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I've been playing 1/2 nl live for about 6 mo. I was crushing the game for the first 4 mo and for the last month and a half the variance has been killing me. Its really effecting my ability to play with confidence so i know i am not playing my a game. I fined my self playing more tight passive than TAG which is causing me to loose more pots than i should.
I know i kneed to play shorter sessions when i am loosing but i fined myself chasing my looses and playing longer.

Dos anyone have some good advice they can give me on how to get through the variance that plagues us all.

Try just taking a break from playing. Recharging you batteries is probably the best way to get yourself mentally refreshed and back on your A game. GL

Elements of Poker

The Mental Game of Poker

Highly recommend reading both.

Variance is not always a bad thing.

If you know you're a winning player then just remember every hand u play you're theoretically making money even if you lose the hand.

Just make it through untIl you're on the good end of variance again without going broke. The next run good is around the corner.

Take a short break. Get some excercise and then play short sessions

thanks guys i started watching Tommy Angelo's series the eight fold path to poker enlightenment and i had a great session last night. I enjoyed my self and played with confidence.
I will defiantly check out those books KRANTZ.

Positive suggestion always does the trick.

You need to improve your perspective on some things. Realize that downswings are not a curse, but actually an opportunity - an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your opponents, and therefore an opportunity to make money.

In the eightfold path to poker enlightenment that you said you started watching, Tommy Angelo talks about "recipricality," which basically means that in poker money only changes hands when Player A plays a spot differently from how Player B plays it or would have played it.

Well, this applies on a larger scale too. Mathematically, EVERYONE will go through bad runs of cards, downswings - they are necessary and mathematically inevitable. So handling the downswing better than your opponents handle downswings (or would have handled the same level of downswing you are experiencing) is actually an opportunity to make money through recipricality.

This is pretty much a long-winded way of saying what Phil Galfond already said, which was something along the lines of, "How you handle downswings will define you as a poker player."


Also, reframe downswings from being a curse to being a blessing. They not only make most people evaluate their strategic game more critically than they would evaluate it when they are winning (and therefore cause them to fix leaks and improve their game), but they also make you "tougher," more desensitized to future *inevitable* swings that are less severe than your current one. They are a challenge. If you pull out of it, you will be a better poker player for having gone through it and made it out alive. And being a better poker player means making more money. Being a poker player is a marathon, so stop treating it like a sprint.

I know how you feel, I lost for a month straight at live 1/2 in June, lost $2k on the month, but kept my head together as best I could, took this perspective, posted some of my bigger hands, talked about and thought about most of my significant hands, corrected some mistakes I was making, and I eventually went on a heater and made $3300 back in 8 sessions of this month.

Right now, you are cursing your downswing, but you have no idea whether or not it will actually end up being the best thing that could have happened to you at this point in your poker career. So instead, Amor fati, love your fate. Love your downswing.

You need to improve your perspective on some things. Realize that downswings are not a curse, but actually an opportunity - an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your opponents, and therefore an opportunity to make money.

In the eightfold path to poker enlightenment that you said you started watching, Tommy Angelo talks about "recipricality," which basically means that in poker money only changes hands when Player A plays a spot differently from how Player B plays it or would have played it.

Well, this applies on a larger scale too. Mathematically, EVERYONE will go through bad runs of cards, downswings - they are necessary and mathematically inevitable. So handling the downswing better than your opponents handle downswings (or would have handled the same level of downswing you are experiencing) is actually an opportunity to make money through recipricality.

This is pretty much a long-winded way of saying what Phil Galfond already said, which was something along the lines of, "How you handle downswings will define you as a poker player."


Also reframe downswings from being a curse to being a blessing. They not only make most people evaluate their strategic game more critically than they would evaluate it when they are winning (and therefore cause them to fix leaks and improve their game), but they also make you "tougher," more desensitized to future *inevitable* swings that are less severe than your current one. They are a challenge. If you pull out of it, you will be a better poker player for having gone through it and made it out alive.

Right now, you are cursing your downswing, but you have no idea whether or not it will actually end up being the best thing that could have happened to you at this point in your poker career. So instead, Amor fati, love your fate. Love your downswing.

Great post man! I should have read this the other night before I continued in a session where I was running like poop and not handling it the right way mentally. Good stuff.

Elements of Poker

The Mental Game of Poker

Highly recommend reading both.

