CARDRUNNERS

What's Your Edge

Alexdb's Poker Blog

March 13, 2009

I imagine that most readers probably guess that posting less often corresponds with bad results, and that's certainly what happened at the start of March. Seemed like an even worse run coming right after Feb, which was the worst month's results since I started playing full time.

I lost quite a lot over the first 4 days and then at the end of the afternoon on the Thursday had a moment of deciding to leave the tables and not return until I had decided to stop losing. I went to the gym to hit the running machine, sort of Forrest Gump-style, until I felt like I'd had a clear break in time periods from the downswing and I'd figured out if there was anything I'd been doing wrong.

What isn't very Forrest Gump-like is that it only took me about 20 minutes to take my mind off the game because I had to concentrate on breathing, and the run, sauna and shower did make me feel much better. I decided I'd been calling the river a little too lightly, and had been playing medium hands aggressively in position in spots where the regulars' lines showed that they were strong enough that I should have waited for better opportunities.

Both are clearly examples of forcing action to create wins, and I think its interesting to note that when you are running well they are both things that you get away with (when coincidentally, the opponents are at their weakest) and they make you feel like you are playing even better, and so you do them even more. I suspect that's why big upswings are often followed by something of a correction (more strongly than the fact that looking back over a variable graph will always cause observation of that pattern through the sample choices)

After I got back from the gym I filtered HM from that point onwards, to signify "you are always even right now" and avoid the temptation to chase the previous peak, and then I've played about 5k hands over the previous week. Something seems to have worked because since then I'm up 20 buy-ins (Its in Euro):

Obviously the month so far is nothing like as great as that graph looks, so I haven't really wanted to put it in context. (And haven't even checked it myself until right now as I'm writing), but here it is. Up about £2600, with about £1K rake-back expected at the end of the month. It could still all turn out great if the next 2 weeks are solid...

Entry Tags:

Mar 15, 09 14:21:40

Downswing after upswing.

It seems to happen to most people in most fields of endeavour.People reach a peak and then their performances and results tail off.I think it comes partly from adjusting expectation after a successful streak eg if you've won nine HU games in a row then there may be a greater expectation of winning the next game than is strictly warranted.This can result in either trying too hard to win or getting too complacent.The solution is in Rudyard Kipling's poem 'If' :-

"If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
...
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Man, my son!"

Brandon