Downswings

A

Atrevino247

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 3, 2018
Total posts
34
Chips
0
How do you guys manage your downswings... this last one has only been about a week but the beats have worn on me a lil more than usual. I know in the long run it’ll even out and I won’t get sucked out on all the time but while it’s happening it gets to be like a black hole. Always open to suggestions and new ideas
 
D

Daltenator

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Feb 2, 2019
Total posts
4
Chips
0
Everyone hates them! My last 2 accounts I failed to use bankrole management and did not reduce the value of games like I should have given my dwindling capital. Good bankrole management will buffer your downswings and help you ride the highs, without getting carried away.
 
J

John bruce

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 26, 2018
Total posts
1,440
Chips
0
To funny

Tell me when you had a real up swing. It's internet it has a pattern. The more experienced you are the easier it is to get over on you. Watch for the set ups for just a few weeks then decide if I'm wrong. Or just think its a coincidence that they suck out on you so often. Has something to do with percentage of winning compared value of your stack. Going all in with really high win percentage. Try small ball. Seems to work. Until you get it figured out play for entertainment.
 
R

rudy988

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Oct 20, 2013
Total posts
269
Awards
1
Chips
8
I take a break for few days (up to week - 10 days) from poker , review my hands , find my leaks and try to use that knowledge in future , maybe read some book/watch X videos about poker and how pros deal with those . Its not easy and it takes time , but its worth it , poker won't go anywhere, there will always be action somewhere ;) Just remember that downswings are also part of game , and u must approach them the right way, or you'll bust and deposit again and again .

Hope it helped in anyway and GL in future
 
hugh blair

hugh blair

Legend
Bronze Level
Joined
Apr 8, 2017
Total posts
11,173
Awards
8
Chips
30
How do you guys manage your downswings... this last one has only been about a week but the beats have worn on me a lil more than usual. I know in the long run it’ll even out and I won’t get sucked out on all the time but while it’s happening it gets to be like a black hole. Always open to suggestions and new ideas
Manage them by playing freerolls and try to rebuild bankroll.
Poker can be brutal if variance is against you.:help:
All in preflop 3 outer gets there this happening all week cringe.:damnmate:
June week 2
 
Last edited:
John Turnner

John Turnner

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jun 2, 2017
Total posts
111
Chips
0
How do you guys manage your downswings... this last one has only been about a week but the beats have worn on me a lil more than usual. I know in the long run it’ll even out and I won’t get sucked out on all the time but while it’s happening it gets to be like a black hole. Always open to suggestions and new ideas



You're right, everything will come back. But it's not so simple. Because of downswing, you start to make bad decisions when mathematics turns its face to you, then you will refuse to take advantageous actions, because your spirit will be in decline.
I did not have downswing, but when this happens, I will take a pause and do something else. It will be necessary to distract well. And suddenly, when I come to my senses, "I forgot about poker," then I will sit at the table again)))
 
A

Atrevino247

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 3, 2018
Total posts
34
Chips
0
Manage them by playing freerolls and try to rebuild bankroll.
Poker can be brutal if variance is against you.:help:
All in preflop 3 outer gets there this happening all week cringe.:damnmate:
View attachment 232147
Yeah that’s a nasty one... yesterday a few spots from the bubble I caught aces... flop comes 10 7 2. Villain checks I shove he calls with k10. Turn is j. River... the k of course. I try not to let it bother me but that one stung.
 
tauri103

tauri103

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 29, 2016
Total posts
2,144
Awards
1
Chips
24
when the variant prevents me from making big gains. I reduce my playing frequencies and the amount of my buy-in while waiting for luck to be on my side again.
 
wsbar

wsbar

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
May 12, 2017
Total posts
1,097
Chips
0
Poker is a very profound wisdom, it is much more than we imagine, and when we think we know something, another more interesting subject has arisen. No one likes to lose, and one of the most interesting and difficult issues to apply in poker is bank control. When we can apply our money well in poker, playing against opponents worse than ourselves, then yes we will be taking one of the biggest steps in poker evolution.
 
PaxMundi

PaxMundi

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Jun 4, 2018
Total posts
2,194
Awards
4
Chips
0
Very prolonged downswings can be incredibly difficult to deal with and they can be extremely brutal.Id say it's honestly different for each person as it's an individual mental battle you have to overcome just to contiue playing through those runs.They can be soul destroying and have you questioning whether or not you can even play the game still.
 
