What's the biggest downswing you have ran into and what are some typical downswings in LHE 6 max. I'm asking this because I am going through a terrible run over the past 3 days. Down 90BBs overall, and will have times where I will not win a hand in over 8 orbits. I do tend to tighten up when I go cold but overall I am just getting cold decked and not hitting flops. Just wondering what are some bad streaks that you all encounter and if the variance is higher at LHE 6 max opposed to full ring.

Variance is much higher.

I almost went broke a few months ago after hitting a 250bb+ downswing over the weekend.

Today I just hit a 80bb downswing in 2 hours.

according to PT, my standard deviation per hour is 17.17BBs ($103)

lol 90 BBs.

I had a > 300 BB downswing at 2/4.

I no longer play SH Limit exclusively.

Funny thing about that 2/4 downswing. I was moderately short rolled for 2/4 SH, about 300 BBs. I was on a stake, and he didn't mind me playing a bit out of the roll. But each time I would lose a ton at 2/4, I'd go to 5/10 and win a bit. I ended up making a bit at 5/10 on the few times I'd jump up, but lost oer 300 BBs during my 2/4 sessions. So, despite some people thinking I jumped way out of my roll and went bust, I really broke even/won a bit at 5/10, but lost it all at my normal levels.

Either way, SH LHE will make me kill myself sooner than whenever my natural suicide date will be.

- Zach

90BB really isn't that much. I started with 400BB for 3/6 SH back in May. I won for about 2k hands and was up something like 4 BB/100. I then went on a major downswing that devastated my confidence. Lost something like $800-$900 over about 5k hands during the downswing. I stopped playing a lot of SHLHE for a while (though in June I did manage to lose $100 in about 700 hands). Fortunately, my bankroll didn't go down too much from this b/c I was doing ok, tourneys. I still had over $2k in my roll.

In August I decided to take another crack at SHLHE, this time playing 2/4. According to pokertracker I got my clock cleaned for a total of $941.79 over the course of 3500 hands. That blew. Not too long after that, I cashed out a chunk of my roll and decided to rebuild from around $1200. I've been hovering around that number for the past couple of months, continuing to run bad when I do play SHLHE for most of that time. It was worst on UB about a month and a half ago. I lost over 100BB playing 1/2, mostly on things like set over set and big pairs getting run down. I didn't have pokertracker on that, but I'm sure it wouldn't have been pretty for some of my premiums.

Here's the crazy thing. LHE is my best game, I do think I'm capable of beating 6-max long-term. Now, I think that for at least part of my bad run I wasn't playing optimally, that wasn't all running bad. However, at least part of it was, and that's a good indication of the insane swings. The sad thing is, I'm back at it, trying to build a winning database at the 1/2 6-max game on FullTilt. After an insane heater today, +51BB in 260 hands, I'm at 2.9 BB/100 over 2100 hands. I feel like I have a second chance again.

At any rate, that long post was basically meant to say...90BB is nothing. SHLHE is ridiculously sick. The fact that I play it is pretty much confirmation that I'm a masochist.

Some gross examples for you, from my database:

*****************************************************************

2/4 SH on Pokerstars - Note the 300 BB downswing, as previously mentioned:





A fun 14K hand stretch:




My total graph at SH LHE, only 26K hands because I couldn't take anymore:




Brings back some awful awful memories...

From what I can tell, my worst single session records for SHLHE were -94BB at 5/10 and -100BB at 20/40. My worst SHLHE streak at a specific level was -150BB at 20/40 over the course of three sessions. So to respond your question, rogue...100BB swings can certainly happen in single sessions...so over the course of three sessions, that's not unreasonable.

Thanks for the help. It's overall very frustrating since I have played I say tops 800 hands and lost 90 BBs, when I was consistently grinding and never really having a losing session. I just started playing limit holdem primarily a few weeks ago even tho I have played it for a while. I find it to be more profitable and less tilting than NLH cash games.

