I've had 10 losing sessions in a row a few times, as well as breakeven/losing stretches of several months. One thing to consider: you might have been running better than you thought during your previous positive stretch. I don't think I know a single live player who doesn't believe himself to run poorly. It just seems to be a feature of our brains that we remember our bad beats very clearly and gloss over the times when we got lucky.

If edges are small (ur winrate is less than 10bb/100) u can easily have a losing month online playing 30-50k hands. If u play 300-450hands/hr online and 30-50 live, having a losing 6-10months wouldnt be extreme. Luckily, hopefully ur edge is bigger but id guess ur gonna have at least 1-2 2month losing streak a year live.

I'm on a huge ds ATM myself. For the past month I been getting hammered which makes me break even for past like 20k live hands overall. Running very bad in every possible way. Luck isn't just aiev u know and in plo theirs zero chance u can outplay the luck factor like u could sometimes do in like nl for example.

I would suggest that you figure out your standard deviation and win rate and go here:

Poker Variance Calculator

You will be amazed at the results.

Playing live is very misleading in terms of the timeframe, especially PLO. Let's say that you play 120 hours a month, at "maybe" 25 hands per hour. That's only 3,000 hands; which is nothing when it comes to the EV of playing a high variance game like poker.

That calculator also has a 1 million hand sampler that looks at downswings. My results showed that 70% of my downswings will last 5,000 hands or more!

Poker is a sick game... Welcome to the jungle.

PS My longest downswing lasted 3 months. It was basically breaking even but it still sucked.

Thanks alot for the feed back, really interested in hearing the experience more veteran players have had with plo live game variance.

Just talked to a guy who's lost 17 straight sessions at 25/50. It could be worse :)

I went through 8 weeks of a ridiculous stretch at 2/5 plo (and moved down to 1/3 after 4 weeks) in vegas last summer where I was getting felted repeatedly by novices/spewbots. I took a week off, ran my variance, and saw that it was basically the equivalent to two bad days online :)

That said, two issues can be trickier to manage an extended DS live. Continuing to game select well, and not getting swayed by blatant hit n runners.

If you haven't already, I'd recommend checking out Jared Tendler's 'Mental Game of Poker'

Factors that determine variance:
1) your skill edge (are you a man among boys? if so, you'll have few downswings and rarely lose more than a few sessions consecutively
2) the more aggressive games are, the greater variance you'll have. check out bttech and isil play 500/1k cap HU some time if you want evidence of this.
3) the more passive a game is, the lesser variance you'll experience

Well so far 9 months breaking even unable to make a profit - This month ive managed to loose 19 days in a row not winning 1 day, having a downswing which seams like witchcraft in an already horrible year. I just keep getting middle set against top set ( happened 10 times in last 3 days ), continually loosing all in preflop AAxx hands, unlucky coolers and horrible bad beats when im ahead - the only way i win a hand is if everybody folds before showdown.

The game is seriously very soft 80% of the players are not good players or average at best but i just cant show a winning hand. Variance in life PLO seams huge but can it be so huge?

Its rather demoralizing.

I`m not a live player, but after playing for two years have for the first time experienced true PLO variance. And yes, the numbers are hard to accept, even impossible to comprehend until you experience it yourself.

What I have noticed though is that the downswing did affect my game a lot because of confidence issues lurking underneath that I haven`t noticed in the beginning. Only looking back and being completely honest and rational did I see the mistakes and started correcting them.

So yes, the swings are huge, but working smarter on your game can reduce them. Tell us more about the games you play in and the approach you take. How many seats, average preflop stats of the table, your style of play? Have you read that old book from Slotboom on shortstacking in full ring games? He makes a rational point because in very soft full ring PLO there are only a few edges that make sense pushing because reduced fold equity only bloats variance with giving little in return.

Well the game is 9 handed 5-10 or 5-5 with a small min buyin 500 or 250 respectively.

Since January my stats would be -8.629€ in the 5-10 winning in 18 sessions out of 60 sessions. And +11.266,00€ for the 5-5 game winning 35 sessions out of 72 sessions for a total of 566 played hours.

