Nice post, a very good read!
I was still believing in my game but a little bit less then usual. Then i saw ure graph and I realized Im not the only one thats on this streak of bad luck. The thing is i already new that a huge downswing overcomes everybody but when it actually does happen to you you dont know what the fuck happened. I started out with 50 grinded my way up to 1.1k then dropped to 800 and cashed a tourney for 2k. Exactly the day after that tourney The loosing began, for like a month. Now Im at 600 using a 200Bi for turbo sng's.
Everybody hang in there the best players in the poker world have seen this all and reached the top because they kept believing in their game
...and that doesnt mean you should stop improving your game, read those articles!
I have tried everything and nothing works. SSSing NLO8 25-100. About 60BI (1200BB total, 60 x small 20BB buyins) under EV over 3 weeks and this quite ok samplesize.

I have began questioning luck and started putting a lot of thought in it. Is luck (or anal rape thing thats going on and is exactly oposite of luck) tied to me as a person, game or limit i play, time, my game account? I mean - if i play now this limit am i so god damn unlucky because i am in "unlucky game" or is it because of me? What can i do to improve my luck ( i dont mean improving game here, i mean luck itself)? I consider myself a very rational fellow so i find it hard to believe that positive thinking, amulets or some other crap like that could actually help, but i feel so down at the moment. This is worst downswing i have had and i cant see the end of it, i feel so disgusted and helpless. Today i lol`ed at some thread on 2p2 where dude stabebed himself in the ankle because of downswing and i must confess - there have been times during this shit i really wanted to cause myself pain. I have no reasoning for it - i guess i just wanted to punish myself. But as i told - i am very rational fellow so obviously i dont think my pain would change anything so i didnt do anything stupid.
What should i do? Create account on brothers name and play with it to see if my account is doomed? I dont wanna get banned or break rules. I am honest person. I cant change pokerrooms, because Stars is the only one with some NLO8 traffic. I dont want to change games. I am trying to improve my game but i think it is pretty ok and EV line proves it. I JUST CANT WIN. No matter what i do i just cant win. I have tried grinding it out .. but after all that trouble i feel like someone just spit in my soul and said 'f*** you, try some more'.
I am open for any suggestions you might have. If it is somewhat reasonable, i will do it, because if this continues for much longer i will be done.. all my plans and dreams will be gone.
And question for those that have run under EV before. I mean for real under, like 10BI+. Did it ever get back at EV? How much buyins under were you, how much hands it took to get back? I just cannot imagine how hot i should run to get back at EV even in like 100k hands. I hope it will happen because that will be EPIC.
Sincerely,
Grimzor
I actually have a little scratch on my hand from hitting the edge of my desk (on purpose) just because i didn't want to feel sick from the downswing anymore and wanted to feel something else (so pain was the first that came to mind).
I only did that so i can continue playing and try to keep my volume up so the swing ends faster.
Of course reviewing your recent play is a must just so you confirm to yourself that you are not on tilt and you are not changing your game and becoming a losing player just because recently you lost a lot of flips, 60-40 and 70-30's.
Along the way you may even plug some leaks and improve your already solid and profitable game.
As for how luck works i have no idea but i do know that it's all about the percentages.
I believe it has nothing to do with your account, the site or the PC you are playing at. It's just a string of events in which the smaller percentages are wining in a row. That will eventually stop and will balance out over time. And then it starts all over again. So better get used to it.
65k hands is a small sample of what ur current abilitys are. But making excuses of accounts? you sound like ur on a witch hunt. To be honest you dont sound like you can be a good poker player with that attitude. You have to have the right mindset of when you were ahead and when you were behind and not if you won or lost. Especially with the sss . Maybe try bss theres alot less luck in it. Or maybe go down a limit and play many more tables the losses wont seem as big and when you lose at one ur more likely to win at another keeping ur confidence. But dont blame it on ur account lol
Grimzor please answer the following question so that I can help you:
1. How many tables do you play at once?
2. How much time do you spend playing a day?
3. Do you regularly and thoroughly review your hands and analyze them carefully? Do you draw conclusions and take notes of your mistakes regarding profit maximizing and loss minimizing per hands?
4. Do you play "hand by hand", i.e. think carefully about the best decision in every hand and street or simply grind it?
5. Do you anxiously check how much money you won/lost after each session?
6. When you sit down to play are you focused, fresh and have the right mindset ("I want to make the best decision in every hand", not "I have to win this much")?
7. Are you 'aware' while you are playing or are you playing 'instinctively'?
8. Can you recognize how your feeling & mindset change during playing? Can you articulate how you feel or do you just suddenly belt your table with your fist? If you are aware of your emotions, can you stop playing when you start to feel negative emotions to emerge (tilt, losing attitude, loss of confidence)?