Overall, are there times when you're playing and you will be cold decked and be missing every flop...not able to win a hand for over 7-8 orbits. Is this normal and how do you LHE grinders deal with this?

Please any more advice from a daily LHE grinder would be amazing. Btw I have the bankroll to play 3/6 or 4/8 but am going to continue to grind out 2/4 until I am completely consistently winning and overall satisfied with my play.


Edit** the downswings continue...lost 25BB more.. usually consists of my getting cold decked..and coolered. I win one pot every 3-4 orbits and get coolered losing to higher flushes. I have also flopped bottom sets, only to turn a boat then sure enough the river puts 2 pair out there, counterfeiting my boat. Sooo frustrating.

I found the bolded part to be funny. Most of us actually find LHE to be more tilt-inducing since there's more of a "helpless"/"I can't protect my hand!" feeling. What you've discussed also can be really frustrating...at least you can somewhat stay afloat with "easy" steals in low and mid-stakes NL games.

It really just sounds like an unlucky run. I've certainly been there. When I was playing SHLHE as my primary game for a while, I'd sometimes sit down at a table and go half an hour without winning a pot...or getting in a cycle of winning some pots without showdown but consistently losing if it got to showdown. When you're 6-handed, you feel like you should be winning at least 1/6 pots...so when you're winning 1/30, you feel a bit cursed. My suggestion is to develop even better reads on your opponents. You want to keep the pressure on, you want to be getting value bets in, you want to be bluffing well, and you want to be picking off your opponents bluffs. One of the great things that I like about the game is that A-high (and even K-high) can sometimes be good enough to call with on the river. If you're winning those "close"/"difficult" pots, that'll often make your session.

Let me also emphasize that good table and position selections are also valuable.

As for cold-decks, nothing you can do...just gotta ride em out.

that's' a really good plan. Stick to it. SH LHE is a br breaker

I think NLH cash games are much more tilting since you can push with a huge favorite, get d1cked, lose your entire stack and tilt more money away.

Ugh I know BBFIDTS but seriously! This is how bad things are going!! I understand I was dog preflop but cmon man...seriously Stars hates me now and in the back of my head I'm praying he didn't have KK.

PokerStars 2/4 Hold'em (4 handed) Hand History Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com (Format: FlopTurnRiver)

Preflop: Hero is UTG with 9, 9.
Hero raises, 1 fold, SB 3-bets, 1 fold, Hero calls.

Flop: (7 SB) 9, 8, 3 (2 players)
SB bets, Hero calls.

Turn: (4.50 BB) K (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, Hero caps, SB calls.

River: (12.50 BB) T (2 players)
SB bets, Hero raises, SB 3-bets, Hero caps, SB calls.

Final Pot: 20.50 BB
*** SHOW DOWN ***
ROGUE06: shows [9c 9h] (three of a kind, Nines)
Nikkycat: shows [Kh Kc] (three of a kind, Kings)
Nikkycat collected $80 from pot
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $82 | Rake $2

Umm...yeah, unless this guy is a complete maniac, please don't cap this river.

I lost 2k last month at 3/6 in about 4k hands. Not a fun stretch.

He was very loose and there was a very good chance he had a smaller set or even 2 pair.

Yea I lost something like 420 bb over the course of 2 days, ton of hands but still.

maybe, but also a draw came in on the river. i'm calling that three bet every day.

as far as this thread, its SHLHE, get used to the wonder pain that is it

wheee...KDawg agrees with me...maybe I'm not a complete donk.

That bad streak continues...nothing but coolers today. I hit a flush, lose to a higher one. I get a monster, lose to runner runner 2 pair. I catch a straight, they catch a flush. I feel completely helpless and it's a terrible feeling.

i disagree btw

the only hand we're really afraid of is QJclubs (look at posted 99 hand)

The turn action says otherwise, he now has a set, twopair, KK, AA, or AK.

So river cap really isn't bad.

You should basically always be raising that flop.