+ 1, in addition watch the 8 fold path to poker enlightenment like you said you were already watching. Also, watch "Tolerance," by threads13 and Wilt on Tilt's bankroll management video on this site - understanding how ridiculous variance is in poker is essential to being able to handle downswings better.

I've been playing 1/2 nl live for about 6 mo. I was crushing the game for the first 4 mo and for the last month and a half the variance has been killing me.

Also note that, if by "crushing the game," you mean that you were making more than $15-$20 an hour, then you were running very hot, and can't expect those to be your standard results (EV).

I was averaging $43 an hour on poker tracker and i knew it wasn't sustainable, and i know what your saying about running bad not being a curse is true it is making me reevaluate my play. I think the #1 thing i can do right now is work on minimizing my c game and recognize when its time to quit playing for the session.

the session i played last night had a good lineup there was a super bad agro guy and every one else was pretty passive but i was so card dead i only broke even for the first 4 hours i ended up trying to make a 2 barrel bluff on the lag guy that didn't work out. i played about an hour more and left, i knew if i stayed i would just loose more. I now that when i'm card dead i play worse and end up with a bad image that starts a downward spiral that i almost never turn around in a session,

how do you deal with sessions like this.
I really appreciate the responses

You need to improve your perspective on some things. Realize that downswings are not a curse, but actually an opportunity - an opportunity to differentiate yourself from your opponents, and therefore an opportunity to make money.

In the eightfold path to poker enlightenment that you said you started watching, Tommy Angelo talks about "recipricality," which basically means that in poker money only changes hands when Player A plays a spot differently from how Player B plays it or would have played it.

Well, this applies on a larger scale too. Mathematically, EVERYONE will go through bad runs of cards, downswings - they are necessary and mathematically inevitable. So handling the downswing better than your opponents handle downswings (or would have handled the same level of downswing you are experiencing) is actually an opportunity to make money through recipricality.

This is pretty much a long-winded way of saying what Phil Galfond already said, which was something along the lines of, "How you handle downswings will define you as a poker player."


Also, reframe downswings from being a curse to being a blessing. They not only make most people evaluate their strategic game more critically than they would evaluate it when they are winning (and therefore cause them to fix leaks and improve their game), but they also make you "tougher," more desensitized to future *inevitable* swings that are less severe than your current one. They are a challenge. If you pull out of it, you will be a better poker player for having gone through it and made it out alive. And being a better poker player means making more money. Being a poker player is a marathon, so stop treating it like a sprint.

I know how you feel, I lost for a month straight at live 1/2 in June, lost $2k on the month, but kept my head together as best I could, took this perspective, posted some of my bigger hands, talked about and thought about most of my significant hands, corrected some mistakes I was making, and I eventually went on a heater and made $3300 back in 8 sessions of this month.

Right now, you are cursing your downswing, but you have no idea whether or not it will actually end up being the best thing that could have happened to you at this point in your poker career. So instead, Amor fati, love your fate. Love your downswing.

I was averaging $43 an hour on poker tracker and i knew it wasn't sustainable, and i know what your saying about running bad not being a curse is true it is making me reevaluate my play. I think the #1 thing i can do right now is work on minimizing my c game and recognize when its time to quit playing for the session.

the session i played last night had a good lineup there was a super bad agro guy and every one else was pretty passive but i was so card dead i only broke even for the first 4 hours i ended up trying to make a 2 barrel bluff on the lag guy that didn't work out. i played about an hour more and left, i knew if i stayed i would just loose more. I now that when i'm card dead i play worse and end up with a bad image that starts a downward spiral that i almost never turn around in a session,

how do you deal with sessions like this.
I really appreciate the responses

" I knew if I stayed I would just lose more."

That's a terrible way to think about poker. Sounds like you're way too attached to the individual results of each hand. You need to learn to focus on the decisions in each hand, not the results.

" I knew if I stayed I would just lose more."

That's a terrible way to think about poker. Sounds like you're way too attached to the individual results of each hand. You need to learn to focus on the decisions in each hand, not the results.

It's a terrible way to way to think way to think about poker but not necessarily your own psychology. If you are way off the top tilted and there is no way you are going to be able to "focus on the decision ... not the results" then it might be time to cut your losses and go. I could have saved myself many 5BI downswings if I had quit after two. Many people adopt stop/loss techniques to avoid tilt problems until the larger psychological problems are resolved.