Bad Streak In Poker

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Nathan Williams

Bad Streak In Poker Odds

Most people who play poker at the lower stakes these days have at least a general idea of what they are doing. For the most part they know what hands to play, when to bet, when to fold and so on.

Like in life, bad beats in poker are inevitable and they are and always will be part of the game. No one likes bad beats, but the good feeling you get from knowing it was a productive day can help you feel better after a bad beat. No one is immune to tilt, not even the best players in the world.

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But something that very few people are prepared for is how to deal with lengthy winning and losing streaks. From my experience playing online poker and coaching at the micro stakes for over 10 years now I know that both of these are major problem areas for many newer players.

Poker

In this article I am going to discuss several ways you can control your emotions and play your best whether you are winning or losing big at the poker tables.

How to Deal With Heaters in Poker

Jesse May described this in his poker novel, Shut Up and Deal: Then I go on a losing streak. Or have one bad night, or whatever. The term poker staking means that a poker investor (“the backer”) puts up money on behalf of a poker player (“the horse”) in exchange for a cut of the profits. The backer typically assumes all the risk – any money the horse loses is on the backer, but if the horse wins, the profits are shared according to the terms of the poker.

Let's talk first about how to deal with winning big — after all, this is what we all play for. This is the goal. Hopefully this is a 'problem' for you (and not just occasionally).

A lengthy period of winning in poker is often referred to as a 'heater.' If you have played poker for any decent amount of time, then you have probably hit one at some point.

All the cards just keep falling your way no matter what you do. It's almost like you entered some cheat codes and you are playing the game in 'God-mode.' If you need the flush, it comes in. If you have , they have . If you have a set, they have a lower set and so on.

Sometimes these heaters can last for weeks or even months on end. This is when you hear about people doing crazy stuff like winning several tournaments in a row.

However, it is very important not to get ahead of yourself during these good runs. For one thing, when you're on a winning streak, it becomes dangerously easy to overvalue how much of your own skill is involved.

Yes, it is likely that you are playing well. Everybody plays well when every card falls perfectly for them. There is no tilt. You almost expect to win. But this can become a big problem if you start inflating your skill level and thinking you have solved the game. Because believe me, what goes up, must come down.

The best thing that you can do during a sustained heater is to play as much as possible. But you also need to stay humble. Don't jump up in stakes unless you are properly bankrolled to do so. And don't quit doing your homework away from the tables because you think you have it all figured out.

Enjoy the success, but also stay grounded.

How to Deal With Downswings in Poker

All right, let's talk about the most depressing part of poker — the downswings. I'll bet you have encountered a few of these along the way as well.

Downswings tend to remain in our memories and stick out much more than heaters. They are painful. They cause tilt. They are frustrating. You can't seem to win a hand to save your life. All your draws miss, you are getting coolered nonstop and when you finally do make a hand, they don't have anything.

Sound familiar?

This is the crash that inevitably comes after every big heater. A losing streak can be the most difficult thing to deal with for any poker player, because it can shake your confidence to its core.

A losing streak can make you question if all of your previous success was just luck. It makes you wonder if you will ever win again.

But once again, it is important not to blow these situations out of proportion by blaming yourself. The fact is, sometimes it doesn't matter how well you play, you just won't be able to win with the cards that you are being dealt currently.

This is a big reason why it is extremely important that you are doing regular session reviews during these downswings in order to make sure that it is in fact bad luck that is bringing you down.

If that is indeed the case, then it is important to avoid getting too down on yourself. Remember, everybody is going to go through one of these downswings at some point. The only question is who is going to handle it better. As long as I know that I am playing decently well, then I have learned look at these periods as opportunities to get ahead instead.

I see downswings as my chance to separate myself from everybody else by handling the adversity better than they will.

Neither of Them Are Real

The mark of a true professional, though, is coming to an understanding that neither the big heaters nor the terrible downswings are actually 'real' — or at least really indicative of how things normally are.

Both are aberrations. Both are outliers. Most of the time when we play poker we are actually running somewhere within what some might call a 'normal' range of luck. That is, sometimes we are on the right end of the cards and sometimes we are on the wrong end, and usually we don't remain that long on one end or the other.

Both heaters and downswings represent extreme cases during which we remain well outside of the regular boundaries of variance for longer-than-usual periods. That means the key to surviving lengthy winning and losing streaks at the lower limits is to understand that neither are 'real' or representative.

In other words — you are't that good and you aren't that bad.

If you can learn to keep an even temperament throughout the endless ups and downs, then you will go a long way towards figuring out the true key to success — namely, playing for the long run and not being a slave to the never-ending short-term rollercoaster like so many others.

When you truly realize that neither the big ups nor the big downs are even real, then you can just calmly make good decisions no matter the circumstances and find true long-term success.

Final Thoughts

Dealing with the large swings that occur in poker is one of the hardest things that you will have to deal with in this game. This is especially the case at the lower limits because you expect to beat these games soundly. But sometimes you simply have to accept the variance that exists in poker and just ride it out.

When you learn to prevent yourself from getting too high during your big wins and too low during your big losses, then you will start seeing the true nature of this game.