The players are basically the same in both the 5-10 and the 5-5; but you do get a few more hit and runners who will nit and try to double up hit and run in the 5-5, so i would say the 5-10 is a better game by far.

Its an extremely passive game were most players would have a 1-4% 3 bet range and 90% of times only 3 bet AAxx hands unless on tilt. Most of the players hardly ever raising at all preflop and just limping to see the flop. Most of the players are of very low quality except for a few foreigners mainly.

I basically buyin for 500 and play pretty tight aggressive and will try to 3 bet most suited high AKQ10 type hands as well as a few suited rundowns. I read Slot's book a long time ago maybe i should reread it, however youre right in pointing out that you dont really have much fold equity when pushing preflop or heavily 3 betting even if its a quality AAxx hand as they will call generally and youll be commited if youre all in or have less than 1 pot size bet on the flop which i suppose raises the variance even more.

Overall ive run bad for the entire year being in bad situations most of the time and loosing most of the big pots - but Im honestly amazed at loosing 19 sessions in a row in such a game and it makes me wonder just how big and long can a downswing be in live PLO.

It could last up to a few years if you only play a 1000 hours per year and your winrate isnt huge. I would like to tell you a comforting lie, but that is the truth. If you are set in PLO and wish to continue, you can only work on improving your strategy and that will both lower the variance and improve your EV line. How big of a winner were you online and what games did you play? What is your reasoning for 3betting preflop? Is it a problem to get your money in postflop when you have a better draw than they do? If it isnt, why bloat the pot preflop?

Online i played for 4 years on pokerstars and bossmedia mainly playing 1-2 and 2-4 both high low plo and plo winning solidly 8-10bb/100 with some stabs at 3-6 games.

Online the level was alot higher overall player quality wise for sure, that with the regulation of online poker in my country are what led me to live casino games.

My reason for preflop 3 betting and raising is that generally speaking my hand selection is alot better than the hands most of the live players are playing - and plo thats something that punishes you greatly unless you hit like a maniac. Perhaps being less aggresive preflop you could reduce the variance, but still youd be missing opportunities - surely its better to go all in with an AAxx hand heads up or vs 2 players than waiting for the flop vs 5 players.

Like you say though i really need to think of strategies to lower the variance and improve the ev line.......

Perhaps adopting a pre flop strategy that contains a lot of limping and calling in order to see flops cheaply with a wider range of hands (including your premiums). This would allow you to pot control, draw to more hands for less of your stack and decide when to bloat the pot when you have very strong made hands or draws. Nothing much you can do about set over set scenarios. Welcome to PLO. However, when I used to play full ring 100/300 PLO live I too realized nobody was 3 betting and so I tried to "exploit" that by being aggressive pre flop with strong holdings. It would backfire as well. I just wasn't pushing enough equity pre flop for this to be profitable (although I didn't realize at that time)because as we know equities run much closer in PLO pre. So to counter this I started limping (like everybody else was) with a ton of hands and peeling as often as possible. This allowed me to reduce my variance significantly. It was just a matter of accepting the type of game/players I was in and adapting to it. Instead of trying to be a 3 bet crusader. It's like that old saying if it can't beat them join them. Only in this case you are joining them so you can exploit them.

When a long down swing happens, this is the time to constantly review hands. But most importantly is to keep enjoying your life. Poker is poker, it's a high variance game in any format compared to many other professions.

The only thing you can do is work on your game, find people, programs, resources to improve, just anything and everything. Keep your mind healthy and feed it so it works 110% consistently.

But I think the best thing is to take a break, do something else for awhile and enjoy life. When you feel refreshed try again slowly. Slowly play a few hands here and there until you feel you're in complete control over your emotions. Then slowly play more volume each day.

On my biggest losing days, I've gone out and helped the homeless or bought meals or paid a few people's train tickets, just small things. This is not for bragging purposes. But this helps me appreciate what I have and to thank God everyday that I'm breathing and healthy.

Sorry for hijacking the thread, but I would like to ask a somewhat relevant question: what do you guys think is an attainable winrate at live PLO games? I am thinking 25-30bb/100 for all the way up to 5/10 PLO, but that might be just me being delusional.