Jon Poker

Jon Poker

Legend
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 18, 2017
Total posts
1,324
Chips
0
How do you guys manage your downswings... this last one has only been about a week but the beats have worn on me a lil more than usual. I know in the long run it’ll even out and I won’t get sucked out on all the time but while it’s happening it gets to be like a black hole. Always open to suggestions and new ideas


Take a break for several days, do something else you really enjoy. A week isnt much - with all due respect - i wouldnt even call that a downswing. I went on one for 7 months, thought about quitting altogether. Variance is a hussy and she does not care for you or your feelings. Take it easy, concentrate on ABC poker and getting your money in good - you will win in the long term.
 
A

Atrevino247

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 3, 2018
Total posts
34
Chips
0
Take a break for several days, do something else you really enjoy. A week isnt much - with all due respect - i wouldnt even call that a downswing. I went on one for 7 months, thought about quitting altogether. Variance is a hussy and she does not care for you or your feelings. Take it easy, concentrate on ABC poker and getting your money in good - you will win in the long term.
Man that’s brutal... hope that never happens to you again. Thanks for the input man and keep on grinding
 
mitroff

mitroff

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Feb 19, 2017
Total posts
471
Awards
4
Chips
0
How do you guys manage your downswings... this last one has only been about a week but the beats have worn on me a lil more than usual. I know in the long run it’ll even out and I won’t get sucked out on all the time but while it’s happening it gets to be like a black hole. Always open to suggestions and new ideas

With downswings, I cope with a detailed analysis of my game, and if I can’t even see maps, then alcoparty with my friends, and the next day I will have a detailed analysis of my game. They are inevitable in poker, we must evaluate their probability in our game. Downswings helped me and in life it is easier to experience failures. Keep playing and the distance will return everything. Good luck at the tables and in life.
 
Iryna Stryzheuskaya

Iryna Stryzheuskaya

Legend
Platinum Level
Joined
Feb 13, 2016
Total posts
2,803
Awards
10
BY
Chips
151
When I stop enjoying poker, I just take a break and do other things.
 
Ovuvuevuevue

Ovuvuevuevue

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Oct 6, 2018
Total posts
199
Chips
0
I think experience in time will help you handle downswings. Read about mental wellness excercises and avoid tilt to prevent loss of your bankroll
 
TeUnit

TeUnit

Legend
Loyaler
Joined
Jan 20, 2009
Total posts
4,734
Awards
14
Chips
77
The best thing you can do is work on your game- review more hands, play less games, watch more training videos. The better you are the smaller your downswings will be.
 
finaltable1

finaltable1

Legend
Loyaler
Joined
Apr 26, 2016
Total posts
2,223
Awards
9
Chips
339
Manage them by playing freerolls and try to rebuild bankroll.
Poker can be brutal if variance is against you.:help:
All in preflop 3 outer gets there this happening all week cringe.:damnmate:
View attachment 232147


LOL WHAT? 3 outer is a 100% win.
During past 2 weeks I've been bubble boy 5 times in all 5 important tourneys that I've played. All at the different sites.

iPoker, 4Kgrtd Brawl multientry, 20Euro buy-in, just 1 entry, won the ticket using 1eur ticket...
Stack 70K (starting 10K) 5 players left till the money.
got KK in late position.
Smaller stack goes all-in, I call, bigger stack goes all-in from SB, I call with remaining 50% of chips.
Smaller stack has Ah8h, bigger stack has 88. Yeppie-Kaey Mother Luckers?!?!? Flop 6 high, no hearts, YEEHHA? Here comes TURN = 8, and river 2. FULL HOUSE. 1 outer.


ACR, step 4 to the Venom, early blinds.
got AdKh, 3opponents limp, I bet 3/4, all call flop Kd Ks 3d, 3 opponents check, I bet 50%, all 3 have called... turn card 7h. AGAIN ALL CHECK, I go all-in, 3 OPPONENTS HAVE CALLED River card 4 of diamonds, all 3 of them had 2diamonds cards, and I had Ace of diamonds.

pokerstars, 25K bounty with $16.5 buy-in, 20 players left till money.
won 0 bounties, but 45K stack.
got QQ, short stack with $30 bounty infront of me goes all-in with AsJs and 30K chips, I call. Bigger stack behind me goes all-in, another bigger stack calls all-in. I got 15K chips left and 3 all-ins infront of me, 30K already invested. I thought that It'll be classic AA vs my QQ, but had to play it... could win a $30 bounty and get a huge stack, plus I was commited to that pot after investing 2/3 of my chips.
CALL.
AKo vs AdKd vs AsJs vs QQ.
SO? 1 ace and 2 kings? NO PROBLEM
Flop: 3 A J, turn blank, river bla...
Smallest stack got 2 pairs and becomes a chipleader of the table. Both of the players with AK have entered the money, and I went out. Spent $5 on satellites to win that $16.5 ticket. Played like a god, limped JJ-QQ, raised only with KK-AA, doubled up several times through big stacks and in result got such sick hand as gift for my tightness, just before the money... Could close the table and go to sleep with 45K stack, wake up 1 hour later and keep playing being in the money with chips.

