Onwards and further downwards

I'm still running badly, and am down about 50 buy-ins now.

Its time to reconsider things.

At the start of this run I was running gruesomely badly, with a terrible run of bad beats. That's poker, I'm not ususual. I then started playing worse, but I think I've got my head on straight again now, and I'm OK with hopw I'm playing. I'm still losing though.

Its struck me that the final tables I'm reaching these days are pretty tough. There usually are few players who are donking lots of chips off, and they are all pretty shallow by the time of the money bubble so the variance is pretty large. That said if threre is a coin-flip to be played on the FT you can be pretty sure I'm on the wrong side of it.

Anyway I'm going to have to make a decision pretty soon on whether to move down or not. I've taken money out of my roll to pay for the Vegas flights, so I now "only" need money for a bankroll while I am there and some money to keep online.

I'd be happy taking $3k with me, and leaving $500 online, but I've only got $2k online at the moment - after my terrible run - and if I move down it will take me a *long* time to build it up.

That said, if the fields are that bit easier it may be worth it. We'll see how I fell when I next play.

Down down down ...

OK I'm losing. Quite consistently at the moment. There are three possibilities.

One: Bad run, variance, it'll happen, keep playing you'll get out of it.
Two: I'm not playing as well as I was and I've moved from being a winning player to being a losing one.
Three: I never was a winning player (at the $26s). My sample size was too small to be able to meaningfully estimate my ROI and I'm just returning to my normal level.


There is some element of them all going on. I am running badly. I'm getting sucked out on too much, and critically at the wrong times. Also I'm sucking out on opponents much less often than I should be.

While I am generally happy with my play its not perfect. I think I am slightly too loose in the early game, but my post-flop play has improved in terms of putting opponents on hands. I am definitely floating too much though.

Finally, my ROI was definitely unsustainable, so it will drift down over time. You never expect 30 buy-in downswings to happen, but you do know they will do. Its quite possible I'm only 1/2 way through it.

There are a couple of good things about this happening now.
1) Its not when I'm in Vegas. I'd hate to run ice-cold there.
2) There is time for me to get the money back.

If things carry on though I'll either have to have a break and study some of my games (which I should do more than I do anyway) or move down in an effort to regroup.

I don't know exactly how many buy-ins I'm down. I thought I was down about $1k, but it may "only" be about $750. After a while you don't want to count. Its straight down at the moment. I've had 2 min-cashes in this time and nothing else.

The trick (I hope) is just to keep playing well and wait for the luck to turn.