Started a downswing with my journey into 25NL and have continued at 10NL and even 5NL. I am not tilting and have not changed anything about my play (I believe) and my decision is to just play through the downswing and know that my trips will not continue to be beat by straights and my straights will not always get beat by full houses. I have been running pretty good for a while so I guess it is just time. I have kept to my bankroll strategy of at least 20 buyins for a given level and have plenty of room at 10NL to get through this. I would tell anyone that BR management is crucial to weather downswings. I know if I was worried about my BR I would not play as well.

Cliff

hi ime will ive bin playin online poker a while now, ime on abit of a downswing at the moment i thaught it had stopped today i had a good session earlier, but then at certain times of day i find ime coming across some bad players who r consistantly winning whith plays like this.
***** Hand History for Game 22578768717 ***** (Full Tilt)
$5.00 USD NL Texas Hold'em - Sunday, July 25, 10:44:13 ET 2010
Table Catch (6 max) (Real Money)
Seat 4 is the button
Seat 1: PHOENIX MARIE ( $5.38 USD )
Seat 2: david rangel ( $5.84 USD )
Seat 3: RelayLaundry ( $5.00 USD )
Seat 4: wills2864 ( $5.00 USD )
Seat 5: MyManIvey ( $10.57 USD )
Seat 6: blackacexxx ( $0.00 USD )
MyManIvey posts small blind [$0.02 USD].
PHOENIX MARIE posts big blind [$0.05 USD].
** Dealing down cards **
Dealt to wills2864 [ Ah Ac ]
david rangel raises [$0.14 USD]
RelayLaundry folds
wills2864 raises [$0.55 USD]
MyManIvey folds
PHOENIX MARIE folds
david rangel calls [$0.41 USD]
** Dealing Flop ** [ 7h, 5c, 5s ]
david rangel checks
wills2864 bets [$0.90 USD]
david rangel calls [$0.90 USD]
** Dealing Turn ** [ 4h ]
david rangel checks
wills2864 bets [$2.00 USD]
david rangel raises [$4.39 USD]
wills2864 calls [$1.55 USD]
david rangel shows [3d, 5d ]
wills2864 shows [Ah, Ac ]
david rangel wins $0.84 USD
** Dealing River ** [ 4c ]
david rangel wins $9.40 USD from main pot

it has started to get a little frustrating if u know what i mean. Soz for the grammer my english is a little weak.

cliff, I've got the same downswing situation. There's a lot of new players at low stakes playing any two cards, chiefly any suited and so you can see many runner-runner winners. Hope they lost their money and interest soon and leave our poker rooms. I think patience, endurance and discipline are the only way.

Thanks Oldie,

I am seeing a lot of new names with no stats on them but that should be a good thing for us. I think variance is partly to blame and I caught myself making some inferior plays this morning. Downswings can really mess with our heads. I notice on HG's bankroll challenge he has been experiencing some of this also. All we can do is keep playing our A game and it should swing around for us.

Best Regards

Cliff

Must be something contagious like the flu as I have hasd a bit of a bad run myself. One time I got all in after the flop of 10-7-4. My opponent had 77 I had 10 10. The turn brought the case 7 and I lost a stack and a half. UGH! Beyond that, there have been numerous bad beats and horrible opponents sucking out as well. It's just poker. I no longer spend any time worrying about the chip count except as it applies to BR management.

But Cliff, you are so right about BR management. Staying within the guidelines of it truly does help ya weather the storm! So what if we need to drop a level in Stakes. As long as we don't dig back in our non poker money it's all good.

I say keep the cherry players at the tables. I hope they win someone elses money so I can eventually get it from them. Their luck doesn't always hold up. As long as you know how they play you can act accordingly when you are up against them. That's where all the extra chips in your BR come from to begin with.

Hi guys,

Not fun when having a downswing. My session today was like that in the beginning. I played 2 tables and lost 2 buy-ins after about 20 min of play, so I took a break. I was totally card dead and when I had a premium hand I got sucked out. What can you do. Then a couple of hours later I played another session and had the same crappy cards so I opened a total of 6 tables to see if I can get some more hands and after about an hour play it turned around and I started to get some better hands to play. I won some, and lost some but managed to break even for the day. Just keep playing and it will come around.

Wills,

I don't know how many times I've had my Aces cracked by some dumb ass calls, just like your 5d 3d guy. But there's no chance in hell that 5d 3d can win over AA over the long run. It may look like that but we just need to put in a lot more hands each day. We actually should be glad that there are people making mistakes like that and calling with shitty hands against our premium hands. Today I saw a guy shove on the flop with 63o and he only had the 2nd pair with his 6 on the flop, no draws and he got stacked. We all see some weird moves people make, like go all-in with 100BB after some guy raises pre-flop. And he does that like 10 times in a row and wins the blinds. He then shows his 84o and think hi's so clever. Then the 11th time he gets stacked by a caller with a premium hand. And then he goes away hehe.

Nice to see a post like this, I thought I actually sucked; I have had some premium hands cracked, and like I said in a previous post, I am back to about 40% of my last reload, trying to work my way up again.

Been a shitty run, I am down $500 since joining OP while I have learned. Lot of allowance, but I am learning (just a bit slow).

Pete

I think that most of the times we forget to practice good table selection. At least I am. I sometimes just jump into a table and start playing. Instead I should open up 4-6 tables and look for fish, be a rail bird for 5-10 minutes and then select the tables I want to play at. Most of the times I also forget to change tables and I find myself on a table where the fish is gone and I'm surrounded by sharks. What I'm I still doing at that table??? But I've started to put fish tags on players so I can find them faster in the lobby. I also just found that my PokerTracker software has a "Reports" tab where I can make a report to find all the high VP$IP players by name and then look for them in the lobby. Phil Hellmuth once said a smart thing. Although I think he's a pretty bad (but funny) cash game player, he said that we must treat each poker session as a serious job. That means making sure we are not distracted in any way, turning of MSN, the TV and other things. All that made me realise that the outcome of the job we are about to do depends alot of what preparation we do. Sorry if this sounds like a lecture. It was more a self-critic thing and some tips