888 NL20 cash table, sitting as short stack $10 buy-in.
Had a $19 bankroll at 888, won 10+8 in CC games and $1 in HU sng. Wanted to make my first deposit there if i'll hit $30... Spent $9 on MTTs + Satellites. Had no luck, decided to play cash for remaining 10. Very loose and aggressive table. After 40 million minutes finally got AA plus position! on the button. UTG1 struddles to 40cents, guy in MP raises to 80cents, player in LP calls, I 4bet to $3, utg1 folds, MP calls, LP calls. Flop 10 high, rainbow. MP checks, LP goes all-in. I call, MP calls.
MP has KK
LP has AK- he was bluffing, shoved with A high
I got AA
Flop 10 high!
TuRn = K
river = blank
$35 pot with my $8.5 in it...
I could lose to runner-runner JQ or to 1 king, and there it was.

Another sick hand was at partpoker, spent my $22 ticket in a bounty, one complete fish joins the table, has a terrible record, I call such players "sponsors of our evening"... Boom-boom-boom-boom.. I played just 4 hands with him, during these 4 hands he increased his stack from 50K to 450K, won many bounties and busted me and several other players out, playing ONLY sick hands. I've posted this about 1 week ago, in one of my posts there is a full report of that sick story.

I've seen something evil last weekend, I think that this player has good tilt control, he's regular at ipoker network, he plays daily main multi-entry tourney with 50eur buy-in, usually it's 10K grtd, but it's 25K during sundays. It was Sunday. I was watching him, cause he's very often at the final table and has a very impressive winning record at ipoker. He's playing at 4 tables, 50 euro buy-in each table. I'm playing CC freerolls + ipoker freerolls on the main screen and observing all 4 tables of this player at secondary monitor. During 2 minutes he had 3 all-ins at 3 tables, all at the same time, lost AA to KK, player with KK had flush. Lost KK to AA = just pair vs pair, these 2 been pre-flop all-ins. At the 3rd table all-in at the river, he has full house KKK99, opponent has 9999. 10 minutes later at the last table he 3bets with AK, opponent calls with AQ, flop comes as KQQ, he goes all-in, opponent calls, and that's it. It was such a shock for me, and I was a observer... he had worse pre-flop hand just once, KK vs AA, and lost it all in at 4 tables in 15 minutes.

So far as I remember, some of my recent wins in MTTs have been very sick.

- Won approx $500 at poker stars always having lowest stack at each table, from start till the final table, entered the final table with smallest stack and just $8 in bounties and it was 4.4 buy-in, chipleader already had $400 in bounties at start of the final table...
- Won 220Euro in 1K grtd rebuy at ipoker, 1Euro buy-in, it was ticket that I won from a freeroll, had 0 bankroll, just the ticket. 10K starting stack. After first 30 minutes and first pair of aces my stack was down to 2.5bb yes 2 and half big blinds. 300 chips at 60/120 level... and step by step... 150K stack during add-on period... chipleader at the final table... kicked out 7 of 8 opponents there, won 1st place easily.
- Won $80 for 3rd place in a freeroll at partypoker, during the tourney had less than 5bb stack several times, 2 times for sure, cause twice I have called all-ins with trash hands and went to the kitchen to make tea without paying attention to the action at the table, cause was absolutely sure that it's over for me, but twice been running back because of the sound alarm, cause the show must go on. When I've checked the remaining number of players for the first time = it was 15 players left, not sure how many thousands have registered for that 1K freeroll. Was playing it and drawing my work, haven't paid much attention to whats going on... It was a very good day, got well paid for the previous models, got new order... and also won $80 in a freeroll. Next day got a $100 for the 2 bonus models that I made for free, customer loved the freebies and decided to pay me back with a bonus, and I also won $15 at CC freeroll at PS, 4 venom tickets at ACR, 3 x1Eur and 1x5 Eur tickets at iPokers VIPs.

