Downswings?

[clavio]

I know poker is a game of variance but I was wondering what type of downswings can be considered normal. I lost about 15 dollars in .05/.02 in the past week.

[Stacks]

If you mean 0.02/0.05 (aka 5nl), then you lost only 3 buyins, and that's uber standard. If you mean 2nl, then that's 7.5 buyins, and still uber standard. It doesn't mean you still can't improve though, and that you should have lost that much.

[Dannyboy6]

Well, depending on how you're playing and what bankroll management you use does depend on the kind of swings you have.

Also what games you're playing can vary the swings quite a lot too.

For me, starting out with playing 1c/2c on Pokerstars with $50 is enough for me to never go broke with my bankroll management. My swings usually only ever consist of a few dollars because I only ever invest $1.20 on each table, and leave when it goes above $2 when the blinds reach me (or sooner).

Example: I had a pretty bad run the other night with QQ and AA flopping top set on almost both tables simutaniously. I was called basically all-in on both flops with flush draws which both hit. I lost $1.35 and $1.64 respectively. So, around $3 was basically as big of a swing as I can think of with my BR management.

However if you're playing 2c/5c and sit down at the table with the max ($5) and don't leave 'till you feel your session is over, then yeah, $15 isn't much of a swing.

[JKDS]

I know poker is a game of variance but I was wondering what type of downswings can be considered normal. I lost about 15 dollars in .05/.02 in the past week.

how many hands are in a week?

[clavio]

I know poker is a game of variance but I was wondering what type of downswings can be considered normal. I lost about 15 dollars in .05/.02 in the past week.

how many hands are in a week?

A few thousand.

[speedcake]

If you are still playing 25nl and lower and cant show a winrate over many tens of thousands of hands, you should just pretend any "downswing" is happening because you suck and work on fixing your leaks.