This may seem like a strange way to start a poker blog; no intro, no about me, just jumping directly into the evilest of evils, the unholy of unholies... the downswing. The silver lining, at least, is that like all great art, we're driven by pain ;p, and downswings provides ample fodder for discussion.
There are strategies for dealing with downers, there are things you can do to make sure you keep playing your a-game, there are bankroll management guidelines that you'll have to apply during the really bad ones, and sometimes you just have to complain (though, caveat emptor: that's never productive. As the whiner or the whinee).
But no matter what you do, you probably should start at the very beginning-- it is, after all, a very good place to start. And with that in mind, I give to you, not-so-gentle reader, an ontogeny of downswings (with apologies to Shakespeare).
The Babies
These are the downswings that are relatively little. Like a new born babe, there may be some mewling, but eventually the downswing just spits up on you and then goes to sleep, leaving you in (relative) peace.
Subtypes:
The "OMG I lost a rack"
The tiniest of downswings shouldn't even really be considered one, except for the legions of live players players that drop their twelve-and-a-half bets and are snap on lifetilt. When you string these together across multiple sessions, you have a teenager (see below).
The "Bloops I lost 50 bets"
These are the online 6-max equivalents of "the rack". They're so frequent, and so standard, that they don't even really merit consideration. Except when that's all you really ever do. If you're not upticking ever, even within your HEM/PT graph, you should probably rethink some things.
The "Buy In"
Also known as 'standard' in NLHE parlance. Someone will probably punch you if you call it a 'downswing'. Other variants include bubbling one or two tournaments in a row. Suck it up, and buy yourself some ice cream. Unless it's the Main Event. Then you can legitimately throw a pity party. For a week.
The "I lost 50 bets/3 buy ins/a normal day of PLO but now I'm even"
This is not a downswing. Seek counseling.
The School Boy
When your downswing grows up a little bit it's a lot like a kid just on it's way to school: looks proimising, but then it skins its knee, brings you a pretty picture that looks strangely like a graph that goes down and to the right, and then spits up on you and goes to sleep, leaving you in (relative) peace, again.
Subtypes:
The Bad Day:
These are the down swings that show up in the middle of otherwise bucolic stretches of rungoot, but make you question your sanity. Somehow, you torched five buyins doing nothing particularly different, out of line, or otherwise wrong. Somehow, you lost 150 bets 4 tabling online but every single spot was completely standard.
The "Where did all the fishes go?"
On top of the bad day, you lost 30 bets each to a 90/15 on three different tables. Inconceivable! And then they went away. (I do not think that means what you think it means).
The Teenager/Soldier
Sometimes it drinks too much, and then throws up on you (again). Unfortunately, it's also cranky and hungover in the morning.
Subtypes:
In addition to constant repeats of the School Boy (what teenager doesn't revert tantrum-like?) you are also being combo-punched in the gut by:
The "AGAIN?"
You're well into multiple sessions and or tens of thousands of hands (pick your poison. Not literally. Please). Every day is more of the same. Your W$SD is dropping more and more every session you play. Ace high is never good. Middle pair is never good. Top pair is never good. SD/FD combos never appear. You shove with the nuts. Somehow you do not have the nuts.
The (there is no) Justice
When nothing you do works. You consider throwing up on yourself, just to break the monotony.
On top of the Teenager, you are also subject to further indignity, in the form of the following Subtypes:
The "Fish is Challenging you to HU regularly"
You aren't winning this one. I know you should, but you just aren't going to. Your opponent is going to find every arcane combination of bizaroland spew human possible, is going to run into the top of your range non-stop, and is still going to find a way to win the pot. Over. And over. Again.
The "Someone has a case of the Mondays, and it's every. f*%$ing. day."
Self-explanatory. Now leave me alone, before I take a baseball bat to your office equipment.
The Old Man
You've pretty much weathered all the runbad in the world, and at this point, like the runbad's namesake, are just waiting to die. Upside: your downswing now has to change your diapers, instead of the other way around.
Subtype:
The "I don't even really give a s*%# anymore"
On the plus side, you have now achieved a Zen-like state even Tommy Angelo would envy. On the downside, you're wondering just how comfy a cardboard box would be as a sleeping arrangement. You've already lost with the nut full-house twice. Today. You laugh, although everyone is a little afraid you've just gone round the bend. But you're still playing some semblance of your A-game so at least you've got that to hold on to. And in 50,000 more hands, maybe you'll get to win again too!
The "I don't even really give a s*%# anymore, and I'm going to tell everyone"
Almost exclusively the domain of the actual very old (and very cranky), who have 'been running bad' for so long you might actually have shoes older than the last pot they dragged (or online, they're over 28). Difficult to distinguish between actual runbad and "the game has passed them by".
Return of the Mewling Babe
This downswing is so deep, so encompassingly frustrating, that it reduces grown men (and women) back to the mewling babes from which they come. Luckily, you're almost guaranteed a reincarnation... sooner or later.
Next week: a taxonomy of tilters.
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