Each time you sit down to play poker, the thing that you really control is how well you play each hand in the present moment. This is all you should be focused on.

Don't be controlled by short-term results — whether good or bad — and you will be miles ahead of your competition.

Nathan 'BlackRain79' Williams is the author of the popular micro stakes strategy books Crushing the Microstakes and Modern Small Stakes. He also blogs regularly about all things related to the micros over at www.blackrain79.com.

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Robert Woolley

Recently I walked away from a cash poker game after the shortest session I’ve played in several years. Let me tell you about it.

I was at the only legal card room in my state, Harrah’s Cherokee. I more than doubled up in the first five minutes at the table, when I flopped trip threes with my to crack another player’s aces. Over the next couple of orbits I raised with and flopped trip sevens, then raised with -offsuit and flopped trip queens. In the last hand I played, I raised with , flopped for a gutshot straight draw, hit it with a on the turn, and felted a player who had flopped top two pair with .

I had started with $200 in play, and now had $595 after 35 minutes. The technical poker term for this kind of luck is “running like a god.”

The question then became the one famously asked by The Clash in 1982: “Should I stay or should I go?”

There were compelling arguments for my continuing to play:

  • It’s an hour’s drive each way, so it didn’t make much sense for me to play half an hour and then quit.
  • This was obviously a table with players willing to pay off my big hands, an essential ingredient for making a big payday.
  • I now had a fearsome table image, and should have been able to bully, intimidate, and bluff to my heart’s content.

Normally, those considerations would indeed be enough to keep my keister planted in that seat for as long as conditions remained so favorable. This time, however, there were countervailing factors in play.

They all stemmed from the fact that I was having one of those losing streaks that are inevitable if you play poker. Specifically, I had lost the last six times in a row that I had played at Cherokee. I was feeling snakebit. In fact, not long before on the drive to the casino, I had been actively suppressing thoughts that I shouldn’t bother with this trip, because I was just going to lose again.

Bad

Losing streaks can wreak havoc on one’s mindset. Jesse May described this in his poker novel, Shut Up and Deal:

Then I go on a losing streak. Or have one bad night, or whatever. Just something that makes me question everything I know about poker — no, everything I believe — and consider giving up and be scared to go in the card room and not know when to fold or when to raise or when to play or when to stop.

But the best description of the psychological effects of a losing streak I’ve ever read comes from Larry Phillips’s little book, The Tao of Poker:

Maybe you’re in over your head; maybe you never understood this game from Day One and you've been fooling yourself all along. Your opponents had your number all along and you didn't know it. Oh sure, a period occurred when you were running well, and that threw them off briefly — and allowed you to keep the fiction going to yourself — but by and large they had your number all along.

All real gamblers know the Inner Scream. It's like the face in that one painting, “The Scream,” the oval-headed guy with his mouth open and his hands on his cheeks. It’s exactly like that, only it’s on the inside. It’s a scream for just average luck, not even for good luck anymore. For that wondrous state of affairs where, every time you get annihilated, there is some kind of offsetting win of some kind, somewhere. It is pleading just to break even.

I wasn’t quite to that point yet, but things were heading that way. I wanted to put an end to it.

A direct consequence of this state of affairs was that after that last big addition to my stack, I could feel myself starting to get defensive. I wanted to protect my win. I could foresee that as a result I was going to start playing more cautiously.

Bad Streak In Poker Real Money

Cautious poker is weak poker. It’s bad poker. It’s losing poker. In order to win, you have to be willing to lose — and I wasn’t. I had reached a point where I was sensing my own unwillingness to risk loss. That kind of tentativeness and fear is incompatible with strong play.

Tommy Angelo gave this piece of excellent advice in his book Elements of Poker:

When you are winning, and you reach a point in the session when the happiness you will gain by winning more money will be much less than the pain you will endure if you lose, quit. Away from the table you can examine how and why this imbalance occurs. Meanwhile, learn to trust the quitting voice, and to react without question.

That perfectly describes where my mind was.

Finally, I remembered this advice from Ed Miller:

Go ahead and book a win. I know a lot of people think booking wins and setting stop losses is hogwash. But playing top poker (particularly no-limit) requires confidence in yourself and your decision-making. And if you lose seven days straight, your confidence is likely going to be in the can no matter who you are. So if you start a session and you’re up a few buy-ins after a bit, wrap it up. Book the win. And pat yourself on the back. You’ll be more confident during your next session.

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So that’s what I did.

Could I have won more money — maybe a lot more — if I had stayed? Sure, maybe. Or maybe disaster would have struck, and I would have left feeling even more loser-y than when I began, which would make it even harder for me to overcome the psychological baggage of the bad streak the next time I played.

I was winning, I was mentally fresh, and I was in a situation that looked favorable to continue winning more. Ordinarily, it’s a huge mistake to leave a poker game under those conditions. But once in a while, it’s reasonable to let other considerations prevail.

After all, as The Clash’s song says, “If I go there will be trouble / And if I stay it will be double.”

Bad Streak In Poker Tournaments

Robert Woolley lives in Asheville, NC. He spent several years in Las Vegas and chronicled his life in poker on the “Poker Grump” blog.

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