Longest losing streak? 2/4 online

[candab]

Ok guys, could I please get some input from some of the regulars on what you consider to be the longest/largest sustained losing streak you've had since you started playing?

I've hit a very nasty rough patch in the past month or so in which all of my gains from the previous two months have been completely wiped out. I was a very successful player at 2/4 (hit in the head with the deck?) and tried to push through to 3/6 when I went above $1800, but lost a good chunk of cash there.

Anyway, my total BR has dropped by about $1000, and my 2/4 BB/100 has dropped from a high of 5.5 to exactly 2.0. I figure my 2/4 losses have been about 200BB since I started this downswing (it's pretty much been straight down).

I feel I've been playing solid poker, just extremely cold-decked, like last night when I lost a $60 pot and flopped a set of sevens and was able to cap flop & raise the turn just to get rivered by a flush. That hand would have been the difference between a profit v. a loss.

Anyway, I'd like to know what some of your biggest downswings have been in small stakes limit so I can be prepared for what to expect. The past month has been frustrating, as it's my first large downswing since I started playing seriously, but I keep jumping on that horse and trying to plug holes in my game!

[Mr. Orange]

1) 5.5BB/100 at 2/4 is not sustainable. It was gonna come down eventually. 2BB/100 is pretty solid. You should be happy with that. That being said....

2)I'm confused. If you've lost $800 playing 2/4 how is your winrate 2.0BB/100???

3) If the whole difference between your "profit v. a loss" as you say, is one hand where you got rivered, then you haven't played enough hands. Which begs the question, how many hands is this sample size?

4) To answer your original question. -200BB downswing is pretty rough but they happen. There has been some debate about this topic but the general consensus seems to be that -300BB is the biggest downswing that would be caused by variance.

Truthfully, without more info, it sounds like you got extremely lucky at 2/4 and moved up way too soon.

[Harv72b]

Don't worry. You'll have much worse downswings than this in the future. [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

As said above, 5.5 BB/100 is not sustainable. You ran well initially, and this is just the law of averages bringing you back to earth. Poker is a game of swings to begin with, and the fact that a lot of us tilt to some degree during a downswing only compounds that.

In answer to your question, 100-200 BB downswings are fairly common for any winning player at any limit. 300 BB downswings are more rare, but will most likely happen sooner or later. I believe there was a thread some time ago detailing a proven winning player's 600 BB downswing, although that is very extreme.

FWIW, the toughest single jump in limits I ever made was going from 2/4 to 3/6. The average 3/6 player is much more aggressive than at smaller stakes, both pre- and postflop, and it's probably the first limit where you'll regularly be exposed to things like blind steals/defenses, isolation raises (again, both pre- and postflop), and postflop value raises by players on draws. The first time I tried to move up to 3/6 I suffered a losing streak remarkably similar to yours...in fact, that was the closest I have ever come to busting completely. The game was a lot tougher than I anticipated, and many of my opponents were ruthless about extracting value from me when I was beat.

Now, I recently dropped back down to 3/6 after 50k hands or so at 5/10 (non-poker related bankroll drain). I couldn't believe how easy 3/6 seemed after that long at higher limits.

Best advice? Take some time off. Read a few poker books, go back through your hand histories and look for spots where you could have saved a bet here or won an extra bet there, and keep reading/posting here. Maybe give another poker discipline a brief go, to mix things up...whether a different game like stud or omaha, or trying out some tournaments or sit & gos. Just stay away from your regular game until you've broken the mental funk that your downswing has caused.

[gobbledygeek]

I'm a clueless noob who has played 2/4 B&M for only 137 hours (so pretty small sample size), but I'm down exactly 300BB in that time for a horrendous loss rate of -2.2 BB/hour. I'm guessing %50 due to bad play, %50 due to variance and %10 due to I ain't so good at math.

Ggettingkilledatthesoft2/4tableagainstfisheswhoplayeveryhandG

[bungyrocks]

have u ever written a post that wasnt insightful and right on the money? i think not!

[candab]

[ QUOTE ]
1) 5.5BB/100 at 2/4 is not sustainable. It was gonna come down eventually. 2BB/100 is pretty solid. You should be happy with that. That being said....

2)I'm confused. If you've lost $800 playing 2/4 how is your winrate 2.0BB/100???

3) If the whole difference between your "profit v. a loss" as you say, is one hand where you got rivered, then you haven't played enough hands. Which begs the question, how many hands is this sample size?

4) To answer your original question. -200BB downswing is pretty rough but they happen. There has been some debate about this topic but the general consensus seems to be that -300BB is the biggest downswing that would be caused by variance.

