First Couple Days On The Felt

Well the first couple days of the $200 experiment were CRAZY. I was mostly breaking even going up and down at $200 range. Then had a massive downswing. Lost about 8 buy-ins. Had some really bad beats of flush over flush, set over set and AA getting cracked by runner-runner straight draws and just not hitting my big combo-draws on the flop. (Two overs with a flush draw and such) and just plain bad-beats. No I didnt tilt off any buy-ins either, lol. I don’t really tilt anymore and have a little secret I use (thanx to Antonio Esfandiari).

Downswings are a part of poker and we need to understand this so we can minimize them as much as possible. We can lose our whole bankroll to a downswing if we end up tilting. That’s why we have our 20-40 buy-ins to suffer these situations.

Here is a picture of my downswing and this is just a small amount of hands played. Then I had an upswing to go back into the positives.

These swings can have a real toll on some people, and you need to adjust to them and know they will come and go and in the long run if you are playing good poker you will be in the positives.

Some ways you can you can minimize some of these swings are:

• Try not to tilt and lose more buy-ins
• Quit poker for the day as after a downswing your really not in your optimal state to play poker.
• Don’t try to chase your losses at higher levels
• Have self confidence in your play, don’t be playing scared
• Drop down to a level were you can rule all and get your confidence back.
• Review your hands and see if you can spot any leaks where you might be losing  money

Just remember downswings are a part of poker. And if you think you have seen the worst of it you haven’t. There will always be a time when you think to yourself “I have never had such a bad downswing in my life, why am I so unlucky.”

Fellow poker player

Jeremy

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Related Posts:

• Game’s Theory
• Leveling Up vs. Adding Tables – Part 2
• The Downswing Revealed