How can poker be so easy, yet so hard?

[Peleus]

I seem to go through this cycle a lot.

I just moved up, I go on a heater, and I'm on an upswing. Went up about 9 buyins in 1000 hands. Poker is good, every decision is right, or at least working, people folding to your cbets when you want them to, paying you off when you have a hand. Poker is easy, every decision you have confidence in.

Then it all stops, the heater ends and people start calling down those cbets, every monster is folded, no matter what you can't get it right. The buyins start dropping, those AA's get cracked, and poker is hard again.

Anyone got any tips for coming down off a heater? I'm trying to drop back down a level, so any bad play I'm doing has less of an impact on me, or is absorbed more. Should I keep doing what I was doing during the time everything was fine? Is it just one of those things the cbets are getting called down now, or should you adjust you're game?

How do you deal with coming off a heater, and getting back to grinding when poker becomes hard again?

[Snoman13]

You can't move down a level, if the only reason is to conserve you BR if you "got a feelin' that a cooler is a comin". That following the same logic that you should bet on black, if the past 7 spins have landed red.

You need to evaluate your play, and continue making +EV moves as much as possible, that is what will contribute to your winrate, no matter the level.

[eMbAh]

I think you should stop looking at it like it's cycles, but just look at every hand individually

[Gomer_Pyle]

yeah cuz there is no cycles

[Crazy Porto]

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yeah cuz there is no cycles

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[vin17]

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yeah cuz there is no cycles

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leveling? I hope.

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yes, because there are no cycles...

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[TheWunderkind]

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You can't move down a level, if the only reason is to conserve you BR if you "got a feelin' that a cooler is a comin". That following the same logic that you should bet on black, if the past 7 spins have landed red.


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I disagree unless youre complete overrolled.
If I run obv hot i move up( taking shots) if games are good and within my bankroll Limits. If things go meh I play my normal Level wich iam usally a little overralled if things go very bad iam looking to play one level below and look for only soft games. I also play my usual level then but only if the games are good.



Example (LHE)

Last Time i was running meh and played my normal Level (15/30) and some 25/50 FR but ive alway been loosing there. However the game seemed to be awesome again and i finally won a bunch of Pots in a very short Time. I looked up in the lobby and saw a decent 50/100, havent seen such a game at lower levels yet and it was Fullring wich ment lower variance. I still had 500BBs for it so i took a little shot with a loss Limit of 12 BBs. I ended up playing almost 1K Hands there for 8BB/100. When things seemingly changed and i started loosing pots I immediately moved down to mostly 15/30. End of story i went on a 200BB down and only lost 6K instead of 12 15 or more. However if i would have had a 1000BB plus Bankroll i wouldve just kept playing unless the games wouldve gotten bad. But in general theres nothing wrong with moving down when running bad. If someone runs seemingly bad its huge plus EV to move down till things seemingly turn back to meh or good.

[RydenStoompala]

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How can poker be so easy, yet so hard?

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If it were just one or the other, nobody would play.

[R*R]

That's poker.

[Wardfish]

Why is there a schoolboy mentality in answering perfectly reasonable posts? It seems that if the first couple of responses are flippant throw-away comments, everybody else jumps on the 'one-liner bandwagon' and the OP gets no serious responses and probably goes away thinking "What a bunch of wankers! Why did I bother?"

My attempt at a considered response:

First thing you need to do is recognise that when you are "on a heater" you are experiencing the favourable side of variance. This has many different guises, obvious ones including:

- getting lots of playable hands;
- hitting lots of draws and sets;
- good hands holding up;
- bad hands drawing out.

There are other less apparent symptoms of positive variance, including:

- above average c-bet success
- above average semi-bluff success (either hitting when called, or winning when un-contested)
- avoiding monsters
- not making 2nd-best hands to pay-off opponents winners
- action being slowed down by scare cards when behind.

When the good times roll, its important to not get too cocky and think you are the greatest player in the game. Dont get too attached to the win-rate stats you are posting, as they are likely to be over-inflated and subject to regression to the mean.

You need to have it in the back of your mind that you must win the maximum that the cards/situations allow. Sometimes that means getting the lot, other times it means losing the minimum. Other times it means folding for hour after hour.

You cant predict whether the good or bad situation will present itself on the next hand. All you can do is be ready for it and maximise. Dont try to predict variance. Just expect it to exist.

Streaks occur in the past. Dont look for them: they dont exist. They are tricks played by our minds, creating patterns from random events. They are not predictable going forward, so you're never actually in a downswing or an upswing.

If you know things are going great, its right to grab everything that you can. Just dont expect it to continue indefinitely.