Feeling defeated and scared to even play anymore

Hey, sorry it's been rough to start. Poker variance, I'd argue, is under estimated by literally everyone - even those with a ton of experience. This goes both ways though - some run on the good end of variance for far too long and under estimate how good they've ran.

Have played plo for about 15 years and still surprised by some of the variance lol.

That being said a 12bi downswing, even in a week is really not much in plo imo. Many pros have 10bi swings daily in some games.

Something that helps myself, when I'm in a downswing/rut or whatever you want to call it and see that "fear" creeping in (happens to literally everyone) is to try to reframe the question/mindset. So instead when i start thinking "what if I lose", I'll try to reframe it to "what if I win". I found trying to always spin any fear/doubt into a positive helps my mindset in game. Obv this isn't a fix all solution but helps while you work through it.

Also volume beats variance. Hopefully turns for you soon, can definitely be rough at times.

My PLO career was sabotaged by merely being in the bottom 25% of all-in luck over a large sample. 1 in 4 chance of it happening. Not that small. It hurt a lot and literally made the primary difference between me giving up poker as a career or not, but as a poker player you can't fundamentally act shocked by the 25% coming to pass.

If you can't handle a 12 BI downswing, you're playing the wrong stakes or frankly just the wrong game. And this is assuming you're a winning player, which... you say you played full-time before, but you didn't say if it was PLO or not.

My standard line is "PLO games are always good" but at some point you have to recognize that jumping into PLO200 cold is pretty ambitious.

12 buy in down swing? Your joking me right? I'm not sure how long you have been playing poker or if you have just rode the sunny side of variance beautifully for a long long time but this is nothing.

I mean it doesnt even register on a full time pros mind. 20 buy in downswing is totally normal.

Check this graph out by me. I was on a 60 to 70 Buy-In downswing and still going.

I'm a complete newbie to a lot of this stuff, but you're probably playing at the wrong stakes or not bankrolled correctly for what you're trying to do.

Acevedo in Modern Poker Theory suggests you should be bankrolled for at least 200 buy-ins, and goes so far as to say you should have 1, 000 buyins if you really don't want to go broke.

So to even start have resilience to variance, a 2NL player should be rolled for $400. To be very strong against it, you'd have a $2000 bankroll. To play in a game with 1 and 2 cent blinds.

It might sound mad, but variance is a serious thing; even a good player with 1, 000 buyins could, theoretically, with a long enough streak of bad luck, go broke. The odds are against it happening, but it can happen.

EDIT: Also, this should go without saying, but just in case it doesn't - your bankroll should be seperate from your actual, living, human-ing money. Do not use "creative" accountancy to expand your bankroll at the expense of, for example, bread.

Poker is 99.9% luck. The only difference in the long run between perfect play and random button clicking is .01%. There is no "playing for a living". It is a game. A hobby.

Please come play at my tables lol.

As a retired football coach, I think most young men are looking for purpose in life. The problem with poker is you can’t really feel like you’re doing something positive in society. Poker is exhausting, exhilarating, frustrating and sometimes satisfying, but always a grind.

The secret of life is to make money doing something that you enjoy doing. Making lots of money is overrated, you just have more expensive toys. But getting up everyday happy and ready for work is a superpower.

So, I suggest you consider what you would really like doing with your time every day and figure out a way to get paid doing it. If it’s poker, then that’s great - but I always worried it would not be fun anymore going full time.

I don’t know you, so I can only give general advice. I don’t trust online poker, so I don’t know what you’re into. What you don’t want is to go through that 5 yr bankroll and still not know where you’re going in life.

The other secret of life is to arrive in old age happy, secure and healthy. Make sure you plan ahead. Please feel free to ignore any of this advice, if it doesn’t apply. I seem to strike a nerve with some people in this forum, but I’m only trying to help.

Guess it’s a good thing I’m so lucky!

Good post. 👍

Good post coach

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