Running VERY bad

Anybody ever run so bad, for so long, you start to really question rather or not you can ever win again, or if there isn't a force conspiring against you? I'm not usually one for that kind of stuff at all, but sometimes it gets so bad that each new case sends me into a state of delirium where I tell myself that just can't happen. After being card dead, getting the worst cards, having every turn and river be the exact single worst card in the deck, getting bad beats, never making your draws, even though you keep getting good prices on them, you run into something like full house getting rivered by a higher full house and you just can't believe it. There's not even anger, only awe.

I mean, I've been practicing standard and strict bankroll management on a site full of fish, and I keep losing. I'll get dealt hands that are so bad, you'd swear the deck has to be cold. Overall, I started with $50, playing between $2 and $7.50 a buyin (mostly the former), and haven't managed to double my buyin once in over twenty sessions (the scary thing is I'll get to about 95% then suffer a really bad beat or slip back down). Right now, I'm down to $35, only because I managed to place in a tournament with my last $4 (trust me, though, that round was no better. I just happened to be really aggressive at the right times and squeeze up there). I mean,

Does anybody else have times like this? I really feel like everyone has variance, but mine has been exceptionally worse on the whole than other people. I just don't get how I can run this bad, but never run equivalently well, especially not against these players. I mean, they're really bad. It's so bad it makes me question if I even know how to play poker.

Hi FootofGod,

I used to enjoy playing online poker a lot. In fact, I still have accounts with money sitting in them at PokerStars and Full Tilt Poker. However, when I got married 2 years ago, I decided that spending time with my wife was more important then 8 hour+ long poker tournaments. Still, I can honestly say that I am a life time poker winner and have made maybe $50K in online poker over about a 3 year period. (Laugh, that's like 2 or 3 craps trips to Vegas!)

When I first started out, I wasn't that good, but I started reading everything that I could find about poker. My poker libary is about 25 to 30 books. Some books concentrated on strategy on how to win ring games, sit-and-goes, or tournaments, while others really dealt with the psychology of poker. Here are 4 books which I would recommend reading that deal with the poker player (you) rather then the game itself.

1. The Psychology of Poker, by Alan Schoonmaker
2. Your Worst Poker Enemy, by Alan Schoonmaker
3. Poker Winners are Different, by Alan Schoonmaker
4. The Poker Mindset, by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger

I would also suggest joining a couple of poker forums as well. Yes, it sounds like you are suffering from a run of bad cards, but it also seems like you are playing above your bankroll. If you are playing strictly tournaments, it is suggested that you have about 100 to 200 buy ins. With ring games, 40 to 50 buy ins, and SNGs about 50 to 100 buy ins. If you can reload your account, you can take that into consideration, but this general guideline assumes that you are a winning player.

Take a few days off, read a couple of books or some articles online and get back at it. If you want suggestions of good poker books about the game itself, let me know and I will fire off some ideas.

Well, as for bet size, really I'm still playing small. I've got over $500 profit right now, which is alot considering my modest start. I'm working on getting my bankroll all in one place and applying it, but for now I'm just playing 10% of it, usually 5 to 15% at a time, usually lower than higher (so usually 1% or less than my 'bankroll'). That's the funny thing, though, is its not the money- I'm losing the sanity battle. So much negative punishment with no ups just makes you never want to do anything involving cards or randomness again.

I appreciate the book selection. I've been meaning to read Schoonmaker, actually.

It doesnt make sense to me to say your luck has been bad but that your have "over $500 profit right now"

Quote: gambler

1. The Psychology of Poker, by Alan Schoonmaker
2. Your Worst Poker Enemy, by Alan Schoonmaker
3. Poker Winners are Different, by Alan Schoonmaker
4. The Poker Mindset, by Ian Taylor and Matthew Hilger

Gambler, you wouldnt by any chance be Alan Schoonmaker would you? :P

I used to spend a lot of time online playing poker. It Is frustrating when you are constantly card dead, but it may just be down to the human perception factor and selective memory that you think its really that bad. I tend to have bad sessions interspersed with average sessions and when I think about it the average seesions I hardly remember, only the bad (and the few good).

Happens all the time. I don't play poker, but it can happen in any game. When it does, you really need to take a break to keep from going on "tilt." Sometimes a very extended break. Let your bankroll heal a little bit. Then give it another shot. If you spread out your losing sessions enough they won't all run together so it seems that you are "running bad."

Of course, as people here would point out, there is no such thing as "running bad." It's simply a psychological construct. If the math is with you, you are only "long running."

I've been running bad at the craps table for about 20 years. I know its one of the best bets in the house regarding house advantage, but it kills me every time I play. If I'm playing a three-point molly system, I'll establish three points in a row and then seven out. If i'm playing the pass line plus placing the 6 & 8, I'll establish a point then immediately seven out. Over and over and over again. About once every three years I'll step up to a craps table to see if it's still treating me the same. And it kills me every time.

Craps is a game of many, many small losses, and a few huge wins. Adjust the magnitude of both modifiers according to your betting style. Reverse 'wins' and 'losses' if you play the don't.