Didn't raise the flop cuz I didn't know how strong he was with his overpair, so I saved til the turn for a bigger raise at which point I realized he had a bigger hand than I thought and I starting capping. I don't think it was a bad play at all not to raise on the flop, because how many times do you reraise on the flop only to a fold or less raising on the turn or river. Overall you get much more value out of the turn raise on the majority of the hands if you're in that situation.

Yeah, but a turn raise screams even more strength than one on the flop and the action sometimes shuts down. The reason for that when lots of bets start going in on the turn, people usually have real/made hands...since it no longer makes sense to be pumping draws. On a draw heavy board like this, he can easily put you on a draw...or he might be on a draw himself. You'll still get decent action.

These threads are always fun...

When I started playing to support myself, I had like 2200 in my roll, and I was playing like 4 full ring 3/6 tables for 4-10 hours a day. I almost never checked my bankroll, and would consistently rebuy when my stack was under 100 bucks, just out of habit.

I had a bad long (8 hours) session once, didn't really remember winning any big pots. I just assumed I'd lost like 50ish bets. Maybe something like 75. When I went to the cashier, I gaped in horror to see that I'd lost just under 800 dollars (133ish bets).

I had another downswing at 5-10, after which I was stuck playing 3-6, then 2/4 for a few weeks to chip-up again. 3500 bucks turned into 1800 turned into 1200. That's a 270 BB downswing, including a quads over quads hand that made me so sick I actually had to run into the bathroom and try not to vomit.

For me, the biggest thing has just been finding a way to remind myself that I AM A WINNING PLAYER. When you're running good, you feel like every decision you make is perfect, and that nobody can touch you. But when you're running bad, you can't figure out how you've won in the past...

Just keep your head up, be HONEST with yourself, and just play more hands. The best way to get through a downswing is to churn out 30K hands as fast as you can.

i'm durnkb ut


keep a 1000bb+ broll

Just thought I'd throw this out there. I took an 80BB hit in 400 hands this morning. I probably tilted a little and made a few subpar plays, but mostly it was getting outdrawn like nobody's business. I'd had 4 winning sessions prior to that, but it pretty close to wiped them out. 6-max is a very swingy game. It's just something we have to live with.

One piece of advice I thought of after my session is that it might be a good idea to quit or at least take a break for a while if you start runnning really bad in a session and feel like it might affect your play a bit. One tendency that I'm sure we all have is to try to get back to even or close to even when we're losing. I think that attempt probably cost me at least 40BB today, because I could have quit much sooner when I knew the session wasn't going my way, and just tried again later. Instead I tried to get some back and ended up losing more. Now, I'm not saying you should quit every time you start losing, but I think that the best players are often the ones who do the most to limit their losing sessions and I think that's a huge key. If things aren't going your way during a session, I think taking a break for a while and clearing your head could be immensely helpful.

As it was, directly after a session like today's (where I dropped a ton of bets) I wasn't sure I ever wanted to play poker again. Now, that most of a day has passed, I'm feeling much more like getting back on the horse, but I think it's a good idea not to let it get to a point where it effects your psyche too badly. If you get down 40-50 bets, it probably isn't your day and you may want to consider taking a break.

Just my 2 cents.

Haven't played a ton of poker in the last week and a half mostly due to finals and stuff. But my downswing has continued, I take a break, give myself time to not only rethink my game but also get my urge to play and win back. I jump into a 2/4 6max game and find myself getting soo frustrated. I'll play tight since I am very card dead, playing 20-25% instead of around 35% and winning only 8 hands of about 150. I find myself being like 100% in showdowns won, but overall just being very card dead and flop dead, feeling almost helpless as I continue to lose and lose.

Drop down in limits for a little while. Seriously. You'll feel less bad about losing the money if you continue to lose. It might shake things up enough that you start to win again and then you'll get your confidence back.

When I'm losing A LOT, I just try to gamble more. Which is the worst. I'll have a few too many drinks, and start hammering bad draws because I wanna get lucky twice and get back.

