How do you guys deal with this much runbad?

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I would have to say that this month of June, is the WORST MONTH I'VE EVER HAD IN POKER.

Now granted I'm not a high stakes player, but I don't see how I can EVER move up in stakes, with how bad I've been running for the past 3 weeks.

I have gotten 2 outtered, 3 outtered, 4 outtered and 5 outtered so many times this month after all the money went in.

If this was live poker, this would be like 8 to 12 months of runbad.

People say it's variance and I need to expand my hand sample size. The hand sample size is roughly 23,500 hands.

I don't think I've ever had 3 weeks of pure run bad that was not due to bad play, but due to them doing massive suckouts
against me.

Today I had my worst suckout in the entire 4 month sample of 25nl. I got into a 4bet pot with AA, the guy flops top pair of 9's J kicker, and the other guy flops a pair of 9's 6 kicker. I everyone to shove their chips in and then a 9 hits on the turn and I lose a 340bb pot.

Right now it is impossible for me to turn a profit in poker, due to how bad the RNG has been to me.

If you look at the pic, I've generated $325 in expected value, and still managed to lose nearly $200.

How can I deal with so many suckouts and bad cards in a whole month? Since I started really focusing on my game, this is like the first month where I'm going to lose money after investing several dozen hours in playing poker.

There is no way I can move up in stakes, if I continue to run this horrible.

Edit: The attachment didn't come out very well, see if I can make it bigger somehow.

http://i31.photobucket.com/albums/c3...psgmuae0em.png

Yah I mean this is the toughest part about poker. I think as long as you're happy with the EV BB/100 then that's what you should focus on. In the long run the run bads and run goods should even out.

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Originally Posted by griffey24

Yah I mean this is the toughest part about poker. I think as long as you're happy with the EV BB/100 then that's what you should focus on. In the long run the run bads and run goods should even out.

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Yea I know I'm just wondering is it just me, or for there to be 21 buy ins difference between my winnings and my EV is a serious amount of run bad for only 23,500 hands, right?

I mean my EV is GREAT. It say's I'm exploiting the fck out of people on Bovada, but they just keep smashing the board after the money goes in clearly.

One guy tried telling me it was normal variance, yet it didn't make me feel any better about it.

I desperately want to move up to 50nl 4 tables, but if this run bad doesn't end I'm sticking to 25nl for now.

Yah I would say 23 buyins in that few hands is def quite significant run bad! Definitely not norm. Hopefully it turns!

When you run bad do you put yourself into more marginal situations. Like increased willingness to flip, or get all in with marginal pairs like 99/TT that you would have otherwise folded? Cause that could also lead to more extreme swings in EV.

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Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

Yea I know I'm just wondering is it just me, or for there to be 21 buy ins difference between my winnings and my EV is a serious amount of run bad for only 23,500 hands, right?

I mean my EV is GREAT. It say's I'm exploiting the fck out of people on Bovada, but they just keep smashing the board after the money goes in clearly.

One guy tried telling me it was normal variance, yet it didn't make me feel any better about it.

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So essentially you want people to justify you feeling bad about running bad? If you want to see how normal it is go play around with a variance calculator.

http://pokerdope.com/poker-variance-calculator/

It's worth realising that there is no such thing as "running bad" or "running good" results are the past not the present and there is no effect on your future results based on how you were running previously. Arbitrarily picking a time frame to frame those results is pretty pointless.

But yeah poker sucks balls, work on ways to get over it because it certainly doesn't go away and the lower your winrate the more shit you have to deal with.

Yea well my winrate has taken a pretty massive hit this month. My EV/100 is probably still pretty good though.


I think what's going to wind up happening is I need to learn to accept that I'm always going to run bad for the most part it seems.

Assuming you're a 2bb/100 winner based on SD of 80, 100 and 120 this is how likely it is you run that bad (or worse) over that sample.

80 - 13.28%
100 - 18.66%
120 - 22.90%

So it's not really that uncommon at all. 23,500 hands is a complete nothing sample. Go look on other sites where people blog and put in real volume and look at the swings, especially if they're playing games where they are very slight winners.

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Originally Posted by JimmyS1985

I think what's going to wind up happening is I need to learn to accept that I'm always going to run bad for the most part it seems.

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Rubbish, you'll run the same as everyone else would it's random. You aren't unlucky you're entitled*. When you're winning more than you should you probably think ohh well im a winner as soon as you lose you feel like the world is against you.

*Nothing against you personally, almost everyone falls into that boat. I know I did.

You should try to focus on the fact that you're getting your money in good and that's all that matters.

Bear in mind that a minimal volume to put a decent estimate on your winrate is ~100,000 hands and really somewhere between 1 and 10 million is where you can actually determine statistically whether you're beating those stakes. Trouble is... by then your BR is big enough to play a couple steps up in stakes.

It's nearly impossible to tell if you're beating the stakes you're currently playing, because if you are, you'll be rolled for higher stakes long before the numbers are robust enough to give you a good answer to the question, "Is my winrate positive?"


As long as you're making +EV decisions, then you just have to ride out the swings and everything will be fine.

If you're feeling emotional about the swings, then find a practical way to minimize those feelings. Maybe if you doubled your BR at this stakes, you wouldn't feel the burn so much when you lose a dozen BI. Maybe if you take a walk in a park for an hour or two a day, you'll find more emotional resilience. Maybe if you change your diet, you'll find your mental state is buoyed by better nutrition. There are lots of things to try. Never forget that you are a chemical machine that needs regular maintenance.

Ultimately, the mental side of poker is the most brutal part. There are tons of ways to deal with it, but only some of them will work for each person.

What all the others said. I've run below EV every year I've played, but 40+ BI below EV a couple of years ago. I was likely a small winner (2bb/100) at 50nl Zoom and a winner in EV terms, but had to drop down two stakes as I ran badly at 50nl and 25nl to maintain a 30BI roll. It sucks, but you've got to do it or risk ruin (and I'm not willing to prop up my roll from savings).

Worth remembering that luck manifests itself in many different ways in poker to. For instance, in situations when both players are going broke, you could be the guy that has the best of it more often than not e.g. you have AA when they have KK, you have top set vs middle set, etc. You can also benefit from not being outdrawn in big pots, which isn't something you'll see in your EV line.

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Originally Posted by ImSavy

Assuming you're a 2bb/100 winner based on SD of 80, 100 and 120 this is how likely it is you run that bad (or worse) over that sample.

80 - 13.28%
100 - 18.66%
120 - 22.90%

So it's not really that uncommon at all. 23,500 hands is a complete nothing sample. Go look on other sites where people blog and put in real volume and look at the swings, especially if they're playing games where they are very slight winners.



Rubbish, you'll run the same as everyone else would it's random. You aren't unlucky you're entitled*. When you're winning more than you should you probably think ohh well im a winner as soon as you lose you feel like the world is against you.

*Nothing against you personally, almost everyone falls into that boat. I know I did.

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I think I did a bad choice of words when I made that statement. I mean that I think I dunno, whenever I'm not winning I'm psychologically always going to feel like I always run bad.

I think I'm a fish when it comes to the mental game of this. I make decent mathematical decisions (and I'm not a math guy) but I might be a fish when it comes to the mental game. Believe I've probably been 1 outtered 10x in my time at the poker tables, it probably doesn't make much sense for it to get to me all of a sudden, but it's just been a brutal month in poker for me in June.