Poker Articles

By Zpaceman | Published Jul 24 2007, 03:45 AM
Everyone loves to win at poker. Playing the game seems effortless when you’re winning. Decisions become easier, playing is fun, and hopefully you get to enjoy the fruits of your success by buying or doing something special.

At the end of every winning streak, there’s the inevitability of losing. Sometimes you’ll just lose for a few days, maybe a week, and then start winning again. No problems there! When a week turns into two weeks, and then two weeks turns into a month or more, you’re on a downswing and things soon start to fall apart.

In my experience, the first thing that goes is your confidence. You no longer feel like a winner so winning becomes all that much more difficult. Then you lose your enthusiasm, and playing becomes a drag. Then you start to worry about the money you are losing, especially if poker is your only source of income. Playing your A-game is difficult under these circumstances, and a downswing can get worse through bad decisions. At this point, you might even question your underlying skills and wonder whether you really are a winning player or just got lucky during those winning streaks.

So what can we do to recover from a downswing and get back to our winning ways? One thing is experience. If you’ve been playing poker for any significant period of time, you will have experienced both a downswing and the end of a downswing (and sometimes a false dawn where you thought a downswing had ended).

I experienced a downswing earlier this year from late January to early April after some stellar results in January. Most of that period was spent playing online at Pokerstars, with the one exception being the EPT Final at Monte Carlo in late March. That tourney really came at the wrong time for me, because I’d lost so much confidence, enthusiasm, and money leading up to it that I played pretty poorly during the event.

Flying home from Monte Carlo, I was emotionally and financially shattered and didn’t know what to do to recover. Luckily I was moving house and had some business issues to organize, so I had things to do to occupy me for several days and basically took a break from poker for around a week in early April.

I also took some time to review my game, my overall track record (including the size of my downswing), and how to continue with my diminished bankroll. My track record showed I was a winning player, and the length of my downswing seemed close to the maximum that other players had advised is at all likely to happen (as far as BR management was concerned). I realized, however, that I couldn’t keep playing the Stars $100R every day, because if my BR was to last much longer, I’d need to reduce my average buy-in.

Then a lucky coincidence occurred. Adam from PocketFives asked me for some information about Party Poker results that would help them out with the site. I wasn’t sure I could help, as I’d never played much on Party Poker and hadn’t really thought of it as a place to play since it excluded US players, but I thought I’d give it a try. Not only did I find that they had a roster of tournaments with buy-ins and start-times to suited my schedule; I also had immediate success there. Within a few days my confidence was back, and I took down a big win on Mansion to give my BR a welcome boost. April to June went well, and pretty soon I was ready for Las Vegas and the WSOP.

My trip to Las Vegas started out great. I won my Main Event seat at the Rio the day I arrived and then took down a Deepstack Tourny at The Venetian a few days later. My confidence and enthusiasm were sky high. After that win, however, it was a disaster! I had such a bad run between my Venetian win and the start of the Main Event that in addition to being in the red for the trip, my game was also suffering. Just like Monte Carlo, I wasn’t in the right frame of mind to be taking on such a big event, and I ended up making some bad decisions and busting at the end of Day 1.

So I recently got back home and started to put the pieces back together again. Looking at my previous experience, here are some of the things I’ve learned that can help you recover from a downswing:

1. Downswings are part of a poker player’s life. Get used to it!
   
2. Confirm that you are a winning player over your poker career. That didn’t happen by accident, and you can and will get back to your winning ways again soon.
   
3. There is no set length of time for a downswing. It might continue for another month or more. Adjust for that.
   
4. Taking a break to do other things might help clear your mind and renew your enthusiasm, but don’t force it to happen. If you’ve got something meaningful to do while you take a break then I’d recommend it, but idling away your days might not be helpful.
   
5. Trying something new seems to help. A new site or maybe even a new form of poker might rekindle your enthusiasm and confidence.
   
6. Review your game, especially your winning game. Go back and replay some of those previous wins to see how you did it and just to prove that you can do it!
   
7. Manage your bankroll. If an extended bad run at the level you are playing might break you, reduce your average buy-in to a level that can be sustained for a longer period.

Recovering from a downswing is one of the hardest things about poker and takes patience and planning, but stay rational and an upswing is just around the corner. Hang on tight!

Stuart “Zpaceman” Taylor is a professional poker player and Guest Pro at online poker training site CardRunners.com.