Before the WCOOP, I was running about as good as I've ever run in my life. I was something like 8-1 in the money from SNGs, and I was routinely doubling my buy-ins in 1-2 NL cash games. My bankroll was as flush as ever, and playing poker was twelve different kinds of fun. Since the WCOOP, I am 1-6 in SNGs, and I've dropped two buy-ins in cash games (home games, and online.)I have reviewed my hand histories, and honestly assessed my games. There are only a couple of folds I can honestly point to that may have been too tight, but seemed like the right play at the time (considering blinds, chip stacks, relative position to the bubble, etc.) and are certainly not enough to account for this terrible run.
What I did see -- and I promise this isn't going to be a whiny series of bad beat stories -- is that I have been insanely unlucky. I've lost every coinflip but one, and each of those times I was in ahead. When I've pushed with JJ, I have run into KK. When I get it all in with 88, I run into 99, etc. My personal favorite was when I flopped a set of sixes, and got action all the way down from a guy who was calling with jacks . . . and made a set of his own on fifth street. And yes, my kings have held up as often as The Hammer, thankyouverymuch.
If I adhere to the "it's just one long session" philosophy, I am still way in the black . . . but for the last thirty days, I am seriously in the red, and poker just isn't very much fun. In fact, I haven't picked up a deck of cards, or logged into PokerStars in almost two weeks, because I am so sick to death of losing. It's frustrating, it feels like a waste of time, and it's hard to go into a game with a positive attitude.
Variance? Sure, that's a big part of it, and losing huge chunks of my bankroll sucks . . . but playing poker is more than an investment of my money; it's also an investment of my time. As a result, I'm getting a negative return on time and money. Math is hard, but that's not adding up to a whole lot of good times. Because I play for fun (as opposed to professionally) I'm investing my time in other areas that have a better EV for me: walking my dogs, playing games with my kids, writing a book, watching DVDs, cooking for my wife. I'm sure I'll play again soon, but right now, it's not much of a priority for me.
But what do you do if you're more serious about playing poker? How do you ride out the bad times? This is the subject of countless late night post-game discussions, and most of the better poker books include a chapter or at least a section dedicated to this element of the game, which is as much a part of poker as chips and cards. Hell, Google returns seventy-eight million returns for the phrase "running bad," and the image in this post comes is the first Google Image Search return for the same phrase. It comes from poker blogger StudioGlyphic, who hit a slump of his own earlier this year.
2+2 Internet Magazine has an article out on this very subject, titled Playing Through a Downswing. It's focused on a bad run within the context of one session, but its advice can be extrapolated and applied to longer stretches. (It's linked below.)
One of my favorite bloggers, HDouble, writes a brilliant essay that dovetails nicely with this advice, titled The Path to Poker Mastery.
As always, I'm interested to hear what CardSquad readers have to say about it. What do you do to ride out the bad times?
(Link via PokerFilter. Thanks, Bill!)
1. Talk about a timely post! After they day that I had on Saturday, I really need to know what others say on this subject. Like you, I feel that I was playing good poker but catching bad breaks... flopping two pair (AQ) and having a lone caller with junk catch a flush with running diamonds on the turn and the river... o, bloody river how I loathe thee.
Posted at 7:57PM on Oct 4th 2005 by Dan Davis