These kinds of articles really should be making people think about the variance in poker and especially with certain forms of poker like limit hold ‘em. In fact this was one of the reasons why I switched to playing NLHE because the variance in full-ring no-limit is far less than at limit or at least the frustration factor is far less.
I received an e-mail today from a player from Australia who had been playing on a certain site at $2-$4 limit hold ‘em. He had been making around $30,000/year for the past few years. He never moved up as he figured that the players were better and he found that he preferred to stay where the money was easy.
He didn’t want to risk losing what he already had and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that. I asked him what his biggest downswing was in the first three years of him playing at $2-$4 and he informed me that it had been 145 big bets. This is actually very low for someone who had been multi-tabling for such a long time.
What this article is leading to is that this player went on a 285 big bet downswing in April, he then ground that back during May to get to about 100 big bets up on where he had been before the slump. He then proceeded to go on another downswing that was then even worse and was 345 big bets.
As we speak this guy has pulled back around 250 big bets of that second slump and is about break even since April. He came to me simply because he was at his wits end. He is approaching five months without making any money. I have known of live players who have gone a full year without making money in the past at limit hold ‘em.
I asked him to carefully examine the games to see if they had got tougher and I also asked him to explain to me if he had been doing anything different than before. Five months does seem extreme to me although it is perfectly possible and his total sample size was 85,000 hands. I have known strong online no-limit players go on 100,000 hand break even periods and the variance at limit tends to be higher.
This could just be one of those instances where this guy has been playing for so long and played so many hands that he was overdue for a bad streak. The funny thing was that the hand that I am just about to describe involved him holding AA. It was folded to the button who raised and the small blind re-raised.
Our hero raised again and the button folded with the small blind calling. The flop came A-7-3 rainbow and the small blind check called our hero’s flop bet. The turn was the 9d and the action went absolutely crazy and was capped. The river was another nine and once again the action was capped.
Just as our hero was expecting to be shipped a big pot, his opponent showed 9-9 for quads….ouch! This came at a time when our hero was mentally at his worst after such a bad run. It seems however that he has the temperament to be able to ride the huge swings in limit.
Its amazing what this game can mentally do to a player. The game is really all mental when it comes down to it. How you handle these runs when they arrive really do form the benchmark for how your career is going to progress.
Carl “The Dean” Sampson
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