My first serious encounter with the variance!

hello kiromanAAKK, i'm on a brutal downswing myself, several downswings been striking me down for two months now, I have been swinging between NL10 and NL4 for what seems like an eternity now and haven't made a single $ since August, every time I advance and things look great there it comes and swings me down brutally back.
i know how frustrating that is. the most important thing, i believe, is NOT to lose your confidence by staying process oriented and NOT outcome oriented.
maybe even leave poker for a couple of days, forget about it for that time being and do something else that you love to do, go out and socialize with people (no poker talk), do something physical, outdoors.
at least it helps me, otherwise you can go crazy
also if you have tilting problems - work on that, work on your mental game. it's very easy to go on tilt during these times at the tables. if you can arrange it, have someone watch how you play, your decisions can be affected by your mental state even if you don't realise it.
THE MOST Important Thing - surrender to the rules of BANKROLL MANAGEMENT. No matter what. If you have to drop down a limit, then do it, think of it like the one and the only Law of God, if you need to ♦

about bonus, yeah, i've had my share of chasing bonus, ended losing more than i got from bonus... ♦ you don't play poker to get some promotional bonus, do you? you play to get good at poker and win without any help of bonus

my two cents

I dont' want say that and after find myself in a spot where that has turn around by make me a liar but one thing I am proud off out this matter and it is the tilt factor.

I, as a latin blood person, had a serious issue with tilt (and not just in poker) my life has been influence by my easy flame personality and in poker it has became even more sever.

I remember, in the begin, it was extremily hard for me to don't explode in anger and stuff like that ♦

so, I have worked on this aspect as much like on strategy and the result is (with my own big surprise) the capacity to hold on tilt.

I had the worst session ever on few night ago (night before this post) and even if my stop-lose was set up on 3BI, I decide in an extremely calm, to keep going as I new that my game was under variance and I need hands for few reasons.

I manage then to keep play and keep my level of tilt always in control (in the end I manage even to rescue some BI by finsh in the end the session at -5).

With this I would like say that control the tilt is possible and it come from a person that had in the past serious issue with tilt even in real life.

Finally, yeah man, what you say is right, in the end of the day, Im playing at moment to go better as a player and not to get the few cents!

Being able to focus less on the money is a big plus, I find that very hard myself.

What limits are you playing on now? Personally I had very few tilt issues when I was playing lower but when I play nl100 I start getting infuriated when people suck out on me. Even tried nl200 a few days ago but I was so high on adrenaline that I couldn't make any good decisions. It did however make nl100 feel much more comfortable afterwards.

Originally posted by kiromanAAKK

I have already changed my style and became extremily tight but Im not sure what also I can do as Im keeping lose BI all around.

If you were winning before, then why have you changed the way you play?

By becoming tighter, you are obviously going to lose $$, makes no sense to become tight just because you lost a few pots if you were winning over a decent sample before...

The way I see it becoming tight here here is importing a leak into your game on purpose, minimise losses yes. But by becoming tight you are making your losses higher because you are now using poor hand selection, and moving out of the TAG zone into the NIT zone, and we all nits are the most exploitable players after the fish.

Therefore the winrate you were running at before is no longer applicable, because you are not playing the same way..

I hope this makes sense.

Best way to minimise losses would be to barrel less turns, make a few less CB, control the pot sizes and make them slightly smaller at SD etc... Do not change your starting hand selection, you are just making the downswing worse by importing a leak that could potentially (rough guesstimate) be dropping your win rate by .5bb - 1.5bb/100.

Originally posted by MrMardyBum

Originally posted by kiromanAAKK

I have already changed my style and became extremily tight but Im not sure what also I can do as Im keeping lose BI all around.

If you were winning before, then why have you changed the way you play?

By becoming tighter, you are obviously going to lose $$, makes no sense to become tight just because you lost a few pots if you were winning over a decent sample before...

The way I see it becoming tight here here is importing a leak into your game on purpose, minimise losses yes. But by becoming tight you are making your losses higher because you are now using poor hand selection, and moving out of the TAG zone into the NIT zone, and we all nits are the most exploitable players after the fish.

Therefore the winrate you were running at before is no longer applicable, because you are not playing the same way..

I hope this makes sense.

Best way to minimise losses would be to barrel less turns, make a few less CB, control the pot sizes and make them slightly smaller at SD etc... Do not change your starting hand selection, you are just making the downswing worse by importing a leak that could potentially (rough guesstimate) be dropping your win rate by .5bb - 1.5bb/100.

+1

Some welcome and excellent advice here imo.

Thank you MMB

This community never fails to amaze me with helpful contributions from member to member.

Tilt's an issue for me too. When I hit (what I would consider) a serious downswing that I can't get out of, I tend to switch sites. Miraculously things get better. If variance is hitting me too hard and I get screwed out of buy-in after buy-in, I figure why give the site more of my money?

I would agree that nitting up is a bad idea. Playing scared will reduce the value you get for winning hands, if nothing else. Keep winning like Charlie Sheen!

yeh you can get throught it - gl