Whatever your answers are to these questions, here is one very good advice: shift your focus from winning/losing to making the right decisions. In order to be a very good player your satisfaction must come from making the right decision in a certain situation not from making money. You have no control over whether you will win or lose in a certain hand but have complete control over what you are going to do. There are things you have complete control over and there are things you have absolutely no or only partial (pseudo or perceived) control over in this life. To even care about things you have no say in is absolutely disempowering and can push you into a vicious cycle of self-reinforcing unconscious losing streak. On the other hand, when we tilt we feel as if we are "out of control", taking the valuable control we have in this world out of our hands, depriving us from the only solution we can have.
In other words, you must not confuse *stuff* you have no control over, even if you perceive you have, with *stuff* you have absolute control over, even if you don't want to recognize/feel you have. This very important concept applies as much to other areas of life as it does to poker. Don't care about things you cannot influence but do everything to gain complete control over things you - and only you - can influence.
Grimzor u can t do nothing to change the luck u can only take and value what variance has for u , and it is a posibility that it wont ever show the good part for 1 or another . The only think u can do is to play your best game and hope it will finaly come on your side because it s nothing else u can do .
i have this experience for 3 mounths and it represents about 80BI or maybe more with BSS under Ev - i payed about 30k hands nl20-nl25 about 35k nl50 and about 35k nl100 and it s like a -8BB/100hands , and it sometimes realy make u feel like a piece of paper in front of Cathrina , but there s nothing u can change except the platform ...
Ooh.. Grimzor.. looks kind of like my NL100$, NL50$ (up to hand 28k) - then NL100€ and NL50€ graph of the last 4 months.
Been running like crap especially on the Ladbrokes euro tables - not only in terms of Equity - but just generally:
But ya.. it happens. Just need to continue working on your game and riding it out I guess ![]()
My graph in big blinds has a bit over 3000 big blind difference between EV and real winnings - which compared to karmoll - means I'm actually running hot ;o
Since I don't play that much, this running bad for so long has also been quite taxing on me.. but thats what poker sometimes does to you ♠_o:
Good advices here. I know working on my game is good, same as reducing tables and otherwise improving game abilities. But what i was more frustrated with was that EV goes up, actual winning go down. Its situation where game is good but luck isnt, so while improving game will help, it wont fix everything as game is good now as well.
It got me in this phylosofical mind where i thought a lot about various poker and life related things. I have been playing for some time now to know ins and outs, but just wanted to bounce some ideas around and see how others are coping. "Grind it out" seems the common tip on fixing this. But as you know - its easier said than done. If you keep grinding it out and it just goes deeper into the ground it's pretty motivation killing.
Fun thing about such huge downers are that they are real eye openers - i know why some guys think poker is rigged ♦ Imagine one tabling fish running this bad. He probably plays this amount of hands in a year. Whole year of running bad can really make you go into false impressions.
Anyway, Grimzor out.. off to do some grinding.
Sincerely,
Grimzor
If your still having bad luck you might wanna try taking a break and watching the final table of the WSOP 2009.
Then you know that bad(and good) luck, suckouts, etc is for certain a part of the game even at the highest of levels.
How is the "grind it out" going?
I gotta say it worried me some, if the downswing is caused by or causing less than A+ poker it grinding would the worst thing wouldnt it?
I tried going down a limit and playing less tables for shorter sessions.
I also modified my balance between learning and playing so its more learning than play.
I feel like I am climbing out of the hole slowly now but with much more confidence and (hopefully) skill
great post m8...ive only been playing for 2 years and experiencing a very bed dowswing at moment,,,i will take your advice as i love the game and dont want to bust my BR
thx for your time and effort in your post
there's something i also always remember when pokering:

never tilt, never forget your hand start chart, always forget about bad beats
play poker 4 fun (money)
I have another thing to add DON'T LOOK AT YOUR EV LINE!!
It will make think you are worse than you are when you are playing well, and also make you feel better than you are when you are playing bad!
If you do look at it don't use it for an excuse, it's just a line! There are many different factors as to why your EV line doesn't run the same as you actual winnings line.
This is someone else words from another forum I frequent but I couldn't explain it better myself.
"First, all-in EV is a small part of variance. There are a lot of other factors.
Second, the EV graph calculates EV only when all the money goes in. Let's say you raise preflop to 99BB with AA, villain calls with 22, the flop comes 226, he shoves for 1BB and you call. The EV graph would calculate your EV as -100BB (you're pretty much drawing dead on the flop), but in reality, 99BB went in preflop when you had your opponent crushed. You should actually be like +80BB in EV. "
I think that should cover it
i have this experience for 3 mounths and it represents about 80BI or maybe more with BSS under Ev - i payed about 30k hands nl20-nl25 about 35k nl50 and about 35k nl100 and it s like a -8BB/100hands , and it sometimes realy make u feel like a piece of paper in front of Cathrina , but there s nothing u can change except the platform ...
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Few months ago i played about 50k hands in boss media and the EV graph looks the same - it goes constantly above the actual money won line. I think the reason for this is that in boss media mucked hands aren't shown.
