What do you do when variance just keeps attacking you?

In the ass. With a big one. No lube. Never lets up. Never stops.

What do you do?

I've been on such a horrid fucking run of cards for over a week now, 8 days and counting.

Excellent bankroll management prevents me from going broke, or even getting into the red, (I keep about 180+ buy in's, yes, I'm a total bankroll nit), but I just can't fucking take this fucking bad run.

I had a simlar one a couple months ago, it caused me to quit playing for about a month. I just fucking gave up. I'm not at that point yet, with this bad run, but god damn, it's not letting up.

I'm currently trying to get into the Sunday Hundred Grand through the 1.10 45 player sattellites, and I've just suffered yet another horrible bad beat to take away my shot, for about the 5th time.

Yes, 5 times now I've had sweet bad beats, late in these satty's, to fuck me.


Well, I don't really know what I do when I have these bad runs.

.... sometimes I get so pissed off I punch myself in the leg a shitload. ... kinda fun.

other time's I'll just say fuck it and go play some video games or something.



Well, what about you? What do you do when you keep getting hammered?

These days I don't play enough online poker that the bad runs are noticeable enough, but when I was playing full time and lived off poker I sure as hell noticed them.
All I know in this area is that all the advice in the world never seemed to help me or others I knew who were simply running bad. The one thing I used to do that would help me feel better is go to very low buy-in tournaments (I was playing $200 SNGs regularly back then and would go to the $5 ones) and just go completely nuts. I would blow a bunch of cash and just get all the tilt and anger out of my system. Seriously I'd just waste a few hundred dollars at low limit SNGs and feel so much better. Plus the times my 48 would beat aces was always fun too.
In your case it sounds like perhaps this is not an option as you're playing smaller stakes. Perhaps just go on freeroll tilt for a few days where you just go all in every hand. Doing this in MTT can also be fun because there will most likely be times you'll build a HUGE chip stack early having sucked out each hand. I've found myself in $1 buy-in MTTs where I ended up having to take them serious because I'd have 4x the chips as the guy in 2nd place come first break.
Still I don't think there is all that much advice that really help in this situation. Learning to play emotion free poker is a great thing, but sometimes this is easier said then done.

Originally Posted by LirvA

In the ass. With a big one. No lube. Never lets up. Never stops.

Aha. It is YOU again. Going on about the ass. Again.

I sense you are trying to tell us something...

Originally Posted by LirvA

I've been on such a horrid fucking run of cards for over a week now, 8 days and counting.

A week. One (1) week? Just suck it up ffs.

Originally Posted by LirvA

Well, what about you? What do you do when you keep getting hammered?

Pay. Pay. Pay some more. Not much else to do. Sometimes I try other

games and / or stakes. Sometimes I go play at a different site a while.

Sometimes I take a break. Perhaps analyze my game a bit and do some

research and / or try different approaches to situations.



Oh btw, lately I have been beaten quite harshly myself too. I have stared

into a Royal Flush...then a King high straight flush the day after that.

Those pots hurt a bit...


A few weeks ago I was sucked out of a big pot and lost all my money, I

was really irritated and rebuying to get dealt back in...but the dealer

started the next hand while I was getting chips. Therefor I was sitting

at the table, with chips, waiting for that hand to finish so I could get

back into the action.

What happens now you think? What could possible happen when you

don't even have cards to play with? I wasn't paying my attention to

the hand going down. Actually I was writing a few well meant words to

the moron who paid my all-in to a crappy draw with one card to come.


WHAM. Text appears all over the fucking table. BAD BEAT JACKPOT!

I was looking with big eyes. Excellent! Even a small slice of that would

be soooo NICE! Text disappeared and everybody was happy and thanked

the two who had been heads-up. Congratulations to all of us...yada yada

yada. I was scrolling up looking at the text, seeing the names of everyone

at the table and the $$$ amount they had been instantly awarded.


This is so cool! But wait...I can't see my nickname...where is it...hmm..

And now I felt the shivering down my spine as it began to dawn on me...

I hadn't had any chips before me after the suckout when this hand had

begun so technically I wasn't participating when they hit the Bad Beat.

