If you look around the ‘net, you won’t have any difficulty finding blogs and webpages where people talk about how their poker career is going - this blog includes reports from Chuck’s adventures, for instance. This usually makes for fun reading, and is all well and good, but… BUT!

These webpages and blogs usually get updated when there is good news to share; it’s much more fun to talk about how great one has been doing, than to have to make a post about a horrible downswing. Not the least because when you’re in the middle of a downswing, you don’t really feel upbeat to begin with, so sitting down and posting isn’t something you really have the energy for. To the inexperienced poker player, following blogs or players who won’t necessarily post updates when they perform badly will lead to a skewed perspective of just how common downswings are.

This is of course not a jab at Chuck. This post was actually inspired by a “conversation” that took place at a table a few days ago, where someone said he “couldn’t believe” how bad luck he was having. This prompted various comments from others at the table where they said they’d been unlucky at times, too. Then came the key statement: “Good players always win in the long run,” (yes!) “but in the scope of like 1000 hands they could theoretically be down.. after that a good player is always up though” (noooo!).

So, to all of you who are relatively new to poker, who are somewhat struggling with your bankroll and who are trying to get better at the game, let me tell you this: You will suffer. You WILL go through downswings, and if you play a lot, you will go through HUGE downswings. It doesn’t matter how skilled you are, or how much your competition sucks, this will happen. And if you play close to optimally (the tight-and-aggressive approach) you will have even bigger swings, as you will push even small edges very hard. You win big when you win, but you will lose big when you lose. Over time, you will make more money, but the swings will be there. And believe you me, they will be a lot worse and a lot more stretched out (1000 hands? Oh please) than you think.

But when it happens, when you’re unlucky over a longer course of time, take comfort in the fact that it happens to all of us - really.

Here’s my last two months worth of $3/$6 shorthanded limit hold ‘em.

And this isn’t even a very big downswing, by most standards.

So: It happens. It sucks when it does, but it happens. Prepare mentally for it, so that when it happens you’re able to shrug it off and move on.

Best of luck to you,

Fredrik