Head Games: How to Handle Variance - The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly

Sometimes it’s hard to get a straight answer from a professional poker player. Ask three players a question and you’re liable to get three different answers. Why? Because: It depends. On the situation, opponent, stack sizes, table image, tilt, metagame, etcetera.

Head Games will peer deep inside the twisted minds of today’s top players. We’ll reveal why they do what they do in sticky situations, especially when it comes down to making a critical decision for a major tournament title or calling a check-raise all-in on the river holding only ace-high for a $500,000 pot. Let the games begin.

The Pros: Eric Baldwin, Christina Lindley, and David Sands.

Craig Tapscott: How does your game change if you are on a huge heater or upswing and affect your overall game play, both good and bad?

Eric Baldwin: The biggest difference when I am on a good run is that I’m playing with a lot more confidence. I’m not second guessing my decisions as much, resulting in spending less mental energy on past hands and more on focusing on the current hand. Confidence has always been subject to the chicken or the egg argument, but I’m a firm believer that it leads to continued success and isn’t just a byproduct of running good. Of course, it’s easy to become overconfident when things are going well, which is where self-awareness and honest assessment of your play become vital. If you stop trying to improve and assume you’re playing perfectly, prepare for a downward spiral that is one of the most painful experiences in the poker world. I’ve experienced this and am not proud of how long it took me to get out of my funk. Losing huge amounts of money was a strong influence on bringing me back down to earth. It’s a valuable lesson that anyone aspiring to be a long term poker pro needs to learn.  

Christina Lindley: My game itself changes in a time of a huge upswing in a few ways. Obviously during a time like this, you tend to take more shots at higher stakes, play more aggressively, and confidently. This can manifest in good or bad ways. These times have made me the player I am today, just as much as the downswings. During a huge heater, I play with crazier lines, become more creative, and really trust my instincts in game which ultimately becomes part of my game whether I am winning or not. I also continue to go over hand histories with coaches and friends who are more experienced pros, which helps me to maintain a level head about my game and the lines I am taking. On the negative side, in the past I took too many shots during an upswing, and was practicing poor bankroll management. Since the first big heater I had, I have learned to take calculated shots, while being really smart with my roll. Poker is really about maintaining a clear, sharp mind regardless of what your results are at the time, and treating it like you would any other business. 

David Sands: When I’m on a upswing I often find myself playing more hands and playing more creatively than normal. This is typical for players on an upswing and is often a positive development in one’s game, if control is maintained. When you are winning at anything, especially poker, you gain confidence in your ability to win hands. Often this increased ability to drag pots is a product of playing hands better than your opponents, meaning, maximizing value when you have the marginally better hand, losing less when you have a slightly worse holding than your adversary or simply getting your foe to fold his hand when you have absolutely nothing. The increased propensity to win hands while on an upswing also seems to exist in all-in situations, when skill has been removed from the equation. Sometimes you are just running pure and seemingly winning every flip.

During these “best of times” as Dickens would likely call them were he a poker player, it is both vital and difficult to not play overly aggressive. When you are seemingly winning every all-in, it becomes really easy to adopt the approach, “well, I might have marginally the worst of it here, but I am running so well I should just call because there is some chance I have the best hand and even if I don’t, I will probably get there.” Every serious poker player, both amateur and professional has been in this state of mind. Resist the temptation to gamble and recognize that the math, theoretically, holds true in both upswings and downswings.  

Craig Tapscott: When you’re on a big downswing what are a few pointers you can share to pull yourself out of it?

Eric Baldwin: Most people advise taking time off. I only advocate taking time off if you’re feeling burned out. I don’t understand how going on vacation, not working on your game, and resuming playing without making any changes is supposed to yield amazingly different results. That said, adjustments are difficult to make on the fly at the table. There’s simply too much going on to be able to develop and implement new strategies effectively. Whenever I’m in a bit of a slump I hit the books. Even if it’s something I’ve read 15 times, it helps to get me back to the fundamentals and gets me in the mindset I need to be in at the tables. At the start of the WSOP I read both volumes of Jonathan Little’s Secrets to Professional Tournament Poker (which I highly recommend). Even though I didn’t have any earth-shattering epiphanies, they refreshed several parts of my game, as well as simplified and clarified my thinking at the table. The more aspects of a poker hand you can get to become second nature, the more you can focus on the higher level aspects of the hand that separate the run of the mill professionals from the elite ones.

Christina Lindley: Downswings tend to shake you at the core of the confidence in your game. Studying hand histories with people who are better than you has always worked for me. I’m always incredibly open to advice and criticism. Once you take a look at where you are skill wise, and fix any leaks that can be fixed, the next step is to return to your bread and butter; whatever it is that you crush at, your biggest strength, for me personally it is mid-stakes online MTTs. When you are constantly focusing on doing something you know you win at, it gets momentum going. You get to feel the feeling of winning again, which is always a huge confidence booster. I recommend studying harder and returning to your best game full force until you are confident, rebuilt, and ready to take on anything. 

David Sands: Downswings suck, but they happen to everyone. So what can we do to mitigate the veracity of our downswings? I think the first and most important thing is to minimize the impact the downswing has on individual hands played. Since a downswing naturally inspires a lack of confidence, I think it is actually better to play fewer hands when things are going poorly. By folding the bottom 10-20 percent of the hands you would usually open with, you increase the probability you will make the best hand when entering pots. As a result, you will likely win a higher percentage of pots because you will make a better hand than your opponent more often than you would if you were opening a wider range. Although these pots may be smaller as your opponents may recognize you are playing tight and thus not pay you off in marginal spots, you will still gain momentum by increasing the number of pots you win. Small victories often produce momentum and lead to larger ones. But let’s be real here, even during the worst of times nobody wants to play tight in every tournament they play. For this reason I like to mix in few tournaments that are a bit smaller than I would normally play during downswings. These smaller events offer me the opportunity to crush some weaker players, as well as experiment with some more creative lines I may not feel comfortable taking at larger stakes while running bad. Pulling off a few big bluffs or making a great hero call, even if you do it in a smallish tournament is often exactly what you need to start to pull out of the inevitable downswing.