Dealing with Variance...?

"How to deal with giant downswing?  I usually have no trouble dealing with downswings. Even as a beginner, I understood how variance was a part of the game and it never really bothered me.

Recently, though, I've gone on such a downswing that it is really starting to affect me. I had just moved up to 10nl and things were going great when I got hit with a downswing sicker than anything I could even fathom before. Cooler, cooler, suckout, cooler, bad beat, cooler, cooler, card dead, cooler, suck out, card dead, card dead, bad beat, cooler, bad beat, suckout, cooler, cooler. Can't hit a draw to save my life. A in the flop every single time I have KK. We all know the story. I quickly lost all of the incremental progress I had made at 10nl, hit the red, and dropped back to 5nl. The variance did not stop. Cooler, cooler, suck out, cooler, card dead. Since then, over about 40k subsequent hands, I've dropped almost 20 BI at nl5, a limit that I CRUSHED for over 150k hands prior.

I can see it clearly affecting my game now. I've tried everything I know how to do to deal with downswings; first I tried to out-volume it, like I did with every other downswing up till now. That made it worse. Then I took a couple weeks off. The variance was waiting for me when I got back as I was quickly and brutally reminded of why I took a break. I reassure myself that it'll come back. It isn't.

What are some other ways that I can get back to playing my A game under the weight of this collossal swing?"


My FIRST THOUGHT is:  Stop thinking "I am on a downswing."

...playing despite a series of coolers is always one of our tougher challenges.  You need to have amnesia about the whole thing - cards have no memory, so in times like these, neither should you.

If you have an A-Game, you just put it on and you just keep playing.

Personally, I don't try to do things that are geared towards addressing the variance.  I don't try to out-volume it, I don't try to play tighter, I don't move up, I don't move down.

I just play my best and let my bankroll handle the rest.


Imagine a signal number 4 typhoon rips through my town:  Nothing but NOTHING I do will make that storm pass faster.  all I can do is sit in my house and hope it is strong enough to still be standing after taking the worst that the natural forces of the universe can throw at me...

If I adjust my game because I am on the ass-end of variance - what you call a downswing - then one thing is for sure:  I am not playing my A-Game.  I am playing some mutated form of my game adjusted to cater to my "bad luck."

Variance is not something you can control, slow down, or speed up... but you can minimize the damage:

1. Play your A-Game
2. Say no to tilt
3. Keep an eye on your BR
4. Back to #1


For me, the hardest thing about bringing back my A-Game in the midst of all the bullshit is this:  HAVING FUN.

So the first step i recommend as you try to get back in there with your A-Game is this:  remember how much fun this game is!  It can be brutal and heart-rending a lot of times, but so is a relationship with a nymphomaniac... so make sure you're fucking her more than she's fucking you.

Okay, now i've said too much.