or 2 outer on the river I smile, and often actually laugh.

Negative variance is inevitable, and there's nothing you can do to stop or alter it. The bottom line is you can't cheat variance unless you're actually a cheat. There is only one thing you can control with regards to negative variance and that is your reaction to it. You can choose to hate, despise, and worry about it, in which case you'll probably experience a self fulfilling prophecy to some degree when experiencing negative variance, or you can choose to accept it for what it is, embrace it, and maintain a positive attitude towards it. I choose the latter, and this gives me an advantage over nearly every opponent I have played and will ever play against.

I said earlier that as long as you always play your best game, use proper table selection, and maintain good bankroll management, you'll never 'run bad.' This is partially incomplete. You need to have one more thing. You must truly accept negative variance for what it is, embrace it, and constantly maintain a positive attitude towards it. If you do all these things you'll never 'run bad' or 'run horrible,' you'll always run good.