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Effects of a Downswing
I've noticed a couple of good, long-term winning players talking about downswings recently.
My question for you is; how badly do you think thoughts of "I'm on a massive £1k downswing" perpetuate the downswing itself? How much impact does it have on your play that you know you've been losing a lot lately?
Personally it's a long time since I've played enough volume to really notice this sort of thing but back in the day, losing definitely encouraged losing. I don't think that's something that would affect me quite so much nowadays but what are your thoughts?
Any suggestions to help people break that kind of mindset?
Comments
Losing definitely does tend to encourage losing. It's like when people go on passive tilt... they're so sick of being outdrawn loads so what do they do... they start calling in spots where they should be raising until they see the board has run out safely and what happens... they just make it even more likely people will come along and so they get outdrawn even more... which encourages you to go even more into your shell and then suddenly you're a passive rock not even playing a winning game anymore.
I've experienced some pretty nasty patches before so I was getting quite good at handling it but this recent one has really took the wind out of me. In terms of period of time it's only 4 days but that's a whole lot of hands when you play 8hr per day 12tabling, that could be 2+ weeks worth of hands to someone else.
Like I was saying to Dohhhhh, it's completely mashed my head, there were spots last night where I had say AQ on a AJxx flop, I'd raised pre and c-bet and it's a board where I'm 100% barrelling the turn for value and last night I was just like urgh.... I dont wanna do this, cos I'm just so used to finding out some raggy ace has coolered me or just gets there on the river anyway. I did ignore my urge to check the turn, got a call and they did bink 2pr on the river with A5 lol but yeh I did the right thing but it's not easy.
I don't have any suggestions to break the mindset but would be grateful if others did!
It makes my mindset all worng i seem to sit down at the table now and expect to lose and just waiting for the inevitable to happen. I'm getting alot better at realising the early signes of when i am playing bad and adjust or stand up quicker but sometimes vairence is varience and you are just going to lose.
I havent had a winning session in about a week now and im just going to give it a break wait for C4P to come through next month and try and start afreash. This gives me a break and hopefully i will be fired up and wanting to play byt he time i play seriously again.
Obviously this is bad interms of profitablilty as if you are playing the game correctly it shouldnt matter if your having a downswing or an up you should be playing the same. But it is my belief your head needs to be in the right place for you to deal with the swings and mine isint there atm so im locking up the last few months profits for a while before i lose the rest of it to
How many losing sessions constitutes a ds?
I always thought it was a prolonged period, weeks or even months.
4/5/6/7 bad days in a row is just short term runbad? or is it, idk.
I have experienced my worst downswing £’s/bi’s this year - it lasted for around 12 weeks.
The nut worst time as I just stepped up to nl50.
I questioned everything about my game and the more I looked through my HH’s the more I became disillusioned with the game. I actually considered giving up poker it was that bad.
I still don’t think I am fully out of it yet!
I actually thought while in the middle of the downswing that it’s just a blip and it will turn, but as the days grew into weeks I became more and more annoyed with the injustice of it all. I should of stepped down earlier but didn’t because I wasn’t playing bad.
So I eventually stepped down from nl50 when my KK AIPR was beaten by 10’s and set me down another 4 bi’s.
It was the last nail in the coffin, I withdraw it all. I spent a few days just going through my HH’s and looking at my game. I came to conclusion that I can still win and it was just a horrible experience. So I deposited a % of my roll back on and I’ll see where I go from here.
Do downswings effect your game, without doubt yes they do if you let it.
During my downswing I made some shocking plays and had to be really disciplined to remove them from my game and remain focused. Keep on reviewing your sessions and show some hands to other people just to confirm your own thinking or they may shed some light on your own bad play.
Just like heaters, downswings are part of poker – I would be just happy with running slightly above EV for a few weeks
Good luck it’s a long road and an absolute massive test on your mental game.
Poker is easy when you winning.
Marc
So yes a downswing does affect you mentally and your mental attitude can lengthen the downswing. Whether I would have turned it round without a break I'm not sure.
BUT... how do you deal with it when you're not getting it in good, you're consistently getting it in bad but in ways that are unavoidable? Like middle set into top set over and over. This is what's happening to me atm btw... every time I flop top 2, someone has flopped a straight, everytime I flop a set they've flopped a flush and I brick the FH etc etc.
Obviously it hurts when we keep running into the top of his range... but I suppose then we need to ask whether the bottom of his range is where we think it is.
Head feeling mashed, I just dunno wtf I can do, just completely unable to win a hand.
AK v A5 aipf twice, lose both
QQ v AK aipf - lose
AK v 93 aipf (yes i know lol) - lose
AK v A8 aipf - lose
QQ v KK aipf - lose as expected but cooler.
Meh can't remember or care to list the times I got it in on the flop basically flipping with 2 overs and NFD and bricked every single time, or had someone call down 3 streets to river a runner runner 4 flush.