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The never ending down swing
How do some of you heads up players deal with what seems like a never ending downswing? it feels like I am losing at a 1 to 4 ratio at present & I genuinely dont know if I want to play poker anymore (although I am sure I would be fine after a break)
You all know the type of runs where every qq is snaped of vs a2 or when you get you opponent down to there last 30 chips only for them to win the next 10 flips...
Im quite a level headed person and realise this can happen to anybody - but emotionally I am not quite sure I am cut out for this anymore.
Long story short... any tips?
Also before suggesting a change of format I love MTTs but dont have the time + I couldnt do that to my other half... 6 max cash I am pretty average at and not even sure I am a winner - HU cash is my favourite game and possibly my best but action is so hard to come by....
Very frustrating game and easy to feel like everything is against you hence why I try to be fairly kind to the rigged new player posts.
But for those that have been through this how have you kept motivated?
Comments
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have a play with a software called swongsim [www.dropbox.com/s/ukpadqy24se12th/SwongSim.exe?dl=0]
it will be able to tell you about the swings you can expect and confidence levels of EV.
two problems with sky.
1 they dont allow tracking software so you can never see how well or poorly you are running. real $$ reults are the last to converge so it will take a long time to see if your results are actually due to runbad / rungood
2 the rake is very high. esp in hypers. you shouldnt play regs unless it is to gain a lobby or you fancy playing for lolz. you wont beat the rake long term and you real ££ variance will be extreme.
200-300 games samples with high rake against competent players will see a lot of swings and swongs.
variance is a function of ev roi.
the higher you expected evroi the less variance you will suffer.
the only sure fire way to reduce variance to to improve your edge over the field.
if you want to send a 5-10 minute video of your grind to me 1-2 tabling i'd be happy to have a look and see if any tilt / obvious leaks are there.
Widespread access to gto solvers has pushed understanding further.
It also means regs are playjng a much less exploitable strategy.
Not sure if the regs here are using things like pio solver, but even if they aren't are just studying a tonne, it means you have to work extremely hard off the table to have any chance of beating the rake here.
All I would suggest is to try playing something different for a week or so, maybe 6 max SNG's or any other game just for the change of scenery. I find playing a variety of games saves me getting bored and frustrated with the game. It also helps to develop other areas of our overall game.
I also find watching training videos can be good, even if you don't think you are learning a ton. The break while you watch them helps and you start to naturally analyse the play in the training videos, consider other lines of play and spot things they or you could tweak etc. This usually helps get my interest back and before long I am itching to get back to the felt.
Good luck!
As far as playing reg's go, there's possibly 1 reg that you could probably beat the rake against but the rest of them are strong enough where it's not going to be +ev to play them.
Hypers in general I've run terrible in them over my lifetime of playing them, which is really annoying as it's a format of poker I like and feel I'm pretty good at. Thankfully, the other format I'm good is omaha - and I run like the complete opposite. Seem to always run insanely well!
Eg, A player with an evroi of 2% will only be breakeven or worse around 20% of the time over a 2k sample on sky.
If you are breakeven over a number of years or 2-3k+ games then it is extremely likely that you need to work on some aspects of your game.
**edit dyms require a similar itm to beat rake as husngs - slightly higher in dyms due to increaed rake - so if turbbo dyms are lower variance it is because there is more edge to be found, DUCY?**
Also your point about 6 max (along with Ivanovich) is a good one as I actually seem to be running the opposite over there
the only thing that should matter is the decision in front of you.
you can take practical steps lower variance in two ways:
1 improve your decision making. variance is a function of EV. the further you are from breakeven the fewer swings you will suffer [note this works both ways. terrible players suffer less variance than breakeven players also].
2 take lower variance lines. when the EV's of two lines are close take the line with the least chip stack variance. two canonical examples from HUSNG's:
+ limping a hand instead of minraising. very few hands strictly prefer minraising over limping - the EV's are super close - so introduce more limping,
+ check calling draws or check raising them - again EV's run super close in a lot of spots. but one is much higher variance than the other.
against recreationals reducing variance is so amazingly good you can actually sacrifice some small amount of chip EV whilst actually improving your winrate and reducing variance. the idea is once the rec buys in he is locked into a game. we want to play as many hands as possible against him. we can pass on small edges as we know that our edge in subsequent hands will more than make up for it [simplified but the maths really works for this].
the added bonus here is that not only do we reduce variance but we also increase winrate, which further reduces variance. wins all round.
focus on the decision in front of you
make the best decision you can
when lines are close take the one with lower chipstack variance
especially v recreationals [we can actually pass up some small amount of EV in high variance spots v recs].
good thoughts, teddy, as always.
In the main and mini
aa loses to kk on river (chips always going in but the was an air of inevitability)
99 loses to 44 on river (major aggro shoves UTG I have seen earlier shoves with 67 89 etc 20bbs deep) I snap call ... I snap cry
almost simultaneously... and again I stress it is not these hands but I cant remember an overpair holding for a week.... my eyes are bleeding
Somehow still hanging around in the main
If I may add to the sensible advice given by others:-
1. Never gamble what you cannot afford to lose-apart from the obvious, you will play sub-optimally
2. Following on from 1, when I hit a downswing I move down in buy-ins for MTTs to regain confidence.
GLGL
Phil