The first point sounded hard, but needed to be stated: If you are a losing poker player, you will always lose money in the long run. There is no way around it. If you are a winning player, the most important factor in understanding the severity of downswings is the level of your victory. The level of your victory, calculated in a large blind won per 100 hands (BB / 100), is the way poker players measure their superiority in the game. The greater your victory, the less you will be affected by the variance. For online players, this can be tracked easily using programs such as PokerTracker 4. For direct players, this is a little more complicated, but there are ways to track your BB / 100 manually.

To calculate your level of victory, you need to find out how many hands you have played and how many large curtains you have won. Because you might not know how many hands you have played, you can estimate by assuming you play around 25 hands per hour. Let’s see an example:

You have played 1,000 hours of poker directly and has won 5,000 large blinds. So, you multiply 1,000 hours 25 hands per hour, producing 25,000 hands in total. Because you have won 5,000 big blinds at 25,000 hands, you win a big 0.2 blind per hand. Fold with 100 and you get a big 20 blind won per 100 hands (20 bb / 100). After you know the estimated level of your victory, you can use a poker variant calculator to see what the number of varians can look like a certain hand sample.

This is a general consensus among the pro poker that you need at least 100,000 hands to have a pretty good idea about your true victory rate, but for direct players, 50,000 more can be achieved. After you play with the variance calculator above, you will quickly realize the impact of the variance in the given sample. For example, this is the range of long-term results simulations for players with a victory rate of 20 bb / 100:

The range of possible results is more than 50,000 for players with a true 20BB / 100 victory rate. Note that this is only a simulation - the results will be different if we run one more or if the standard deviation is adjusted.

The maroon red line (with red arrow) is the worst result for our hypothetical player, while the light blue line (with blue arrow) is the best result. Pay attention to large gaps between them and the fact that the maroon line passes through many more downswings throughout the sample. Thank you, variance!

There are two main differences between downswings in direct and online games:

• In direct match, your victory rate will be much higher because the players are generally worse, so your overall variance will be lower.
• However, you can play a much larger volume online, so you can reach long-term much faster.

In addition to these differences, poker is poker so you are subject to the same situation in the Live and Online environment. No, you don’t get worse beats online. It might look like that sometimes because you play more hands in the same amount of time.

There is no definite answer for how out of downswing. You can’t control the card that comes, unfortunately. However, there are still ways that you can collect the awesome impact they can have on your bankroll:

1. Maintain a healthy number of purchases for your regular game.
2. Willing to move in bets.
3. Review the hand.
4. Rest from playing.

The first and most important way to ensure that you minimize downswings impact is to maintain enough purchases for betting you play. In general, upswing recommends that you save 20-40 buy-ins if you are a direct poker player or 100 purchases if you are an online poker player. A more comprehensive view of bankroll management can be found here. (If you don’t play poker to make a living and can easily refill your bankroll with income from your daily work, you can be a little aggressive with your bankroll.)

The second way to minimize downswings is willing to move in bets. Let’s say you start with $ 1,000 to play $ 0.05 / $ 0.10, but bad downswing has your money to $ 700. You have 100 purchases, but now you only have 70, so it makes more sense to move down on the peg To rebuild your bankroll and confidence. Poker is a marathon, and a bigger game will still be there when you return. Third, make sure to review the hands with people on your poker network. Do your losses caused by bad luck, or do you make a mistake? It may be difficult to analyze your own hands, so consult someone else whose opinion that you respect is always a good idea.

Note: When you join the UPSWING Poker Lab, you get access to the Engage Upsswing group where members and coach discuss hands and theory every day.

Finally, you should consider resting from playing poker if you feel like a downswing begin to have a negative impact on your mental state. You can still learn and think about the game, but avoiding the time at the table at all is a great way to conquer tilt and return to the winner’s mindset.

This article mainly focuses on game money, but tournament variance is also a very important topic to be closed. In the tournament, even a successful professional with a trail record that is proven to be able to walk long without running in. This can significantly damage the game of money and mental players. Here are 6 important tips for dealing with downswings in the tournament:

1. Defend a healthy bankroll
2. Move down on bets if necessary
3. Selling action if necessary
4. Temperate your expectations
5. Avoid playing when tilted
6. Study more

One last thing to remember: variance, while brutal, is the reason why poker is still a favorable game. If the best player wins at any time, there will be no incentives for the worst players to continue to return. So while bad beats suck, remember that most of the time, they go bankrupt when you sit on a healthy stack.