Variance is an unavoidable part of poker. Every player runs bad at some point, and in formats like PLO (Pot Limit Omaha), one of my personal favourites, the swings can be extreme. The players who survive downswings aren't necessarily the most skilled. They're the ones who manage the mental and emotional pressure that variance creates.
Here are the four strategies that have worked for me.
- Manage Your Emotions
- Surround Yourself with the Right People
- Live a Balanced Life
- Be Ambitious, Constantly Improve
1. Manage Your Emotions
Emotional control is the single most important skill for surviving a downswing. It determines whether a bad run stays manageable or spirals into tilt and poor decision-making.
I think that women are naturally more emotional than men, which makes this area both more challenging and more worth investing in. It wasn't easy for me at first — I had to put in real, sustained work to get it right. What made the biggest difference was focusing on lifestyle habits away from the table. Yoga, specifically, gave me a much stronger foundation of emotional balance. When I take care of my mental state off the felt, I show up at the table with clarity and control.
Poker Is a Mental Game After All, Not a Physical One
Poker is a mental game, not a physical one. The best poker players of all time stay logical and calm under pressure, not because of natural temperament, but because they've trained themselves to. Once you build that emotional control, you can compete on a level playing field with anyone at the table. Today, I don't feel prone to tilting even during tough downswings. That's not luck. It's the result of deliberate work, and it's one of the best investments I've made in my career.
2. Surround Yourself with the Right People
Your environment has a direct impact on how you handle variance. Players who are surrounded by others who manage downswings professionally find it significantly easier to do the same themselves.
Being an 888 ambassador has been a genuine advantage for me here. I'm constantly around high-level players who push me to raise my standards. But you don't need ambassador status to build that environment. Study groups, coaching relationships, and even quality poker content serve the same purpose – they give you perspective and a productive frame of reference when your own thinking is distorted by a bad run.
Going at poker alone makes it much harder to stay grounded when results turn against you. I've taken private coaching myself, and I recommend it. Even watching poker videos and discussing hands with others keeps you connected to the game in a way that counters the isolation a downswing can create.
3. Live a Balanced Life
Life away from the tables directly affects how well you cope at them. Poker places sustained mental demands on a player, and those demands require recovery, just like physical training does.
We are humans, not machines. The three habits I consider non-negotiable for maintaining that balance:
- Eating a balanced diet
- Exercising regularly
- Making deliberate time for activities that have nothing to do with poker
That third point matters more than most players realise. If poker is the only thing in your life and it's going badly, then your entire life feels like it's going badly. That's one of the most dangerous mental states to play from. Before major tournaments, I'll deliberately step away with a walk, a meal out, something that resets my focus entirely. I arrive at the table refreshed rather than already depleted.
4. Be Ambitious, Constantly Improve
Continuous improvement is one of the most effective defences against the psychological weight of a downswing. When you are actively studying and working toward concrete goals, a bad run of results feels like noise in a longer process.
If you're not investing in your game, the opposite is true. Every downswing reinforces doubt. Without a sense of progress, it becomes very easy to question whether poker is worth continuing at all.
I recommend setting process-based goals alongside results-based ones: a volume target, a concept you're actively studying, a leak you're working to fix. When results are bad, those goals give you something real to measure progress against. The downswing will end. The improvement you make during it stays with you permanently.
Key Takeaways: Dealing With Running Bad in Poker
- Poker variance is unavoidable. Managing your response to it is the skill that matters most during a downswing.
- Emotional control is trainable. Lifestyle habits away from the table, like exercise, diet, recovery, directly affect your mental state at it.
- Environment shapes resilience. Surrounding yourself with players and content that model professional behaviour makes downswings easier to absorb.
- A life outside poker acts as a buffer. When poker is your only focus and it's going badly, everything feels like it's going badly.
- Process-based goals provide stability when results don't. Improvement compounds independently of short-term variance.
- Poker is a mental game. The player with the strongest mental game holds a real, consistent edge over those who don't.