The only hand I sat out that session was the one I was forced to sit

out since I lost my chips......Even better, the guy sucking me out got

his share of the jackpot of course. Just to add insult to injury.




So if I sound a tidbit bitter now, it is because I bloody am.

1.5 years ago, I went into a 2 month bad-run, which turned into a tilt, which turned into a existencial tilt.
I quit poker for 3 months - I bought wow, and played that 3 months without end, lol. Somewhere in the bad run, I started playing bad - and somewhere in there, just the sound of the pokersoftware starting up, made me wanna puke.

The best advice I've got is to take a brake - IF; you know the bad beats are affecting you, or you dont find poker fun, unless you win. Then it's time to take a break. So many days it takes you to get that feeling back again "I realy wanna play poker!".

Another good advice is to read a pokerbook. Something in there might unconsicencly fix something wrong in your game.

If you are totaly un-tilted and suffering variance fuck over, just bite the fucking aple, and keep getting your money in good - eventualy the tide will turn. It has to, the maths says so - maths is king

Jim, I just can't do that I don't think. Even some little shitty play money game, I just can't do that. I have to take it seriously, it's just something about me I guess.

I play the same way every time, never can just fuck around.



"Aha. It is YOU again. Going on about the ass. Again.

I sense you are trying to tell us something..." - BiteMark

lol wtf? Can you please link to a previous post where I was going on about the ass? lol.


"Even better, the guy sucking me out" - BiteMark

I sense you are trying to tell us something...


Junior, that's about the best advice there is.

Just keep getting your money in good.

Thank you.

Originally Posted by LirvA

"Aha. It is YOU again. Going on about the ass. Again.

I sense you are trying to tell us something..." - BiteMark

lol wtf? Can you please link to a previous post where I was going on about the ass? lol.


"Even better, the guy sucking me out" - BiteMark

I sense you are trying to tell us something...

Hahahaha....as you mentioned in the other thread, I mistook you for

Junior, sorry about that. I guess you both need to come out of the

closet now.

Nice quote with sucking too btw! You have a dirty dirty mind....

lol. hey, you said it, not me

Variance isnt evil. When you have a big upswing and run hot, thats variance too, working in the other direction. Anything that is a break from the mean is variance.

i have also been running into this lately... i ran my 25 dollar br up to 130 bucks, and over the last 5 days have suffered beat after beat... current sitting at 43 bucks. I have reviewed my sessions, and i am still playing TAG... ~20/19/4 over the last 900 hands. poket kings show a 13.55 dollar loss themselves... i can only assume this is a massive case of piss-poor variance... but it was soo hard to break 100... and now i am basically back where i started... hopefully the rake back deposit will come soon...

I feel like I haven't won a coinflip in months.

I'm sure it's only been days though, but still. Can't win fucking anything.

Can't win when I'm 70%, 50%,40%,90%,80%, I can't win fucking anything.

Drink. A lot. That is my cure for the variance blues.

It'll come back. I find in these spots it is so important to try and stay positive. If your game is sound or close to it, it is only a matter of time and # of hands, till you rebound.

"Your next session will be a profitable one and you will play some of your best poker." Say it out loud it helps...

I hear ya....but remember that poker is still gambling and not chess.

Here's a quote from Gambling Theory and Other Topics:

(..) Another example is lowball draw poker. Based on a expert player's result at the tables, I have shown that a highly skilled player ( $30 per hour expectation in a $30- $60 game) can be a loser after more than two years of full-time play.

An even more dangerous situation occurs when a weak player has a long positive fluctuation. Now he not only will think he is a good player but also will move up in stakes, where the competition to be faced will be much tougher.

I sometimes wonder how many gamblers have fallen into this trap and then could not believe their 'bad luck' when they quickly went broke.

Oh...sometimes listening to Mike Caro helps

http://www.pokerpages.com/media/mc-p...hyopponets.asx

Originally Posted by Hanslopez

Oh...sometimes listening to Mike Caro helps

He is absolutely correct. Almost! He says "don't complain"...

Wtf? To hell we're gonna whine! Not gonna suck me out AND get

a goodluck hug. No no no no no that is too much!

LOL. Wait till you have a real downswing.

-40 buyins over 30k hands.

60k break even stretches.

Just grind and be thankful you have rakeback.

