Dealing with a losing streak

Written by: Valek
For PokerFaction.com

Being in the midst of an important losing streak can be devastating both financially and emotionally. Whether you approach poker as a hobby or as a professional endeavor, sooner or later, you will get on the negative side of variance.

I've been playing HU sngs for the past 4 years, and I've made quite a bit of money playing them, but for the last 6 months or so, I've been on the losing end of variance(and I've been tilting a little bit too). Put simply, I initially lost about $10,000 during an abrupt downturn, then, I lost some more little by little, and now, I've been more or less breaking even. HU is my best game, so it's been particularly aggravating to me, but it's also been a great learning experience.

Obviously, the first thing I did when everything started going amiss was taking a break, like most players would have done. For me, taking a break meant not playing for a few days. Avoiding tilt is actually one of the most profitable thing you can do as a poker player, and not playing is the best remedy for tilt. This will often do the trick.

At first, I decided to stop multi-tabling so that I could really concentrate on every situation, and try to put every bit of information into context to maximize the value of every hands. Also, I started saving every game-defining hands of every match, so that I could revisit them later on.

This process led me to three conclusions:

(1)I was definitely running below average; (2)My game was actually improving; (3)And what I would describe as subtle tilt was negatively affecting my game.

I knew I was running below average because I was putting my money in while ahead the vast majority of the time(you can run your hands in any odds calculator, including PokerStove for accurate odds). What's more, I knew I was improving since I was doing things I hadn't been doing before, like inducing action in specific situations to maximize the value of my hands. Here's a simple example:

I had a timing tell that indicated he was very weak on the flop. Instead of the standard c-bet to protect my hand, I checked back to induce a bet on the turn.

Seat 1: Lord Kinbote (1,740)
Seat 2: MAXSHARK (1,260)
Lord Kinbote posts the small blind of 15
MAXSHARK posts the big blind of 30
The button is in seat #1
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Lord Kinbote [Ac 7c]
Lord Kinbote raises to 75
MAXSHARK calls 45
*** FLOP *** [Ad Jc 8d]
MAXSHARK has 15 seconds left to act
MAXSHARK checks
Lord Kinbote checks
*** TURN *** [Ad Jc 8d] [Ks]
MAXSHARK bets 150
Lord Kinbote raises to 420
MAXSHARK has 15 seconds left to act
MAXSHARK folds
Uncalled bet of 270 returned to Lord Kinbote
Lord Kinbote mucks
Lord Kinbote wins the pot (450)

As far as tilt goes, I don't think I was tilting in the conventional sense of the term. Losing wasn't causing me to be out-of-control, or causing me to play awful poker, or even causing me to play big stakes that I couldn't afford, which, undoubtedly, would have made me lose larger amounts of money very quickly. Instead, I would describe it as being far more subtle and insidious.

I would make small crying calls more often, I would become irritated if I lost a few matches in the beginning of a session, I would become impatient if things weren't going my way, etc. All of these little things added together ended up costing me valuable EV in the long run. When losing, I would stop playing because of my discipline, but I wouldn't work on my game because of my impatience and my laziness, instead choosing to spend my time cruising Internet forums or watching movies. I became unproductive. I became uninvolved in my game. And I was using it as an excuse to keep the status quo.

I didn't come to all of these conclusions at the same time. The discovery(or the acknowledgment) that I was making small errors due to my psychological state of mind came later on. So, after my initial downturn, I kept losing money, little by little. I wasn't getting any break. I was working on my game, and it was improving, but I wasn't working on the psychology aspects of my game. I needed to delve deeper if I was to fix the problem.

My solution, and it remains to be seen whether or not it will work, is to accumulate more data. When I save a hand history, I include notes about the game and about the opponent in order to better understand the situation when I analyze it afterwards. Now, I also include notes about my thought process and about my feelings when I make decisions. If I know exactly which emotions are influencing my game negatively, I will be better equipped to deal with them in the future.

In addition, I started seeking feedback more often. I am fortunate enough to know and trust a very good player, and I send him hand histories of my sessions. This serves two purposes: To get another mind to find weaknesses in my game, and to promote discussions into my different strategies, which always leads to a better understanding of the game. If you don't have a poker buddy, you can always use Internet forums, which are just as good, if not better.

To conclude, my goal is to become a better and more profitable poker player when variance starts to tilt my way. When facing a crippling downswing, I think the most important thing to remember is simply to play less and think more. I wrote it in bold at the beginning of this article because I think it's that important. Likewise, instead of complaining or feeling like a victim, one should invest time and effort in loss. That's how you really improve.