Lessons from a downswing

I've dropped about $10k from my peak bankroll about two months ago. I've always been a little bit skeptical of the people who talk about 20 buyin downswings like they're just part of poker, but I ain't no more. Some thoughts I have and lessons I've learned...

1) 2/4 and 3/6 6max at FT are tough games. El dee oh, but worth reiterating. There are very few big fish in the game right now. To make money you need to play disciplined poker, get good reads and be able to exploit them. My edge (and yes, I believe I still have one) comes in small and medium pots. It's VERY hard to win stacks right now unless you cooler someone or it's a 60/40ish situation.

2) The biggest leak in the midstakes player pool is loose calls. Again this is obvious (and probably true in most games), but worth mentioning because everyone thinks they need to start bluffing like crazy when they move up past 1/2. Bluffing is important against tight regulars who haven't seen you do anything spewy, but without a read or a good image, value betting is >>>.

3) Light 3betting may be overrated. I'll get some shit for this one, but I'm honestly starting to believe it. And it's for one of the same reasons sauce gives FOR 3betting in his post-uigea strategy post: there's no 3betting hud stat yet. Since there's no hud stat, and 3betting is so common at these stakes, everyone assumes that every other regular is a light 3bettor (even ones with "tight" 18/16 stats). This means they 4bet lighter, call lighter and float and c/r more flops. What's the obvious compensation? Tighten up your 3betting range. I guarantee they're not going to notice without a hud stat. Plus, calling with some hands you might 3bet allows you to take advantage of another common leak: c-betting too often. And the fish that do exist are usually weak loose/passive players, and by calling pfr's you keep them in the pot for post-flop trips to valuetown. I think sauce's guide is theoretically sound and puts a lot of pressure on your opponents, but it creates a lot of difficult, marginal decisions when you don't immediately win the pot.

4) I play too impulsively. It's amazing that the same leaks I identified 6 months ago at 0.50/1 and 1/2 haunt me today. I make bluffs and calls that I INSTANTLY know are bad, but I don't take the time to talk myself out of them. Last night I was having a solid session, playing really well and undid all that good work with two bad push semibluffs. I'm working on some solutions, but advice is appreciated.

5) I'm really glad I don't play poker for a living. I've never seriously entertained thoughts of going of pro, but of course I've fantasized, especially when I moved up to midstakes and ran sick hot for a couple of months. It's hard enough losing $10k when you've told yourself you have it to lose, but if my poker bankroll was my liferoll, wow, that would suck.

I agree with most of this.

I think sometimes its just worth knowing you can and will run shit, but that when you call up the graphs and math you are actually beating the game fair and square and just running bad.

thats easily the most reassuring thing, that it will eventually all turn around.

this should be stickied.

I think one of the big problems people have is that they only go into "learning mode" when they are in downswing. If people would do the same when they are in a huge upswing, they probably wouldn't have such huge downswings. People shouldn't take winning to mean "I am goot" and leave it at that....even winners make mistakes.

Nice post djzcko.

Originally Posted by Bode-ist

this should be stickied.

Can that wait until after the recovery?

Wow Zook, I agree with basically everything and am in a similar situation. Downswinging and getting owned by some 2/4 and most 3/6 regs.

"Swing" is a word that should be erased from the poker players vocabulary. Swings don't exist by themselves, they are just patterns we choose to focus on in the randomness of a lifetime graph. Sitting down at the table thinking that you're in a down- or upswing will hurt your decision making.

I totally stole that from The Poker Mindset btw.

Oh, and I'm down 13 buyins the last two weeks :P.

3. three is 100% right, just at low stakes its the opposite. At 2/4 and 3/6 people are retards about calling threebets, calling like all low pp's and suited connectors which is just dumb. At 200nl no one calls without a super strong hand to threebets.

Great post Zook and thanks for sharing. I had a 14 buy-in downswing in May/June and the emotional drama with it was mind numbing. Now its a distant memory but I know that it can happen to anyone, anytime. You will pull through as did I.