Now, if I find myself gambling aggressively (esp. OOP) in situations that don't warrant it (ie., those that increase my variance and decrease my winrate) I give myself a 30 minute window. If I play good, I continue. If I make a single bad mistake, I shut it down and go to bed.

(shrug)

It happens much much much more often than I'm comfortable admitting.

Wang

I've posted this graph before, but the question's about whether 100+ BB downswings are normal, so I guess I can post it again.



Anyway, over the course of this graph, I ran my roll from $27K down to $420 + 10,000 FPPs.

After this, I moved to Bodog, played 1/2 PLO for a while and then moved back into the 8/16 & 10/20 LHE games, occasionally taking shots at higher limits. The last couple weeks there, I'm probably up over 200 BBs, and I have my roll back to over $7,000. So, it definitely goes both ways.

Note: I don't play SH exclusively either. Probably 30-40% of these hands are FR.

Whoa, man. That is fucking sick. Looks like -450BB to me.

What happened there, Iggy?

Couldn't tell you. I just lost the ability to beat the LHE games on Stars, tried Full Tilt for a while, and did just as bad there. There was a little tilt involved on nights where I'd already lost > 75 BB, but I think most of it was just running bad in games where I was only a marginal winner long-term. I'm not sure about this last aprt either, but I think trying to 3 and 4-table SH games (which I did semi-regularly) got me playing a little bit too much on auto-pilot and calling down in a lot of spots where I should have tossed my hand. Also, maybe the first 2,000 hands or so were on Party where the games were significantly softer. I did have some sick stretches on Stars though. My last session there, I was playing at a LAGgy table, and I lost with jacks full (with JJ), AA, and AA in the span of 5 hands.

Anyway, since moving to Bodog it's been like night and day. I've been 2-tabling almost exclusively since the software makes it tough to do more on my laptop, and the games are much softer. I just downloaded the Bodog hand-grabber today, and it wasn't working for some reason, but I'll figure it out tomorrow. Anyway, with no PT, I only have estimates of how I've done, but after another 35 BB winning session tonight, I really think it's been close to 250 BB over 5,000 hands. (Bodog keeps track of hands automatically.) I'm feeling really optimistic right now, and I think I'll be back up to my old BR level by some time in February. Maybe even January if I keep running well.

Stdv is not significantly different between FR and SH from what i can tell.
At least it isnt in my database.
Im not sure where everyone got the impression that there's such a huge difference.


The real issue is that people tend to have lower winrates at short handed.
You're raked far more heavily in short handed games at small stakes than you are at full ring, and most players lose their biggest edge - the fact they're tight and a lot of the opponents are too lose.



THe large majority of people who play poker are on a life long downswing spanning thousands of bets.
There is no standard for how big they can be.

If you're roughly a break even player, you can expect to frequently have 300 bet swings.

So are you saying that playing full ring is not only more profitable but less downswings also?

Abba,

I've seen your graphs, and I think you are kinda an anomolie in terms of StDev. You have been incredibly consistent over the graphs I've seen with very few huge swings. I'm fairly certain it has been established that a normal StDev for SH is greater than for FR, but only by like 2 bb/100, at most. Most players, even winning players, don't have the same graphs as you.

That might be true for overall stdv, but not the relative difference between FR and 6max.

What is the difference between your stdv in full ring and 6max?

2 is not not going to make the swings like night and day. A lower or more importantly, an inconsistent winrate - will do that.


Looking at iggy's graph, that is probably the result of changing table conditions (or changes in himself) more htan it is variance.
Well, it's probably ALSO "variance" to a degree. But most likely he either started making mistakes, he started playing during hours where the tables were tougher, or there were fewer bad players in the game later on for whatever reason.




It depends on where people are playing worse more than anything else.
Loose players tend to play relatively more poorly in full ring and that is probably the most common error (at least on most sites).

My database exploded.

I know my wr was lower in 6-max though, which would account for my crazy swings.

