What's the best thing to do to break a bad luck streak?

I've noticed that whenever I play tournament poker for real money, I lose almost every coinflip. It doesn't matter if I have a pocket pair or an Ace King, if I have the pocket pair the opponents high cards will flop a full house or nut flush or top two pair. If I have the high cards, the opponent's small pair will always flop a set or I'll miss my hand. People before have told me "You just have selective memory, you never remember the coinflips you win, only the ones you lose". And I thought maybe they are right, so lately I've been writing down the number of coinflips in poker that I've won and the number I have lost. And I was actually correct, so have, from the ones I recorded, I have lost more than 80% of them.

So it's just bad luck. Anyway, what's the best thing to do to break a bad luck streak?

take a break.

You need some:

Agree! take a break ...even sit out in the tourney and go for a smoke.

Also try to get poker tracker etc saves you all the writing down and lets you concentrate on the game. Review the play your opponents make and see if they have any reads (telegraphing their hands) that you are missing.

If you can peg the type of player ie LAG etc it also helps as you can put them on a range of hands and adjust your play accordingly.

I play a lot of SNG's (low stakes) and with certain regular players. Using poker tracker I waded through the info and have pegged most of them on the hands they play and their bet amounts(took me two days..during which I didnt play any poker). Needless to say they are convinced I can see their hands . The one guy will not even sit at the same table as me anymore....and he is one of the more solid players...LOL. This doesnt always work of cos but its a big help.

All the best out there on the felt!!!!

Bentheman87 said:

And I was actually correct, so have, from the ones I recorded, I have lost more than 80% of them.

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How many hands / coin flips is this percentage based on? For the "law of averages" to balance out it would need to be a lot. I suspect you have based in on maybe a couple of hundred hands, which may well be unreprisentative.

Rather than counting the number of coin flips that you have won / lost, have you considered looking at the hand histories to see if you could have played these hands any differently?

I hope you bad run comes to a swift end.

Boltneck

Personally, I would try to avoid them where possible. Not so much because you are "unlucky" - but beacuse ideally, you don't want your tournament life to be a coin flip. Get your money in ahead - that means queens, kings or aces, if you are going to do the pre-flop war.

I admit that alot of this is down to stack size. If you have 5 times the big blind and look down at 8-8, then they are all going in the middle, but if you can avoid a coin-flip, I would do so.

Maybe try reading some articles on smallball which is a style of play that avoids the coin-flips where possible.

The best thing to do is to play as much as you can (assuming you're a winning player).

Downswings are part of every player's graph, the more hands you play the faster you'll turn it around (assuming you don't tilt).

ratmantoo said:

Agree! take a break ...even sit out in the tourney and go for a smoke.

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Yeah I'll do this to avoid tilt lately.. tho still also having bad lucky recently like yourself.

but at least its been cold as heck out, wakes me up a bit too

When ever I go through a bad phase I like to re-read Zen and the Art of Poker.

All these coinflips are very late in the tournament, when I only have enough chips to survive a few more rounds around the table before I'm blinded out. Typically here's what will happen. I'll have a medium or big stack. I'll get all in preflop against smaller stacks for a coinflip and lose maybe 4 out of 5 of them. Now I'm a medium or small stack. I'll get a big pair like AA KK or QQ, raise 3x bb. Someone will go all in over the top of me with a medium or small pair, I'll call instantly. Then, if he doesn't hit his set on the flop, he will hit his 2 outer on either the turn or the river and I'm knocked out of the tourmanent. This is exactly what has happened to me in the end of most of my MTTs I play.

Why are you only raising 3xx the big blind if your M is so low. go all in right away and scare them off and be happy to take the Blinds. If you are raising, then they go all in and you call, you are getting exactly what you wanted to happen to happen. Being sucked out on, there is nothing you can do about that. The odds will even out in the long run with the high pairs and you will win with them. You also don't need to wait for high pairs with Low M's, two face cards with a low M is enough becuase by that time you are desperate anyway and you can't always wait for huge hands late.

re: What's the best thing to do...

A couple of different approaches you can take here. I hope that one of them helps. One way is sadly just tough it out and keep playing and start reinforcing your thoughts with the whole 'law of averages' evening itself out. If you've been on the losing end of a lot of these flips, then it should turn around....eventually. Not sure if this is a plausible course of action if you get deflated after going cold during this or future runs.

