Poker Downswing Stories
- Poker Downswings: A Survival Guide As Jonathan Little said back in episode #4, if you are serious about playing poker, you will go through downswings so long and brutal it’s hard to believe. No matter how well you play, some day you will loose all the coin flips, fall victim to all the suck outs, and your results plummet.
- 3 year downswing from July 2014 to December 2017, around 5-6k MTTs and MTT SnGs. You can see it pretty well when you sharkscope my username (Pokerstars). I was never a pro and had my breakeven stretches but this down felt really bad, just lost all the key spots deep for 3 years lol.
The second downswing was far more brutal, and eventually led to me quitting poker for close to three years. It started off normal enough; in fact I was coming off a great stretch that saw me win two tournaments in two days on Party Poker, and finish in 2 nd place in one of Pacific Poker’s largest weekly tournament just a few days later.
In this post I’ll share with you:
- The story of my latest horrendous downswing
- How this downswing fits into my wider 2020 story
- My thoughts on variance
- Some actionable strategies to help deal with variance
My story: The soul-crushing downswing
Monday 14th September:
- 9pm: I log on to Pokerstars with a bankroll of $85.29
- I’ve been playing NL5 for just over a week and played 1,898 hands over 8.6 hours
- Things are looking good, I’ve made profit every day apart from 1
- I’m feeling super positive about being able to play NL10 in a month or two
3,882 hands later…
Monday 21st September:
- 2.30pm: I log off with a measly bankroll of $20.32
- I’m crushed and start thinking…
Can I actually make money playing online poker?
When I say ‘make money’, I’m not talking about making a living. I’m very fortunate to having a nicely paying job which I mostly enjoy. Would I love the freedom that comes with making a living online during hours that suit me? Sure but realistically I don’t think I could ever make enough money from playing poker online to make it worth me ditching my job.
All I’m looking for is a side-income that I can make playing a game which I really enjoy. Withdrawing any amount of money from my Pokerstars account at the end of the month on a regular basis would be great, $100 per month would make me very happy (potentially possible at NL10 or NL25) and a few hundred per month would be amazing. But right now, after enduring this horrendous downswing, I’m questioning whether withdrawing money on a consistent basis will ever happen for me. Can I even make any money playing online poker?
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Zoom out
Losing more than 75% of your bankroll sounds really bad but this happened over such a small sample of hands. A few thousand of hands in poker is nothing really.
In terms of a meaningful sample of hands, I’ve read many different things but most players advocate getting a sample of at least 10,000 hands before anything of value can be gauged from the sample. So I zoomed out and saw the following:
Whilst these are far from inspiring results I took 2 things away from this:
- The sample of hands I had for NL5 wasn’t enough to determine anything meaningful from
- I was making a small amount at NL2 (over a good sample size)
From this I decided I could grind my way up to NL5 and give it another go.
20,000 hands later, I’m pleased to say my bankroll has grown and my bb/100 at NL2 has improved. I’m glad to say I kept plugging away.
Variance is the toughest opponent of winning players
Poker variance is annoying in so many ways. Here are just a few:
- Tilt – Your aces get cracked by 72o. What happens next? One word: Hellmuth.
- It makes decision making difficult – If you need a sample of at least 10,000 to arrive at any meaningful conclusions, how can you analyse your game successfully, form strategies to improve and know that these are having the desired effect?
- It makes you lose confidence – As seen above, everything was going well, I was confident that I was making good plays but then my QQ loses out to 83o making three of a kind 3s on the river or something similar for the 13th time that week. What happens next? You question whether going all in with QQ was the best play… (PS It DEFINITELY was)
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How to survive a soul-destroying poker downswing
- Track your sessions – Whether it’s using a spreadsheet or using tracking software (I use HM2), it’s so important to have hard data to analyse. Above I talk you through how my downswing fits into my year overall and realise that NL2 is going well enough for me to continue playing profitably. Without tracking my sessions, I would not have had the insight on how I’m doing at each stake. If you’re tracking your sessions in a spreadsheet, you should be recording the following for each session as a bare minimum: No of hands played, limit, starting bankroll, ending bankroll.
- Work on your mental toughness – In the face of adversity, we still need to be able to make our best possible decisions at the poker table. This is not easy and I am not going to pretend that I am an expert on this but there are some areas that I have recently worked on that have helped me: creating a plan for when to end a session (avoiding tilt), recognising areas to improve and creating a plan for these improvement areas (improves confidence) and using your time away from the tables to maximise your capacity at the tables (aka getting enough sleep, a healthy diet, plenty of exercise etc).
