I often read some Russian poker forums, and very often can see there some topics about downstreaks or smth,,
Can u answer guys, is it real?
is it real to have som streakf for 50-70buyins? Is it real to have a streak for 1-3months? Or this is just coz of ur bad playing>
may be u can answer what is ur lagrest and longest downswing or smth?
I naswer this, coz i want to be ready for that, may be there r some advises how to get away from it
THX
Skates can probably answer this better than I can because he is math oriented but...
I've played a bit over 5000 HUSNGs lifetime and the worst downswing (in terms of buy-ins) that I've had was ~35BI in the 220s. I did fine at other stakes during this, so I really think it was just variance and not my play.
If someone is having a 50-70BI downswing it is much more likely to be due to a change in their mentality or their style of play than it is to be from just running really horribly bad.
All depends on what your edge is I think.
If you're a big winner in the 11 dollar turbos and you lose 30-50 buyins, it's likely due to bad play/tilt than variance. Like xSCWx said, Skates can probably come in here and give you a little "if you're a 60% winrate player it's less than .1% chance that you experienced pure variance if you lose xx buyins" and own this thread.
To be honest, whenever I lose a lot of buyins I try to work harder at improving my game. In theory this works great, actually doing it is another thing.
I try not to worry about variance, because...well I can't really control a lot of it. I can however control how well I am playing and how often I am playing and that's more of where I try to focus.