Assuming it all, including my total 11 year online poker experience, I do think that skill doesn't matter. You will have lucky days and days of bad luck. The more you play, the more of these days will happen in your life. If you have a stop limit for bad days and no upper limit for lucky days, then you'll be a profitable player.

3 outer he says :) and these outs are Aces or Kings???
Hey they say it's not rigged, I do think so.
but
Can you do something interesting?
Expot your hand history to excel file through holdem manager and postgreSQL, or if you're good at MySQL then you can do search'n'sorting without help of excel.
The goal is to export your hands, let's say it's 20K hands, it's a big number, good for statistics.
Now compare community cards through 20K hands.
see for yourself.
How many times community cards had Aces and Kings?
How many times community cards had 2-3-4?
Which number is greater?
Number of Aces in the community cards or number of Deuces?
These numbers must be equal or close to equal during such long run as 20K hands.
But what do you see in the comparison? :deal:
It's not rigged :angel:
 
D

duson

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 25, 2018
Total posts
245
Chips
0
I'd recommend taking a few days off and then when you come play a smaller buy-in the you'd normally would just to have some fun and get confidence back. Look for some freerolls like cards chat that offer a good GTD and just enjoy playing rather then focusing on the $.
 
Poker Orifice

Poker Orifice

Fully Tilted
Platinum Level
Joined
Jan 19, 2008
Total posts
25,600
Awards
6
CA
Chips
968
Tell me when you had a real up swing. It's internet it has a pattern. The more experienced you are the easier it is to get over on you. Watch for the set ups for just a few weeks then decide if I'm wrong. Or just think its a coincidence that they suck out on you so often. Has something to do with percentage of winning compared value of your stack. Going all in with really high win percentage. Try small ball. Seems to work. Until you get it figured out play for entertainment.


OR
You can learn how to play! (what a novel idea!)
 
MKaizer07

MKaizer07

Enthusiast
Silver Level
Joined
Aug 7, 2017
Total posts
76
Chips
0
About downswings

Usually with downswings I normally would stop playing until I get a good feeling about returning to poker and if you are playing online I would suggest playing smaller stakes while you are on a down swing. That way your losts are less. Hope this helps.
 
Cajin007

Cajin007

Visionary
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 14, 2019
Total posts
734
Awards
4
Chips
0
I'm starting a new term "PDS - Poker Decompression Syndrome"

Basically, a person experiences PDS after long series of deep runs, long hours/days of playing, and/or long series of losing sessions( AKA downswings ).

Symptoms of PDS vary from player to player. Mood swings, depression, aggravation, sleeplessness, constant "WTF" thinking, and possibly more ( ideas are welcome ).

Ways to combat and manage PDS: Constant breaks of at least 15min between games, restricting Daily Playing Time to fewer hours ( a 15% or more reduction depending on tolerance/Skill ), and daily breaks completely away from the game/topic .
( other ways/means of decompressing are welcomed )

I know this is in no way medically sound, but might give a reasonable explanation in dealing with the daily grind!
 
roger perkins

roger perkins

Visionary
Bronze Level
Joined
Oct 21, 2015
Total posts
982
Awards
2
Chips
105
Downswing always happen. I have found that i usually increase the downswing by getting frustrated or playing poorly. What im saying is often you may cause your downswing to last longer than it should. I have found that i need to take a break and analys what my game is. Often i found i have gone away from playing my game and only increased my losing streak. But for this to work you have to honestly breakdown your game and most of all realize that the site is not rigged against you.
 
A

augustolorenzzo

Rising Star
Bronze Level
Joined
Jan 12, 2019
Total posts
16
Chips
0
downswing, what do you do?

hey guys,
I guess i'm in a downswing.
Seriously, losing with AA(the freaking Q coming to make a set to the villain at the river).
My AK never flip. When I hit a set (the villain gets a flush with just one card of spades in hand)
What do I do?
 
mistershrimpy

mistershrimpy

Rock Star
Silver Level
Joined
Jan 9, 2019
Total posts
133
Chips
0
hey guys,
I guess i'm in a downswing.
Seriously, losing with AA(the freaking Q coming to make a set to the villain at the river).
My AK never flip. When I hit a set (the villain gets a flush with just one card of spades in hand)
What do I do?
Do not worry, it happens. I have this happen quite often. Any experience is helpful. Such failures are just a reason to work on your mistakes.When I start to analyze why I lost, it often becomes obvious to me that the fact is that I had analyzed the situation incorrectly. I'm working on it. Good luck in the game!
 
Top