IMO I believe full ring is way more profitable. Much easier to multi table and it's much more of a science of starting hands and position than 6max. I guess it's mostly preference and what you feel comfortable but since it's a little slower, I guess your reads on opponents can be weaker opposed to 6max. I also am able to multi table way more full ring tables compared to 6max and feel comfortable. In the end, I believe it all comes down to your playing style, comfort and preference.

nonononono

if u have rakeback, 6max is much more profitable. much much more. I get about 6.5bbs worth in rb every hour when i 6 table.

I'm assuming this is on Absolute right? B/c I don't get anywhere near that much rakeback with my 26% on FullTilt.

Also, I can't imagine trying to 6-table on that Absolute software. I downloaded it the other day to take a look at it and it seemed like truly awful software. I don't know that I could play on that.

you get used to it

regardless, w/out rakeback, you're getting 50% more hands and if u're proficient at sh lhe, u'd be making more than a full ring player - right? After all, you get a lot of situations to isolate the bad players

You get more in rakeback because you pay more in rake.
I wouldnt say that's necessarily a good thing.

You play more hands per table, but you can play fewer tables.
I 6 table full ring about as effectively as i 4 table short handed.
And they add up to the same number of hands an hour.

You're playing against them more often, but their mistakes are usually not as bad.
People generally suck because they're too loose.
ANd being loose isnt as much of a mistake in short handed as it is in full ring.


There is not a big difference.
Play where the players suck more.

I think that you're suggesting that, in general, most players are better off playing ring as opposed to shorthanded? Here's a what I struggle with in that case. In general, I think you find more bad players in the average 6-max games these days than you do in the average full-ring game. IMO, the advent of 6-max tables really hurt FR LHE online. I personally have always struggled with full-ring games that aren't similar to the kind that your find live and that are described in SSHE. I'm not sure what the anwer is, but I'm not entirely sure that playing full-ring online LHE is really very profitable these days, most players at a ring table seem to be relatively tight and you usually have several TAGs.

In the same vein as the above, something that I've been wondering about Absolute lately is this. Since it's getting out more and more that you can basically get the equivalent of 100% rakeback on Absolute, I'm certain that more and more good (or at least decent) players are gravitating to the site and this would in turn make the games harder to beat. I wonder at what point the effect of too many solid players in the game negating (or at least lowering) your edge hurts your winrate to the point that you'd be better of playing at a site with worse players and only 25% rakeback.

I'm curious as to what your thoughts on this are Abba.

double posted. blah.

let's just say this

a lot of the players @ 3/6 SH LHE in AP are pretty much break even players excluding rakeback and bonuses, if not much worse. On weekends, the games can get pretty hectic with lotsa donks but for the most part, the regulars that play those games aren't impressive. Some are way too loose, some call down too much, some won't fold their pocketpairs, etc. aka. the game is most definitely beatable. What makes it difficult is the aggression level compared to other sites. It's not insane or anything, just a little more semi-bluffing and 3betting, not as much limping.

1) about multi-tabling, that's not necessarily true. Once you get the hang of it, it's pretty easy to auto-pilot and add more tables, especially if you take good notes.
2) if they aren't aggressive/don't have goodpostflop play, then it's an even bigger mistake since they're playing more hands per hour and can easily be exploited

You can see more hands an hour at 6max per table, but when your VPIP is 30% instead of 20%, each table requires more attention.

If you were to max out the number of tables you can play well, i think that you would see a close number of hands an hour between the two.


I wouldnt say it's "more" exploitable than being loose.
It depends on how poorly they play post flop and how loose they are.
There's a trade off.



I wouldnt worry about them being TOO tough.
It could happen in theory, but it hasnt.

THem being tight doesnt make them good.

For it to negatve the value of the rakeback, the games would have to be a lot tougher.

My winrate dropped by like .25BB/100 in making the transition from party.
And in exchange i picked up an extra 2.5BB/100 in benefits.