Truthfully, without more info, it sounds like you got extremely lucky at 2/4 and moved up way too soon.

[/ QUOTE ]

Just to clarify, the $800 I've lost on 2/4 recently is just what I've lost on my downswing. I made quite a bit more than that on my upswing, with a chunk of my 2/4 profit going towards taking shots at 3/6.

I figure I've lost about $200 on various small MTTs and NL cash games, so that would account for the discrepancy between $800 and $1000.

And my profit v loss on that river hand was on my last session only. It just seems that variance is kicking me in the butt right now and those are the hard-luck hands I've been getting lately that have kept me from posting winning sessions.

Since the beginning of the year, I'm running +2BB/100 on the 2/4 tables on a sample of over 15K hands.

And I completely agree with you on the "luck factor" of being up 5.5BB early on, which is exactly why I tried to break the 3/6 barrier. My BR at that point was able to sustain my shots at 3/6 (I'm at -3.5BB/100 at 3/6 over a small sample), and I figured if I could get some good exposure there and break through, I'd be on the next move upward. It just seems that now I'm getting kicked in the jewels for trying!

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
have u ever written a post that wasnt insightful and right on the money? i think not!

[/ QUOTE ]

See my "self-serving poll" thread. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

[bungyrocks]

some perspective: I am a winning player (2bb/100 over 500000 hands). I am currently in a 60,000 hand break even streak over which i have had several -200/300bb swings. I would like to think I am coming out of it now. I had to move down to 1/2 due to stress on my bankroll and am still at that level. 60,000 hands is about 3 weeks for me, so around 100 hours.

[KurtSF]

Well, I'm on a doozy right now.

I played successfully for a long time at the micros, moving up from .15/30, to .25/.50, to .50/1. Most of my hands were at .25/.50 where I was a huge winner. I had had several 100BB downsings and a doozy of a 200BB downswing there (when I had previously running at 6BB/100), but I eventually recoeverd and felt like I was getting comfortable with variance. I hit another 100BB downswing as soon as I moved to .50/1, which hurt a lot as the stakes were doubled compared to what I was used to, but I recovered and now I'm slight winner there overall.

Then I moved to 1/2 and everything changed. I donked off probaly 50BB while "learning" the level with bad play. Then I got horribly cold decked for about 200BB and just went downhill. As I was sliding toward 200BB of total losses I was cool, calm, and collected since I had these kinds of swings before and I knew how rough variance could be. But as I got past 250BB total losses not only was this clearly my biggest lost by BB ever, but again, the stakes were recently doubled so it felt twice as bad, and I went on tilt.

Bad. I felt like I could never hit a draw, so i would end up chasing them to try and hit one, just one! I decided that I had to start winning more $$ without going to showdown, and I started bluffing more and pushing marginal hands. And worst of all, I felt like I forgot how to play. As the losses spun downward past 300BB, 350BB, 400BB, I lost all prespective and felt like it was possible I had never been able to play and was just a lucky donk in the first place. (Which was probably partially true, too, but that's another story.)

I finally got off my tilt with the help of a very generous 2+2er who would sweat me and review hands with me. I no longer felt like my poker judgment was shot as I was no longer operating in a vacuum. I stopped tilting, and tightened up my game and started playing break-even poker at 1/2, holding the downswing at 400BB.

But of course, just because you've been running cold doesn't mean you are "due" to hit a few breaks. I started getting killed by the cards again. In my last session, of the NINE sets I hit on the flop that went to showdown, TWO held up. And I wan't pushing crap hands either, the only set on a monotone flop was one of the two that held up, and most of the beats were runner-runner or river miracles. (Though that doesn't count the time I hit a fullhouse on the flop, which, amazingly, did hold up.)

Its been brutal. And now my losses off my peak are 500BB.

So forgive me if I am blase about a 200BB downswing. But enough about me. In terms of adice:

* constantly work to improve. There is always room to get better, and staying in touch with poker away from the table by studying, reading, etc will keep your game good while goind through these rough spots.
* Only play if you are playing your A game. You can play perfect poker and hit a 200BB downswing, so why handicap yourself any further? The poker gods don't owe you anything and you won't "get back" what you lose to tilt or tiredness or whatever, so don't play unless your game is 100%.
* Variance can be truly horrible. Detatching yourself from a results oriented outlook can be very dificult, but it is key to long term success.
* Watch that bankroll! If it wasn't for solid BR management (and bonus whoring, woot) I would have been out of poker by now. Always play at a level appropriate for your ability and for the amount of risk you are willing to take in terms of going busto.

Good luck!

[bungyrocks]

aah yess, forgot about that one [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img]