what to do when running bad
I know this issue has been beaten to death in discussion, but i'm curious.. What do you do when you've been running bad for a relative long period of time?
For the sake of this conversation I'm really only talking about playing live. I don't really play much on-line, a wife and two little girls don't allow me the focus that i believe is required, so when i do play on-line i accept that it is for pure entertainment value.
I know that this is part of the game, and that every player will experience some sort of running bad at some point. I'm just curious what you do to beat running bad?
For the sake of this conversation I'm really only talking about playing live. I don't really play much on-line, a wife and two little girls don't allow me the focus that i believe is required, so when i do play on-line i accept that it is for pure entertainment value.
I know that this is part of the game, and that every player will experience some sort of running bad at some point. I'm just curious what you do to beat running bad?
Comments
I think the worst possible advice you can get is "take a break", which will likely come up ITT.
When you take a break and come back and still run bad it makes it 10x worse.
Just dont play bad when you run bad. That is another problem entirely...
I guess you have to analyse the key hands to see what caused the bad run; are you getting sucked out on vs playing bad poker? if you are playing bad poker, what mistakes are you making in the hand? I also mainly play live and I find its helpful to make some notes before you start a new session to make sure you focus on certain key aspects of the game before you start the session. Going back and re-reading one of your favourite poker books might also be helpful just to get you back on track. Good luck in any case. It can be a frustrating game.
Live the effect is worse, If you only have a 200 hand sample size per session, you could very easily lose ten sessions (2000 hands).
This would equate to an awful 2 weeks of live play.
On two plus two very good players have reported.
Losing with 27 sets in a row.
Losing 40 buyins.
Playing break even for 100,000 hand samples sizes. (this is about 3 years of live play.)
Kristy's suggestion of go home and sleep is excellent!
I like to go see movies/shows/live theater/live bands.
I like to drop down in stakes after I have a bad session.
I also like to spend some time working on my game and discuss hands with people I trust.
With tournaments I keep playing the usual MTT's and not try to get to fancy with the hands I am playing even maybe go back to ABC poker for a bit.
I just find playing through it will help or even lower the buyins you are playing
I have played live poker for 7-8 years or so and didn't have my first truly bad run until 2.5 years ago and then another about a year ago -- they are brutal and can really make you question your game.
Or break something. Always helps me.
Back to back hands come up in which I look down to find AA and it already raised to 60. Naturally, I pop it to 80 and my neighbor insta calls like he is dropping two quarters in to a coke machine on a hot day in the middle of july.
Needless to say, his holdings for the two hands were 5-2 and 3-2 and he won both massive pots. Laughing with glee, he couldn't be happier.
A week later, sitting side by side again, he turns to me asks "jimmy, I'm getting killed. 4 sessions in a row. What do you do when you are going bad?"
"Tiger my friend, I have no idea how you can go bad, you play soooo good"
Wow I didn't know the 20/40 at Brantford was so tough...