If you are going to survive over the long haul in the poker world, you need to be effective at dealing with some serious adversity. In other words, you need to learn how to be good at running bad. Recently, a couple of my good friends and I had plenty of practice at this, as the cards didn't go our way over the course of a couple of months. Having been a professional poker player for the better part of 12 years now, this obviously isn't the first time that this has happened to me. In this column, I thought I would share a few of the techniques I use to break out of my poker funks.
Go back to school.
There are a lot of good poker books on the market these days, and I believe you are doing yourself an injustice if you don't utilize some of them. Whether or not you actually learn something new from these books is oftentimes beside the point, as the time you are spending away from the table thinking critically about the game is valuable. I would urge you not to think you are "above" learning from poker books, as many of them have an abundance of good, insightful information. Two books that I have spent considerable time on lately, and have found to be valuable, are Byron Jacobs'
How Good is Your Limit Hold'em (the game in which I've been playing most of my hours) and Matt Lessinger's
The Book of Bluffs. I believe my game benefited from each, and I would highly recommend them to any poker player looking to get better.
If you can't write it, you don't know it.
This is one of the few phrases I remember from undergrad lectures a lifetime or two ago, uttered by my wise poli sci professor. Sure, she was just trying to justify assigning "term papers" as weekly homework, but she had a point. Nothing crystallizes your thinking about a subject as much as having to write logically about it. For that reason, I have found that one of my best poker "tools" when things are going poorly is to put my basic strategy down on paper. I have done this several times over the years, and each time, it is an incredibly valuable activity. By forcing myself to explain what I'm doing and planning to do in the situations we run into frequently at the table, I have caught and plugged several leaks. Typically, these leaks include mistakes such as overdefending raises when I'm in the blinds, playing too many marginal hands when I'm out of position, and not betting my decent hands for value often enough. Detailing what I want to accomplish on paper has helped me identify problems and fix them. It may seem silly to write down stuff you already know, but sometimes the human mind needs some incentive to apply it.
Change of scenery.
Depending upon where you play your poker, this may or may not be a viable option, but I would recommend it if possible. It has been stated that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. You definitely can apply this to poker, as some players (nobody reading or writing this column, of course) constantly think they are getting unlucky, even though the real reasons for their lack of success lie elsewhere.
If things have been going rough for a while, I would advise you to play with some new folks for a time. Even though you may be playing well and just getting unlucky (sometimes this really is the case), it may benefit you to switch to a different casino or site for a time. There are a couple of psychological reasons for this. First, if you have been losing, the regulars in your game are surely aware of this, and may be aiming at you extra hard. In most poker games, you would prefer your opponents to be on the defensive rather than on the attack; if you are running bad, they will tend to play more confidently against you. Second, if your results are dismal for an extended period in one locale, you are likely to at least subconsciously associate the cardroom or site with your recent results, and it could influence your play whether you want to admit it or not. Personally, I know that I've been guilty of some timid play when things go poorly for a time; I may pass on an opportunity to bet a hand for value when a semi-scary card appears, fearing that this card made my opponent's hand (as it did the previous 99 times!).
Take a break!
Have you ever heard this? "I've been running bad, but I can't afford to take a break!" Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Things are going poorly, your mind is nowhere near the sharp instrument it needs to be to dominate a poker game, and yet you think you can't stop because you need to "earn." Well, the games will be there for you when you are ready to beat them. If things have been going poorly for an extended period, it's likely that the problem lies more with something you're doing or not doing than with the cards. So, step away from the action for a while, at least a couple of weeks. Take a vacation (don't worry about spending some cash to do this, as you would've just blown it in a poker game anyway, and been miserable doing so), spend some time reading and writing about the game, and when you feel refreshed, come back for another shot. And if things don't go well right away, take comfort in the fact that you are approaching the game the right way, and that success is only a matter of time.
Phone a friend.
This may be the most important tip on running bad that I can provide. I believe it is immensely helpful to have one or two friends among the players you play with on a regular basis whom you can discuss the game with. If your game has developed some holes, it is the responsibility of your friends to objectively point them out, and vice versa. In my career, I have been most effective at those times in which I have had people whose views I respect provide me with feedback about my play and be there to bounce ideas off. Plus, your friends will at least pretend to care when you share your bad beats with them.
Mark Gregorich has played poker professionally in Las Vegas since 1995. He is regarded as one of the top Omaha eight-or-better players in the world, and contributed to that section in Doyle Brunson's Super System II. Mark is primarily a cash-game player, but occasionally tosses some dead money into the prize pools of major tournaments.
