Your worst downswing experience?

These past couple of months I experienced the worst run I have had during my 7 years of playing poker. The kind of run that makes me wonder if something supernatural is going on, which in turn makes me upset because I consider myself to be an extremely rational person (like if me considering unlikely hands that beat me makes them appear in reality on screen - the 'anti-Secret' or whether this was bad karma, because of some of the things I did in recent times). Last 2 weeks have been particularly brutal to a point where for the first time in my 'career' I'm taking a break despite feeling like I'm playing very good by my standards (this year I was the most motivated to improve that I have been in a very long while). I hope indeed 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', because if that's true I'm going to be one strong motherfucker once this ends.

I'm not looking for pity/comfort, but more so I'm interested in your experiences so that hopefully I can draw some inspiration from them and so that my brain gets proof, not promises that it can get this bad, while still playing winning poker.

had some 10-20k downswings but nothing too serious, just always keep my nose to the grindstone and grind low variance and rebuild confidence.

I always learn so much during downswings, I tend to bust out of them with solid scores the majority of the time, Obviously you're extremely talented, we all get them, no set amount of time, just focus on playing good and try to never ever think about luck.

Things will turn around for ya, take some time off and get some perspective, You're an awesome player to watch.

You guys play some high variance highstakes games, the swings can be kinda big, people never really realize how long the long run is. obviously why i don't have my bracelets yet!

i watch tons of movies, relax, shower, take my time and re-evaluate alot about my life and game during downswings, yet always remember to trust my instincts and believe in myself. Play my A game. If I have 1 single question, send hh's to skype friendz etc.

Think this is a good topic ne ways
Ryanz

5 minute showers are my 8 minute abs.

cures my tilt everytime idk why, fun getting ready at 5:52 to be out of the shower by 5:59 to not miss a hand in a towel -_-

obv the imagery you guys want.

life of an mtter.

toughest downswing was my first big one obv. when i was staked for nl25 ($500 roll) in 2010. I played like 10k hands everyday, playing pretty badly and thinking i was playing perfectly LOL. Then near busting my roll after about 100k hands. Since then i've never wanted a stake again, it just sucks to have that pressure to perform.

After that every downswing has been pretty easy to endure, except 1 i had this year where everything went badly. I had been running breakeven for like 2 months, then decided to challenge myself with some high variance heads up vs schmeff. Lost that match, cashed out some money. dropped down and played 1/2 deep. lost more after that, and more and more and lost money for 2.5 months straight. And kept losing even when i dropped down from 2/4 to .5/1. had to build my roll up from 2k. Lost about 12000bb's during that downswing. I was kind've shocked about that downswing because i just continued to keep running bad and getting crushed at .5/1 deep games, which were pretty dam soft for me at the time.
Still pretty easy to handle that one though because i knew i was playing well enough to beat the games. But yeah, deep games can have some insane variance.

When i started taking poker seriously in 2011 i had the biggest upswing ever, turning $200 into $36k in 5 months. I had improved during that time, but was probably one of the worst regs at 2/4, 3/6. That upswing was enough to keep me interested and keep me improving though, without that massive upswing at the right time i wouldn't have taken poker seriously for long.

Nowdays we can accurately measure how much of a downswing you can have based on hand sample, winrate and standard deviation. If you have a less than 2bb/100 winrate you can go 1million hands without making money.

lol neilly =D

On November 17 2012 20:48 tomson wrote: These past couple of months I experienced the worst run I have had during my 7 years of playing poker. The kind of run that makes me wonder if something supernatural is going on, which in turn makes me upset because I consider myself to be an extremely rational person (like if me considering unlikely hands that beat me makes them appear in reality on screen - the 'anti-Secret' or whether this was bad karma, because of some of the things I did in recent times). Last 2 weeks have been particularly brutal to a point where for the first time in my 'career' I'm taking a break despite feeling like I'm playing very good by my standards (this year I was the most motivated to improve that I have been in a very long while). I hope indeed 'what doesn't kill you makes you stronger', because if that's true I'm going to be one strong motherfucker once this ends. I'm not looking for pity/comfort, but more so I'm interested in your experiences so that hopefully I can draw some inspiration from them and so that my brain gets proof, not promises that it can get this bad, while still playing winning poker.

hm i think my worst run was like 40-something buyins at 1/2 6m over the course of a couple weeks but unlike you i'm not extremely rational and i prob tilted like a motherfucker.

how much worse is it than your first worst run ever? http://www.liquidpoker.net/poker-forum/271174/all/Downswings..html

Real downswing is when your cashier displays 0 with couple buyins left in your bank account. You think about killing yourself but decide to wait on that since you have points left to go biGGGGGG!