I feel your pain. Downers do happen, and sometimes when they do there is nothing you can do. Even most of the 1/2 tables now are filled with regs, and the big fish are all 1/4 BI's. I also agree with djzck, I did this when I was winning for months, then my downer hit and I have been working on my game nonstop since. I seen a blog about where this solid 2/4+ stars reg who 'wins' for 700k hands then 'loses' for 650k, and so on.

I think that as we win consistently we become content with our game. The game is changing even if its just a little, but we are not. The best players are making or even forcing the changes, but we are content so we no longer adapt as we did when we were still learning how to win. The best players are changing the game to exploit, and we end up getting exploited because we fail to adapt. A bad run to keep you on your game may just be the best thing for you.

You guys are getting Frist Fucked.

Z--we should have traded notes. Seriously.

I am on the road to recovery (for now), so it can/will turn around.

Get a hold of me and I will send you a link to a HUD that, while not perfect, includes 3bet % in it.....found it on 2p2. There are some thngs that make it not so user friendly, but it's a start......

Originally Posted by cardsman1992

Z--we should have traded notes. Seriously.

I am on the road to recovery (for now), so it can/will turn around.

Get a hold of me and I will send you a link to a HUD that, while not perfect, includes 3bet % in it.....found it on 2p2. There are some thngs that make it not so user friendly, but it's a start......

i'm curiously what will happen with the next generation of poker software tools comes out. holdem manager is already getting pretty ridiculous with all the filters it contains. 4betting light might not be a joke anymore.

2/4 is where ABC poker is still marginally profitable, but you def have to start mixing in some plays vs the regs to have a good winrate. I can still find a decent amount of tables at 2/4 with 2-3 bad players. 3/6 I honestly never find any tables with less than 4 out of 6 being regulars.

Since I'm practicing pretty consistent table selection recently, I have been regularly including 1/2 tables into my mix.

Saying "I play 2/4" or "I play 3/6" and only opening tables from those stakes is a mistake in my opinion. Unless you are playing at 2 sites at once, I think you usually need to be mixing stakes to have 4 good tables up, unless the games are particularly good that night (which they occasionally are).

Originally Posted by Harry

Saying "I play 2/4" or "I play 3/6" and only opening tables from those stakes is a mistake in my opinion. Unless you are playing at 2 sites at once, I think you usually need to be mixing stakes to have 4 good tables up, unless the games are particularly good that night (which they occasionally are).

I agree for the most part. There definitely aren't enough good 3/6 tables at FT to play more than 4 at a time (and sometimes not even 2). But there are usually 4-6 good 2/4 tables I think.

On a positive note, I played awesome poker tonight and ran at 18ptbb/100 over 1k hands. This post must have been cathartic. I'm especially happy b/c I made a couple of nice reads that didn't pay off and I didn't let it tilt me.

Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Holdem Ring game - Blinds: $2/$4 - 5 players - Converter

Stack sizes:
Hero: $489.80
CO: $380.70
Button: $398
SB: $673.20
BB: $654.10

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is UTG with T T
Hero raises to $14, CO folds, Button calls, 2 folds.

Flop: 9 4 5 ($34, 2 players)
Hero bets $28, Button calls.

Turn: J ($90, 2 players)
Hero bets $60, Button raises to $270, Hero raises all-in $447.8, Button calls all-in $86.
Uncalled bets: $91.8 returned to Hero.

River: A ($802, 0 player + 2 all-in - Main pot: $802)


Results:
Final pot: $802
Button showed Ac Kc
Hero showed Th Td


Full Tilt Poker - No Limit Holdem Ring game - Blinds: $2/$4 - 5 players - Converter

Stack sizes:
UTG: $469.10
CO: $728.10
Hero: $394
SB: $400
BB: $705

Pre-flop: (5 players) Hero is Button with A A
2 folds, Hero raises to $14, SB calls, BB folds.

Flop: 9 T T ($32, 2 players)
SB checks, Hero bets $28, SB raises to $92, Hero calls.

