seirmelo
Enthusiast
Silver Level
How to get through the bad period without giving up?
I make your words my words, I'm on a wave of getting bad that I can't understand, yesterday there were 4 tournaments in a row apart from the re-entries, like me with AK losing to A5, QQ losing to K4, 99 losing to J3 and those were just the ones I remembered.
So sometimes I ask myself... Why take so many bads online?
I make your words my words, I'm on a wave of getting bad that I can't understand, yesterday there were 4 tournaments in a row apart from the re-entries, like me with AK losing to A5, QQ losing to K4, 99 losing to J3 and those were just the ones I remembered.
So sometimes I ask myself... Why take so many bads online?
spunka
Visionary
Bronze Level
Happends in live games too, as long as you get in with the best hand, and that is what you have to look at, not short time play, you have to look at 100 tourneys and 1000 hands, and dont overthink it when your on a loosing streak ..
T
theStarfish
Legend
Platinum Level
Downswings are tough to digest. But you have to remember that every downswing is going to end at some point. Sometimes math won´t go our way but things have to change. Until then play carefully and solid or even take a break. This might help you hopefully.
makisaa
Legend
Loyaler
When the next member of that sequence is losing it is hard! I think that the change is critical here. You must interrupt the losing situation with a change that you will decide. It maybe a break, or playing different poker games.
Rob Hobson
Legend
Loyaler
We all know what you mean. A break is the best remedy to get through it. Avoiding battles with bigger stacks minimize it. Many are just there for gambling.
cwdignus
Carpe diem
Loyaler
It's good to see this bad period clearly, if it's really variance or you just play inappropriately, I'm addicted to always making the same mistakes, there are players who think that losing an AA hand or any other premium hand is variance, always make an accurate analysis of what happened in your games
F
Foxie12340
Rock Star
Silver Level
I tell myself “ this can’t last forever” lol.
Joe
99.98% Kiln dried
Bronze Level
Well, it's quite simple really... You just don't give up! 
Granted, some things are easier said than done.
Experience certainly helps, but other things you can do are analyse your play, study and/or take a break.
The mental aspect of poker is huge, I believe if you approach a poker game expecting tough luck and bad beats- you'll find them.
Also the categorisation is important. Losing 80/20 isn't really a 'bad beat' and a 60/40 certainly isn't. That knowledge doesn't reduce the pain much when losing a whole string of 60/40's and 80/20's in a row, but it does help keep things in perspective.
Ultimately it's a case of picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and getting back on the horse...
If you're getting thrown or falling too often though, it's definitely worth checking your saddle is correctly fastened/positioned and that your riding technique is suitable. 🏇🏇🏇🐎
Granted, some things are easier said than done.
Experience certainly helps, but other things you can do are analyse your play, study and/or take a break.
The mental aspect of poker is huge, I believe if you approach a poker game expecting tough luck and bad beats- you'll find them.
Also the categorisation is important. Losing 80/20 isn't really a 'bad beat' and a 60/40 certainly isn't. That knowledge doesn't reduce the pain much when losing a whole string of 60/40's and 80/20's in a row, but it does help keep things in perspective.
Ultimately it's a case of picking yourself up, dusting yourself off and getting back on the horse...
If you're getting thrown or falling too often though, it's definitely worth checking your saddle is correctly fastened/positioned and that your riding technique is suitable. 🏇🏇🏇🐎
F
fundiver199
Legend
Loyaler
As Tracid said the mental part of the game in poker is huge. There are high stakes pros, who go a decade without winning, if they play live tournaments or even in some cases online tournaments. So if a bit of adversity is enough to make you want to quit, then maybe you just dont want to succeed in poker enough. And maybe you should just listen to that and either find another hobby or play in a more recreational way, where your main goal is to have fun.
zamana80
Enthusiast
Bronze Level
My friend gave me advice that it is important to play accordingly to your style and goal.
You cant win everything and fell all bluffs whatever.
I realized that sometimes u need to admit that your opponent is just good or better than you this time.
It is important to stay positive and dont let poker to change your mood. This is a game, no more.
You cant win everything and fell all bluffs whatever.
I realized that sometimes u need to admit that your opponent is just good or better than you this time.
It is important to stay positive and dont let poker to change your mood. This is a game, no more.
iwont20
Legend
Loyaler
By not thinking you are entitled to good periods. Especially because you've worked on your game, so now you have to win only. Understand that playing the game means having periods of losing, it's a given, it's not a punishment, bad luck, or personal attack.
After understanding this, practice your discipline by sticking to your strategy until the streak ends. And after, too.
After understanding this, practice your discipline by sticking to your strategy until the streak ends. And after, too.
Matt_Burns88
Legend
Loyaler
I see this question come up quite often and my first question is always how long is your bad period?
This is important because a lot of people quantify their bad run like they do the rest of their life; by days, weeks, months and years...but what does that really mean in terms of playing hours or tournaments? Are we talking one tournament? 10 tournaments? 100?
You've probably heard of the term variance, but do you understand what that means?
Variance is the deviation from the norm. Take the classic coin flip - maths says that after 100 flips it will land on heads 50 times and tails 50 times, but in reality, that very rarely happens. It will often be a few flips in favour of one side, sometimes massively so - try it for yourself. Whenever something happens more frequently than the mathematical probability, that is called variance.
Now take the classic AA vs KK situation, when you get it in heads up, preflop with Aces, you're an 81% favourite to win, but that also means that 1 in 5 times you're SUPPOSED to lose! A lot of the time, people forget this part of the equation.
This is short term variance and as a poker player you must embrace the variance or you will find yourself regularly frustrated and tilted.
In tournaments, especially large field tournaments, the variance is huge. That is because you don't just need your AA to hold against KK, but you also need your TT to hold against AKs, or your KQ to outdraw 44, over and over and over again. And that's just to run deep let alone win the tournament. Essentially to win a tournament, you need to run way above normal expectation. I listened to a podcast recently where the host was discussing variance and he explained that if a very good player with an ROI of 30% played pokerstars Sunday Million every single week, that player would need to play for something like 80 years to "guarantee" a win - that's 4,160 tournaments!
My point is, recreational players often think they are on a terrible downswing, because they haven't cashed for 10 or 20 tournaments, or haven't won a tournament in 50 attempts, but in reality this is going to happen from time to time, even normal. Personally, I have played just under 300 tournaments on ipoker this year and haven't won a single tournament (a few 2nd and 3rds), but have an overall ROI of 79%, but within that, I have runs of 20 tournaments without even a min-cash, and yet, I'm probably running above expectation over what is still a pretty small sample size.
My recommendation to you would be to study more, especially those spots where you got unlucky and see if you really got unlucky, or if you could have played the hand better. If you played the hand well and just got unlucky - great! You should be happy that you got your money in good safe in the knowledge that in the long run, you made a profitable play. If you played the hand poorly - great! You have found a mistake, or a leak in your game that you can look to improve on and avoid in the future, making you a better player and more likely to get that deep run in the future.
slicheri93
Legend
Bronze Level
Honestly think the best is to take a break maybe a day or 2 and then start again, going through a thought session and playing "through" it the same day might make you tilted when you lose more so when you feel like okay this isn't my day, just take a break
willjosp
Rock Star
Bronze Level
More than bad periods I have had bad streaks and bad decisions in poker tournaments, although in some tournaments it is true that I have had some bad hands when I have a pair of aces and another has a card, a minor card and a medium🙃🙃🙃