The other one is to take a serious break. I'm currently scaling back seriously the amount of online poker I'm playing and poker in general. Yes, a lot of it has to do with the fact that I'm swamped with school, but before I used to make some time just to get some play in. I've been playing at PokerRoom before, just seeing where my Canadian bonus could get me. I haven't been doing well online and those bonus dollars haven't panned out into anything for me. It's been a combination between making bad decisions, losing focus and a healthy dosage of opponents catching miracle cards on me.

Thus, I've been staying away from it and actually reading books on poker and thinking through several situations where I can vary my play or make a more correct decision. I'm a part-time dealer, so I try to put people on hands by watching them and also learn if I can pick up stuff from them too. This opportunity may not work for yourself, but you can always just watch other players play to have the same effect, if you have the time and patience to watch others play. I hope to come back to playing, either over the holidays or even taking a longer break and not coming back to serious online play until after I graduate with my degree, get a job and more disposable income to convert into my bankroll.

Oh yeah...almost forgot to mention posting on the forum here and getting tips or learning more about the different situations and how players would approach certain hands and situations.

Anyways, good luck and hope your cold streak goes hot soon.

This sounds a bit immature, but I either go on a freeroll NLHE sit'n'go (lots of them on FT) or take a wad of play money at a NL/PL omaha game and just push all in. High chance you're going to suck out on someone. And when you suck out = instant feel good (lol)

Hope it helps

Alessandra said:

This sounds a bit immature, but I either go on a freeroll NLHE sit'n'go (lots of them on FT) or take a wad of play money at a NL/PL omaha game and just push all in. High chance you're going to suck out on someone. And when you suck out = instant feel good (lol)

Hope it helps

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LOL. I actually like this idea.

continue to get it in with the best hand and realize the vairiance of playing mtt's.. volume overcomes variance..

Best thing to do to break a bad streak? Make her put her clothes back on and divorce her.

aliengenius said:

When ever I go through a bad phase I like to re-read Zen and the Art of Poker.

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QFT

Like others suggested take a break for a few hands gather your wits and think positive. If your luck is real bad take a few days off. I do from time to time.

aliengenius said:

When ever I go through a bad phase I like to re-read Zen and the Art of Poker.

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great book. read that one myself

yeah, best bet is to just take a break and find something else to do for a bit. i also like to read when im not winning much.

Sacrifice a chicken to Jobu!

The problem is this never stops. I take breaks but when I come back it doesn't matter. Just today, I recorded how many all in preflop coinflips I won vs how many I lost. Again, these results were only for today. Out of 8 coinflips, I won 1 and lost 7. Most of the time the coinflips are for nearly my entire stack. And I'm not just playing stupid and gambling. Every time this is when I'm on the bubble and when I have enough chips to survive a few more rounds.

This never, ever, ever ends. It's been going on for almost 2 months. There are sometimes very brief periods where I'll often win 50% or more of my coinflips, and during this period I'm making so much $$$, but these periods are very rare. Just a few months ago I was running like that all the time, I won 50% or more of my coinflips, and I made almost $6000 in just a few weeks.

I really should start actually trying to get all in preflop with the worst hand, I'm positive my long term results would be much much better. I win way more often if I get all in preflop with ace rag vs Ace king than I do if I get all in preflop with QQ vs AK.

The key is see the flop then bet to see where you stand in the hand. If you are going all in with cold cards you will lose alot more then you will win atleast thats the way it plays out for me on my stat sheet. Only way I make a all in call with a ace hand is when Ive already made the money or have no choice because the blinds are eating me up. Even then I read my notes on people who are still in the hand and it helps to be in late position to feel out the table. Do whatever works for you as I have had one of your days today. I cant tell you how many mtts Ive been knocked out of today by 1 outers and runner runner str8s and higher 2nd pairs. This is by far the worse day I have had in almost 6 months. Well got a game up Goodluck to you!!!!

wsorbust said:

You need some:

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These only work if you are irish like me!!!!!

Unlucky, you know about the M system right? You kno, as the blinds get higher you go from the green to yellow to orange to red zone. All of this all in preflop coinflips I'm talking about are when I'm in the red zone and sometimes in the orange zone. Blinds are so high you can't speculate with hands and play after the flop. It's all in preflop or fold.

It's just so frustrating cuz this phase of losing nearly every coinflip just will not end for me. It's literally been going on every day for the past 2 months. I see what you guys are saying about taking breaks, it probably helps if a player is thinking negatively when playing (like me possibly). But I do take ocassional breaks, and when I come back, I'm a great mood and feel like playing. Then I get real deep, and it all happens just like usual. I lose my entire stack to a bad beat or draw out, or I lose most of my stack when I race against small stacks who pushed all in.