Turn: 5 ($216, 2 players)
SB bets $164, Hero raises all-in $288, SB calls.

River: 8 ($792, 1 player + 1 all-in - Main pot: $792)

Results:
Final pot: $792
Hero showed Ac As
SB showed Jc Qd

Stack of when an Q or 8 hits turn?

Originally Posted by Harry

Stack of when an Q or 8 hits turn?

K or 8 you mean? Dunno. When I called the flop I said I wouldn't, but AA is the nuts...

Obviously this doesn't cover all of my downswing, but HOLY SHIT does it feel good to be back in the positive for August.

daaaaaaammmmmmnnnnnnn....

Originally Posted by zook

Obviously this doesn't cover all of my downswing, but HOLY SHIT does it feel good to be back in the positive for August.

i need some of this when i get another week off work starting saturday-week.

How to recover from an enormous downswing:

1. Make a post on FTR talking about "lessons you've learned" from your most recent downswing.

2. Tighten up.

3. Run sick hot for the next two weeks.

Originally Posted by zook

How to recover from an enormous downswing:

1. Make a post on FTR talking about "lessons you've learned" from your most recent downswing.

2. Tighten up.

3. Run sick hot for the next two weeks.

OMGWTF THAT IS SO SICK!

Originally Posted by zook

I've dropped about $10k from my peak bankroll about two months ago. I've always been a little bit skeptical of the people who talk about 20 buyin downswings like they're just part of poker, but I ain't no more. Some thoughts I have and lessons I've learned...

Damn, sorry to hear that. My BR just took a big hit too, but I kinda expected it at some point playing over my roll at 2/4 with only like 14 buyins. Back to 1/2 which is still fun but I reaaaallly want to move back up.

1) 2/4 and 3/6 6max at FT are tough games. El dee oh, but worth reiterating. There are very few big fish in the game right now. To make money you need to play disciplined poker, get good reads and be able to exploit them. My edge (and yes, I believe I still have one) comes in small and medium pots. It's VERY hard to win stacks right now unless you cooler someone or it's a 60/40ish situation.

Hmm. At Pokerstars I think there are a bunch of really good regs but I also noticed quite a few donators and really I feel that people are aggressively parting with stacks...I actually had someone call a river bet for half a stack on 3/6 with Sounds the opposite of FT to me.

2) The biggest leak in the midstakes player pool is loose calls. Again this is obvious (and probably true in most games), but worth mentioning because everyone thinks they need to start bluffing like crazy when they move up past 1/2. Bluffing is important against tight regulars who haven't seen you do anything spewy, but without a read or a good image, value betting is >>>.

I totally agree. The difference in my winning play vs. losing play is avoiding loose calls PF, not cbetting/bluffing too much (being a bit more conservative), and deciding to give up on hands before turn $$ goes in, which saves a looooot of money.

3) Light 3betting may be overrated. I'll get some shit for this one, but I'm honestly starting to believe it. And it's for one of the same reasons sauce gives FOR 3betting in his post-uigea strategy post: there's no 3betting hud stat yet. Since there's no hud stat, and 3betting is so common at these stakes, everyone assumes that every other regular is a light 3bettor (even ones with "tight" 18/16 stats).

I totally agree with you. If I'm newish to a table (less than 10 minutes) and someone pops a couple 3bets, I usually assume they are a loose 3better.

I think light 3 betters can do fantastic but it takes exceptional hand reading and experience, I'm just not as good as someone like sauce at playing these marginal situations.

I play very generic TAG with occasional tricky plays thrown in, and it seem that the real key for me is *playing disciplined poker*. More important than working on my 3betting range, bluffs, or whatever is playing consistent, disciplined poker making decisions properly in the situations I've been in hundreds of times. When I play disciplined, my profits just slowly climb. All it takes to get off track is one night tilting after some variance to throw my play off for a couple days or weeks. It just seems like there are a lot of good players now that know what to do in most situations and its coming down often to who can just be disciplined and avoid mistakes like loose calls...