Yes, Even I Run Bad

I've received quite a few comments at the tables over the past couple years about how I never seem to run bad. The truth of course is that I've likely been through more severe downswings than 99.5% of the regulars and 99.999% of poker players. But for those doubters, look no further:





This one takes the cake though. It's the worst I've ever had in terms of money lost and it's very close to the worst I've ever experienced in terms of big bets. I may of had a 700 BB swing once, I can't remember now and glad I can't.

It's been a pretty stressful couple of weeks watching my account balance drop from over 100K to 18K in matter of days. Although I think I played terribly through a good deal of this stretch, I ran unimaginably bad. When I say unimaginably bad, I mean it. It's not even describable in words and I don't even want to try. I suppose I was due, if there is such a thing. I ran at close to 2.5 BB/100 for the 200K preceding hands.

Those that have read my blog for a while know that when I run bad I play a whole lot. So I've been playing about ten hours a day during this stretch trying to play through it. I've tried everything, I'm running on the beach in the mornings, exercising at the gym, and eating healthy.' I'm playing brain games every morning trying to improve my short-term memory, speed, and problem solving abilities. I'm studying things in HEM. I'm reading poker books. I've even go so far as to download meditative music to listen to while I'm playing.

Things have turned around somewhat in the last week or so, particularly the last three days and I'm starting to regain my confidence. I made a few significant changes to my post-flop play as well as a few subtle changes. I think I'm a better poker player than I was two weeks ago, so something good definitely came of this.

I'm not out of the woods by any stretch but I feel a whole lot better mentally. I always try to keep things in perspective when I go through these stretches and as ugly as those graphs look, it's barely more than a blip on my lifetime graph at Poker Stars.



Hopefully my next update will contain some pretty graphs like the one above. Good luck at the tables everyone.