You're in a downswing. Nothing is working. Every time you go to get the money when you're good, they suck you out. Every time you bet the turn, you get raised. Every time you bluff, they call.
We all know there’s a lot of short-term luck in no-limit hold’em, but when you can’t string together a single winning session to save your life, it’s demoralizing. Moments like these are enough to shake even elite players who have years and years of success under their belts.
Then comes the natural question. Are you running badly or playing badly? Will this end the suffering by itself? Or are you creating your own suffering by playing badly?
My short answer is always both. Whenever things go so badly for so long that you start to wonder about this, you are definitely playing badly. But I don't know a single person who can play so badly for so long and not start playing worse. I don't think it's humanly possible to have a horrible day and still play your A game every time.
Here's how I would try to straighten things out.
Explain Edge
The first thing to do if you are worried that you are playing poorly is to take a step back and think about your game plan. No-limit hold'em is not just a series of passing hands. It is something bigger. There is an overall strategy to it. If you are playing to win, you need to adapt your strategy to those of your opponents in such a way that your strategy will prevail in the long run.
When you are running poorly, it is time to review your strategy. What are you trying to accomplish? What mistakes are your opponents making? How does your strategy take advantage of those mistakes? What weaknesses in your current strategy are your opponents exploiting?
That answer isn't good enough. It's a great way to make money when you're running well. But it's not a strategy. It doesn't take advantage of any advantage you might have. And if that's all you have.
A real strategy is something different. Here is an example of a strategy I often employ in $2/$5 games in Vegas.
“I’m going to play fairly tight preflop, while almost everyone else is playing a lot of hands. I’m going to build pots with preflop raises and reraises. Then, I’m going to carry the hands to the turn and river. Because my opponents play a lot of hands preflop, they’re going to have a lot of weak hands by the final two streets. I’m going to try to figure out when my opponents are weak and steal those pots. Because I play stronger hands to start with, and because I’m building my strategy around bluffing, I’m going to steal more pots from my opponents than they steal from me. That’s going to be my main advantage.”
This is a strategy. I have clearly articulated that my plan is to gain a lasting, long-term advantage against my opponents.
But now I've lost eight sessions and almost ten buy-ins in that time. Am I running bad or playing bad? Let's focus on my strategy.
Obviously my strategy isn't working because I can't win a session. But why isn't it working? Is it not working because unlucky things are happening, or is it not working because it's a false strategy?
Let's say I bluff the turn and get called. The river comes, and my opponent bets, I double, and he shows a gutshot on the river. This is bad luck, my strategy would have worked fine if he had missed his gutshot.
Let's say my opponent bets the flop and I call. He checks the turn and I bluff. He calls. He sees the river, I bluff again, and he calls. He shows two pair on the flop. This could be a sign that my strategy needs an adjustment – this player may have reacted to my strategy by checking with strong hands to induce my bluffs.
A player raises, and I reraise on the button with 10 8. He reraises me again, and I fold. He shows AA.. This is the bad luck of people with Aces, and you can't assume someone has Aces just because they reraise.
A player raises, I reraise on the button with QQ. He reraises me, and I call. He makes trips with 9 6 and wins a big pot. My strategy may need to be adjusted. It's not that I lost money with a big pair against a weird player. That part was bad luck. It's just that I'm getting four-bet-light from this player who may be trying to counter my reraising strategy. I should think about how to change my reraising strategy given that my opponent is trying to counter it.
Often times, you won't get complete feedback because you won't see your opponent's hand. You have to make educated guesses about whether you're just unlucky or whether you need to adjust something based on the frequency. If you bluff on the turn and raise three times on one street against three different players, you might win three big pots. Then, however, if the same player has raised you five of the last ten turns, there's a good chance you'll have to rethink your strategy.
Don't pretend you can play your best
“Oh, I’m playing great,” one person says on a huge downswing. “I wouldn’t change a single shot I made. They just keep sucking out every time, no matter what I do.”
Don't be that guy. If you're losing, day after day, you're not playing your best. You're just not. You're not a robot.
Even if you enter each session in a clear and positive emotional state (and after a while, who can?), you’re still not playing your best. That’s because losing constantly starts to hamper your poker intuition. Your internal calculator starts to think that your flush draws are coming a little less often and your opponents’ flush draws are coming a little more often. Your brain is using a temporarily distorted set of data when you make your decisions.
In my opinion, you can't avoid it. You can't make your brain work any differently than any other human being. You won't play your A+ game again until you have a few wins under your belt.
My suggestion is, first of all, don’t kid yourself. You’re not at your best. Start doing what you can to fix it. Focus like a laser on your strategy. Think about where your edge comes from and fix that. Don’t start fantasizing. Don’t try new things that don’t fit, or clash with, your core strategy. Keep your sessions short. Analyze your hands after each session. Keep things simple. Eventually, the tide will turn your way.
Original article: Poker Strategy with Ed Miller: Are You Running Bad or Playing Bad?
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