No one mentioned "poker gods".

I was asking how long people generally experience periods of bad luck/crap cards/good hands vs better hands so that I could guage if I was just being unlucky, or maybe I was playing differently.

Plenty of the pros will talk about periods when they simply get bad luck and ride it out. I wanted to know how long peoples' experiences of these had been.

I know.
And logically it's impossible to have a streak of bad luck... just as a streak of good luck.

a swing is refrence to sessions,


a session is from when you sit down to when you leave
if you leave with less money, then when you started...you have a negative session.
if you leave with more money, then when you started...you have a positive session.

when you have more then 3 or more negative sessions, its considered a down swing.

Makes sense.

Well, I dealt with it by changing games and I'm having a good time. I've dropped SnGs for MTTs instead. I need to work on them big time so I thought it would be a nice change of pace.

Much longer games, with more time to consider how and what to play, with quite a different strategy.

Change is a good thing!

You're absolutely right about making a change Dodgey. I am starting to move away from cash games and onto Sit n Go's after doing nicely at the $5 level. I have just moved up to the $10 level at Full Tilt and seem to have had the opposite fortune to you. As you can see from the attachment, I've played 9 so far at that level and cashed 8 times! If it wasn't for the bonus at Full Tilt, I would move away from cash games a lot more, although I have started to play Limit cash games now as I find the variance a bit easier.

I'm definitely on an upswing at the moment and I am sure there will be an inevitable downswing waiting around the corner. It looks like I need to improve my heads-up play as I seem to finish 2nd a lot. However some of it was bad luck with the river doubling up the other guy on more than one occasion when I was close to winning. The last one I played I had about 11,000 to the the other players 2,500 when we hit heads up and he just kept shoving all-in, which isn't a bad play really with such a disadvantage. He won a couple of coin flips and that was that. lol

I hope your fortunes change soon Dodgey and keep that chin up. Ride through this little storm and never give up. You seem like a decent player and I'm sure you can build that bankroll of yours

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Excellent work on the SNG! :-) - stick with it while you are winning!

Heads up is the bit I'm happy with now. I either use pure aggression - never allowing him to see a free flop (unless I really have total junk - in which case an occasional fold gives the impression you are actually landing good hands all the other times) - or if I meet another aggressive heads up player, I back off and play flops, and never call his pre-flop all-ins unless I have great pocket cards.

The money on MTTS is totally irrrelivant for me - I'm finishing not far in the bubble so it's small fry but I'm sure if I keep plugging away I'll do well. I have won a 700 seat game before so I know I can do it.

Enjoy the SNGs - they are great fun !

oh - and I have a fun $2.50 project going on PKR. I won $2.50 in a freeroll and now I'm working with it. Doubled it on the penny tables so far lol.