Is this variance or bad play?

Say a bunch, okay?

Next... do you think poker has more to do with strategy or luck? Or is it a mix of the two?

I ask this because I've been playing for a while, but I haven't been able to get consistency yet. I play both tournaments and cash, and it's always the one up and down... there are days when everything works out, and on the other it seems that nothing fits.



Like this: one time I score a tournament, the other time I make a little money in cash... then the next day I enter the same tournaments and I end up dropping out early 😅

And what sticks with me the most is when I fall down with a strong hand... AA, KK ... you've seen it right, give a good headshot

Last week it was like this: on Thursday I registered AFTER FREEROLLING LA ON IGNITION POKER , then on Friday I still made $71 in cash ... I thought “now go!” But after that... nothing else worked out lol

I'll stay at that: am I wrong about something? Lack of consistency? Emotional? Or is it just variance really knocking?





I wanted to hear from you... have you been through that too? How do you deal with this phase? 👊♠️

Sometimes we even know that, but when a bad sequel comes, we feel discouraged. Let's stay firm!

Gotta remember the way poker works is you lose most of the time. Not win several times in a row or go on a winning streak. The latter happens once in a while but it's not typical.

Without hands it's hard to say if you're playing badly.

Losing big with a big hand is not unusual - those are the hands you're going to build pots for , and call down bets when your opponent plays back at you. So when you lose, you lose bigger than with a marginal hand that you'd simply fold sooner. You should be winning more pots than you lose with them though.

I'm gonna guess that you're playing badly but got extremely lucky a few times. Then, not realizing just how lucky you were getting and how badly you are playing, you assumed that you were playing (& play) better than you actually are.
How can I say this? I haven't even seen you play. Not even a posted hand history... Call it a hunch.

Poker is a game of skill influenced by short-term luck.
in the long term, strategy is what separates the winners from the losers. To find that consistency you're looking for, you have to stop focusing on daily results and start focusing on whether you made the mathematically correct decision at the moment - like rise with AA, KK.

Variance is real but sometimes it’s hard to tell where variance ends and leaks in our game begin. I’ve had stretches where I thought I was cursed, then later realized I was forcing spots or calling too light because I was frustrated. Usually it’s a mix of both. If you’re honestly reviewing hands and still making solid decisions, you’re probably not playing as badly as it feels right now. Poker can make decent players look terrible for a while.

poker is like a rollercoaster one day u up other u down.

I think the two things are quite mixed up in poker.
The variance is real, that's undeniable. But I also think that sometimes we start to play worse after a bad streak, without even realizing it.
The hard part is separating bad luck from our own mistakes.

It's difficult to say without knowing how you play and what cards you're playing with. But luck certainly influences the game, but it's not the main factor.