LOL

What is this 'downswing' thing you speak of?

you only realize your losses when you quit, just keep depositing

haha tomson you want inspiration

i don't have any your downswing can go on and on and you're like wtf and start believing in higher powers because only a cruel god could explain the universe fucking you this way

hard to get out of downswing when playing 10k hands a month

when i busted my roll and quit playing poker

Not played so much poker these last years. So this isn't all that fresh.

But one of the most gruesomme was when I was staked and I dropped somewhere in between 5-7k on the stake. Just made me deeply depressed and unfocused most of the time. Hated it.

And 2 years ago on holliday, got staked 5-10 live game, and one session I dropped 5000e. Just felt so empty and sad, couldn't bring myself to go to the appartment we had rented to face the other guys, just sat down at the lake for an hour feeling sorry for myself lol.

And in recent times I tried a stab at PLO, LOL, so this isn't really a downswing I guess lol. But down 55BI of micro stakes, 25nl and 10nl lol.

Other than that, maybe not a downswing. But I played a lot of poker around 3,5 years ago. Like 10 hours a day for 4 months straight and built a roll from 20nl of around 350e up to 6000e. And I was one of the guys who lost my roll in the Potraiser scandal. They changed to cakenetwork, ppl started cashing out like crazy. They couldn't pay, got kicked out from the network, and I never got the money. They just closed down and vanished. Not really a downswing, but made me quit poker and start gaming slobbing off.

Ok, that's bout it xD

I was looking through my old blog posts the other day and it reminded me of one of the more soul crushing downswings which was pretty much losing at more than a dollar/hand over 16k hands or so at hu, here were the associated blog posts if you were interested (on the ds and the recovery): 1 2

My biggest 6max downswing was probably something like 37-38 buy ins and I think I had two 30-buy in downswings in my life. It's sick but people can literally run really bad or good for stretches of like 500k hands even, and it's surprising to people but in reality its just that people underestimate variance all the time

I guess I lost like 50k or something playing 2/4-5/10 PLO two years ago or something. But I played fairly bad. The last 300k hands I'm like 100bi under ev but since I'm up money I can't really consider it a downswing.

I dropped 100k in stakes/backing/expenses and 150+ buyins between 2/4 and 5/10 in sept/october, gna make a blog about it once im robusto lol

-35 buyins

I generally deal very bad with even small swings, its my biggest leak

On November 18 2012 04:07 Mariuslol wrote: Other than that, maybe not a downswing. But I played a lot of poker around 3,5 years ago. Like 10 hours a day for 4 months straight and built a roll from 20nl of around 350e up to 6000e. And I was one of the guys who lost my roll in the Potraiser scandal. They changed to cakenetwork, ppl started cashing out like crazy. They couldn't pay, got kicked out from the network, and I never got the money. They just closed down and vanished. Not really a downswing, but made me quit poker and start gaming slobbing off.

That really sucks, if you somehow could continue to play with those 6000 euro 10 hours per day im sure you would have made well over 100.000 k euro with that at least today... Why not try the same receipe again ? What worked once can work again...

So check it guys, tomson pmed me to respond to this thread.

I dont want this to turn into massive long thread and hijack it from OP but here is a too long didn't read version of my poker story.

Started in June 2007 in my final semester of uni, friend (filthy999 on here) gave me 50$ and told me i'd make a good poker player and 6months later i had 110k never once going bust or ever endangering my roll and always having 20+ buyins (most of the time 50+).

Long story short i made 1.7mil with rakeback included in 5 years. The worst downswing ever was maybe 200k hands of breakeven and a total of perhaps 60 buyins... My winrate overall over 8million hands is 2bb/100. Its definately not fantastic or anything compared to someone like galfond, but in my defence i've always played 24 tables.. At the table i've always felt i was either the best or the 2nd best at most of the games i've sat in, even in todays climate.

I know i come across on this board as arrogant, asshole what ever you call it, and thats because i am smart. I was a high honor roll student in Syduni, got all kinds of prizes and scholarships and took on poker like it was natural to me, but this year was very very different for me. Even though I felt like i was still one of the best players on stars, i've broken even this whole year (no joke). I am down 120k this year (up 120 in rakeback) and unless something in the environment changes i dont plan on coming back. I am not discouraged about my own abilities but i am actually convinced the game is dead, after blackfriday happend alot of pros moved out of country just to keep gambling yet all the fish stopped playing. Even though I think i am better than most regs i play with but my edge on them is so small that it may not be enough to cover rake.

Im actually interested to see anyone post a good winning graph this year over 1.5mil+ hands.. I really cant think of any name on stars that is going to have a good looking graph

Anyways thats my 2cents to this, maybe im wrong and am just another washed up old school reg

P.S im quitting after i hit SNE this year and hoping the poker economy (legislation changes) other wise im going to join my friend who is starting a private investment fund.

in regards to tomson,

maybe the game is changing and maybe its not and you arent good enough but either way sometimes we just have to fold in real life