Quote: odiousgambit

It doesnt make sense to me to say your luck has been bad but that your have "over $500 profit right now"

It does. I recently thought of a good way of putting it. Imagine we're playing a simple coin-tossing game where you wager $10 every toss. If heads, you lose your bet, and tails you get $25. Now, let's say we play for 10,000 tosses and after those 10,000 tosses, I've lost 7,000 of them. You won $5000 when all is said and done, but man were you unlucky to throw 7,000 tails out of 10,000, and somewhere near 8000 throws you might even start contemplating if the coin is flawed or rigged or something of that nature. That's a little overstated, obviously, but it's exactly the point and exactly the the feeling. To put your money in on good bets over and over and really play to win and get some leftover scraps you barely managed, or totally bite the dust, over many sessions is a bad feeling. The analogy's not perfect, but I like it, especially when talking to some of the less stat-savvy people I know.

Quote: teddys

Craps is a game of many, many small losses, and a few huge wins.

I'd like to hear more about those "few huge wins".

Do you mean that Don't Players can expect many small wins and a few huge losses? If so, why is that?

for the odds bets themselves, each bet individually is structured to win small or lose big on the dont pass or win big or lose small on the pass.

add to it that players typically press their bets in craps while betting the right way, theyre gonna have more losing sessions in exchange for a "few huge wins" on some sessions.

Quote: FootofGod

It does. I recently thought of a good way of putting it. Imagine we're playing a simple coin-tossing game where you wager $10 every toss. If heads, you lose your bet, and tails you get $25. Now, let's say we play for 10,000 tosses and after those 10,000 tosses, I've lost 7,000 of them. You won $5000 when all is said and done, but man were you unlucky to throw 7,000 tails out of 10,000, and somewhere near 8000 throws you might even start contemplating if the coin is flawed or rigged or something of that nature. That's a little overstated, obviously, but it's exactly the point and exactly the the feeling. To put your money in on good bets over and over and really play to win and get some leftover scraps you barely managed, or totally bite the dust, over many sessions is a bad feeling. The analogy's not perfect, but I like it, especially when talking to some of the less stat-savvy people I know.

OK, well, I guess you could be so skilled at poker you could be up in spite of bad luck.

In poker, in fact, bad luck with initial cards are not the worse thing, the worse thing is to be "coming in second" all the time. This can just be bad luck with what the other players draw.

Yes.

And I've had it happen over multiple sessions.

My 3 Card Poker losing streak started a couple years ago, in Caesar's AC. Over 4 hours, it seemed that every single hand was 9-4-2 mixed. I started with $500, was down to under $50, and somehow managed to work it up to around $400 so I quit. We moved down the boardwalk to the Tropicana, and on the first hand I got a straight... and the dealer got a straight flush. in the next hour, I was dealt probably a dozen straights, flushes, and high pairs, and only won a couple of them; each time the dealer got a higher hand. I quit playing 3 Card, went over to the 4 Card table and had some fun, then tossed dice for a couple hours and left, down a couple hundred for the day but amazed at my horrible luck at 3 Card.

I haven't had a winning 3 Card session since, and I've basically quit playing it. We visited my sister in Chicago last August, and went to the Harrah's riverboat in Joliet; at a $5 3 Card table, I put up $100 and lost it all without winning a hand, didn't get a single pair, had some Ks and As beaten by higher hands. Even logging into Bodog and playing for fun, I can't work up a streak where I get decently ahead or stay even; the 3 Card decks have me on a death march. The fact that in "realworld" the pairs plus paytable has gotten worse doesn't matter to me, because you need to get a flush before it matters!

The part that galls me about all this is that for about a year before that, 3 Card Poker was like a piggy bank for me. I whacked that sucker hard, session after session. I suspect, now, in hindsight, that I was gettin' set up.

Quote: odiousgambit

OK, well, I guess you could be so skilled at poker you could be up in spite of bad luck.

In poker, in fact, bad luck with initial cards are not the worse thing, the worse thing is to be "coming in second" all the time. This can just be bad luck with what the other players draw.

Yeah, this is MOSTLY what I'm talking about. Being card dead isn't too bad unless you're at the casino because it just goes by so slow- it's just one of those spices in the crap stew when everything else is going south. Let me give you a good, quick example: I had KK in the SB last SnG I played, with some people I know are average players. I just completed, which is a little dangerous, but I got what I wanted- a raise from the BB, who had about 15 big blinds, and a reraise back from me. He calls, Flop comes TT8. I check, he bets half the pot and I raise him all in. He thinks, thinks, and finally calls with AJ offsuit. Immediately on the turn, he spikes the ace, leaving me crippled and soon I go out in 9th out of 11. That is the kind of thing, repeated over and over, that drives me mad. What a terrible call. When I run bad, I can get offed with a 5 to 1 favorite over and over and over and I just think "wow, I can't PLACE with a crushing advantage, and these guys are cashing repeatedly making the worse plays ever... why can't I do that?"

I know there's no "fair" in poker and in random events... but goddammit, it's not FAIR! I also know I suckout, too, but it's not because I made an awful call with A-high when I'm crushed, it's usually I got dealt KK vs AA or, the hand went like it should, and I managed to get a lucky king once in a while. I seriously feel like I'm always a standard deviation below the expected norm, with rare, short-lived exceptions that are always followed by horrendous bad streaks.

I find this happens to me all the time when I am not focusing intently on implied odds in a situation, try betting more and trapping less unless you have a pat hand.
The converse is that if you are playing EXTREMELY low limits, people will call with almost anything. In that case, you will truly showdown more often, and people WILL suck out more often; any math whizzes want to show this guy standard deviation of an overpair losing to underpair from preflop all-in vs. number of trials?. I feel like I run bad, but I haven't actually collected the data to show its true (except I am collecting data using SSS, and using that strategy I am certainly running very bad in the short term).