Originally Posted by BiteMark

A few weeks ago I was sucked out of a big pot and lost all my money, I

was really irritated and rebuying to get dealt back in...but the dealer

started the next hand while I was getting chips. Therefor I was sitting

at the table, with chips, waiting for that hand to finish so I could get

back into the action.

What happens now you think? What could possible happen when you

don't even have cards to play with? I wasn't paying my attention to

the hand going down. Actually I was writing a few well meant words to

the moron who paid my all-in to a crappy draw with one card to come.


WHAM. Text appears all over the fucking table. BAD BEAT JACKPOT!

I was looking with big eyes. Excellent! Even a small slice of that would

be soooo NICE! Text disappeared and everybody was happy and thanked

the two who had been heads-up. Congratulations to all of us...yada yada

yada. I was scrolling up looking at the text, seeing the names of everyone

at the table and the $$$ amount they had been instantly awarded.


This is so cool! But wait...I can't see my nickname...where is it...hmm..

And now I felt the shivering down my spine as it began to dawn on me...

I hadn't had any chips before me after the suckout when this hand had

begun so technically I wasn't participating when they hit the Bad Beat.

The only hand I sat out that session was the one I was forced to sit

out since I lost my chips......Even better, the guy sucking me out got

his share of the jackpot of course. Just to add insult to injury.




So if I sound a tidbit bitter now, it is because I bloody am.

This is the sickest bad beat story I've ever heard. To think I was bummed when a table won the jackpot that I was thinking about joining. My condolences sir.

OP variance happens, it's poker, if you're going through a hot streak then you have to understand it WILL end and be replaced by a downswing and vice versa. As long as you have a positive winrate overall don't worry about it. Would you prefer a steady slow income? booooooooring.

I dont know what to do.. I'm so pissed I just had to look online for a place to vent. Been getting rediculous cards now for 6 days. If its not the cards, it's the flops. Like today, I got horrible cards and folded for about 45 minutes. By the time I played a hand in this tourney, I had like 3/4 of my stack left. It was KK I got, and as pissed as I was I just fucking went all in, expecting an A9 to call, but no, 10 Q off calls, and hits a four card flush.
Then next tourney on big blind, I flop a straight, a nut straight with no flush threat. 567, I had 89. All in damnit!! some jackass calls with j5off, and guess what the next two cards were? Fucking jack, and jack. It doesnt end there, somehow I won a tourney, but then a bit later I got shit the WHOLE tourney..q2, 74, a3off, k5, 82, bullshit the whole way, yeah, I saw a few flops for cheap and subsequently folded, but eventually I was running out of chips and chances, I was down to 400, and the blinds just got to 100, so when I saw Akoff, I pushed and got called by a2clubs. guess what suit was all over the board?
Things were looking up the next tourney, My first hand was AK clubs. I raised in late position. Most fold, few called, flop was q 10 x, no clubs. These idiots were throwing out their minimum bets so I chased a jack a few dollars, to no avail. Next hand, I drop some junk, and the flop comes AKK... are you fucking kidding me? Will you belive me if I said the next hand I got AK again? Someone else raised so I just called, fucking q72 or some shit. Saw a card or two after that, nothing...now my stack is 500ish. Hey look!! QQ, fuck it - all in 500. three stinkin callers, with the winning hand being 75 diamonds with a flush. Can you believe this? This is only today, Ive had 6 days of this.
Ive learned the only thing that makes me feel better is calling everyone stupid rookies. I say stuff like "All her chips on 10 7 before the flop.. stupid rookie" or when the tournament starts I'll say something like "Alright stupid rookies, When I bet, make sure you call with your stupid k4's." Of course I wont get a hand for 20 minutes, so I can sit back and call everyone stupid when they are all in with q7 on a q4a flop and lose to 44. It's great cause I'm like "oh, good bet dummy, youre a pro eh? Be sure to come back and give us more of your money stupid ass" And that really makes me feel a lot better. Usually after saying that I get my poker mojo back but it's been 6 days of bullshit I am begining to worry. Normally I love the fish at the tables, but these 10 3's are fucking killing me!!! Thanks for listening, I feel a lot better.

Have you tried thumb-sucking?