Is it usual to be a winning player month after month???

Hi all.

"whats he on about" I hear you ask

We get a lot of posts about bad beats, giving up playing and the like, but I am interested to know do some people, pros included, show a profit month after month playing a mix of ring games, MTT, SNG`s?

I know about the swings in poker, but is what I`m asking normal for some, occassional, rare...?

I respect the views of the guys on this site and I would love to hear your comments.

TYVM

Well I don't do a mix, but from pretty much straight cash games, with like 5 sngs and 2 MTTs plus CC events, I've had 3 winning months in a row, and it's looking good so far this month (up $325 so far). Talk to me in 2 years, I plan to continue to play poker a lot.

uhh, if you're a winning player, on average you will win consistently barring a bad run, and if you're a losing player, on average you will lose consistently barring a lucky run...

I personally have won consistently (1.2k +) since December, but before that it was much less consistent (probably due to playing tournaments and being generally a poorer player).

My only losing month in 2007 was May, but that's partly because of a very low playing sample (I was out of town for a bit).

I am very pleased to hear all of your responses to this question.

The reason I asked is because I am following the Ferguson challenge and its seems to have coincided with a regular upturn in profit.

I think I have also lost my "poker is against me" deamon, so it is rare that I moan about a bad beat (Check out the bad beat forum)

Anyway, I have shown a decent profit every month including December.

I am already $200 + up this month.

So, unless I become stupid, to win on a regular basis is not uncommon.

Good to hear!!!

Think its a given that every player is gonna have an off day thrown in here and there, but in the long run, I think that as long as your playing smart poker you should consistently be making money.

February was a bad month think i lost $800.... or so., I could consistantly show even some profit since august 07

quite depressing imo, long downswings suck....

ive never had a month in the red, however ive only been playing money for about 8 months.

I plan to start playing in money games soon. Lets hope my first month isn't a disaster.

I have had no losing months in 07 or 08 so far, although I have had quite a lot of losing weeks.

My game is probably 80-85% MTTs, with a few cash games thrown in and an occasional STT.

I would think that losing weeks are to be expected for a MTT player, because of the high variance. However, if you are a successful MTT player, you are apt to have at least one big win each month, which wipes out the small losses.

On the bad beat issue, my experience as a MTT player is that the better and more successful you get, the more bad beats and suckouts become part of your daily life and you just have to live with them. Logically, if you are a sound player and rarely make errors, your tourney can only end in one of three ways:

1) You reach the FT and make a big payday.
2) A train wreck - you make a play with the near-nuts, knowing that you are statistically a strong favourite, but luck dictates that the opponent has the rare hand that beats you.
3) A bad beat - you make a play with the best hand, opponent makes an error and calls but gets lucky.

So, as you eliminate errors from your game, the percentage of tourneys where you crash out thanks to a bad beat grows. Thinking about my own experience over the past couple of weeks, I would say my results break down roughly 10/20/70. In other words, I finished high in 10% of my tourneys, suffered a train wreck in 20%, and went out to a bad beat in 70%.

So you see, bad beats are very commonplace and just have to be shrugged off.

Oh, and I made a bad call in one game, but we won`t talk about that.

Read this From Chris Ferguson

I hav'nt had a losing month on the rings since December '06.

If you play ENOUGH hands, and your a winning player then variance will even out for you. It is also very style dependant, a good LAG player will have monster winning months and monster losing months. Where-as a nit style on the low limit rings should almost always net a small win-rate with little variance.

I think you can if you are a dedicated player.