- Manage your bankroll – Work out how many buy ins your should have in your poker bankroll as a minimum and stick to that. If you’re a new player, review your bankroll requirements regularly. Some say that 10 buyins is enough for someone playing poker as a hobby but if your playing style means that variance is a more prominent element of your game then 10 buyins will definitely not be enough. It goes without saying, if you need to move down stakes to stay within your minimum bankroll requirements, DO IT. I switched from NL5 to NL2 when I hit the $55 (11 buy ins) point of the downswing above. I have now adjusted my minimum bankroll requirements.
Hopefully you’ll find some of these strategies useful. If you have some other strategies to share or a soul-crushing downswing story to tell, I’d love to hear from you below 🙂
ByOnline poker has discovered a tough road in the new United States market. While online gaming as a whole in New Jersey has experienced significant growth, the game continues to struggle to find its base, much less a consistent flow of new customers. Delaware is no different. In fact, the small state exemplifies the difficulties that poker faces in online marketplaces in America today.
By the Numbers
The Delaware Lottery, which regulates and oversees the online gambling market in the state, provides monthly net proceeds for the three facilities that offer online poker and casino games – Delaware Park, Dover Downs, and Harrington Raceway. Delaware Park typically shows more than 50% of the overall online poker revenue, with Dover Downs providing close to half of those numbers and Harrington bringing in a small percentage.
Thus far in 2017, Delaware’s online poker numbers show a fair amount of stability from the first to third quarters with only a slight decrease from the beginning of the year.
Q1 rake and fees: $62,557
Q2 rake and fees: $58,001
Q3 rake and fees: $58,654
Delaware continues to demonstrate how not to run a regulated poker network. The three skins raked just $15,117 last month. That's a record low and down 42% over last year.
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— John Mehaffey (@John_Mehaffey) November 14, 2017
While the quarterly differences do not seem significant, the year-on-year differences do show a noteworthy decline when looking at the 2016 numbers.
Q1 2016 rake and fees: $91,967
Q2 2016 rake and fees: $111,400
Q3 2016 rake and fees: $97,555
Q4 2016 rake and fees: $75,014
The annual numbers tell the same story, going back to the launch of the industry. After an initial few months in 2013, the sites began to find a stride in 2014, so the numbers begin there.
2014 total rake and fees: $595,580
2015 total rake and fees: $392,401
2016 total rake and fees: $375,936
To show the significant 2017 decrease in another way, since 2017 is not yet complete, it’s important to look at year-to-date results through the third quarter of each year.
2014 YTD total through first three quarters: $506,915
2015 YTD total through first three quarters: $308,261
2016 YTD total through first three quarters: $375,936
2017 YTD total through first three quarters: $179,212
Why the Significant 2017 Decrease?
Let’s first step back to the beginning. When sites first launched in Delaware, the game was only regulated in that state and Nevada, and players had been without regulated, safe options since Black Friday in 2011. When the industry jumped back to life in 2013 and 2014, players were excited and anxious to play. Thus, Delaware’s first year was impressive for a state with such a small population.
The numbers began to level off in late 2014 and early 2015, but many thought the launch of the interstate poker network between Nevada and Delaware would provide a jump. While there was a reasonable increase in the second quarter of 2015 after liquidity began in March, the last two quarters of that year dipped. Poker revenue stayed much the same then through 2016 until another notable drop in 2017.
Nothing changed for the Delaware sites in 2017. There is little explanation for the decrease except the most obvious guesses, such as a lack of promotions to attract new players, a lack of sufficient liquidity to keep current players, and little inspiration for players to enter the world of online poker for more than a quick game or brief experience.
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The downswing in Delaware coincides with a similarly notable yet not as severe downswing in the New Jersey online poker market. The market clearly became stagnant.
Promising Future for 2018 and Beyond
The recent signing of the interstate online poker liquidity agreement with New Jersey will help both Delaware and Nevada improve their traffic. And with Pennsylvania launching its online poker sites in 2018 and likely joining the interstate network, this will improve overall results greatly as well.
Big news coming out of New Jersey from @GovChristie – Online poker agreement reached between New Jersey, Nevada and Delaware #gamingpic.twitter.com/lr2PwPdW3N
— Howard Stutz (@howardstutz) October 13, 2017
Delaware has likely hits its low point. As players become aware of the upcoming liquidity, they will be more likely to give the sites more than a passing glance. Depending upon the amount of marketing and advertising by the sites in each participating state, there is great potential for players to see larger tournaments and more cash games. And the states will benefit with more revenue, likely to start showing up in the results of late 2018 and moving forward.