All poker players eventually go through a tough period where they string together many losing sessions or can’t seem to 0️⃣ make the money in a succession of tournaments. Even the best players in the game have had significant downswings in 0️⃣ their careers. One of the questions that the CLC coaches get most is “How do you deal with and recover 0️⃣ from downswings?”. We asked 2 of the most successful MTT players on the planet, CLC’s Chance Kornuth and Alex Foxen 0️⃣ about their personal experiences with downswings. Let’s dive into their responses! Justin Lynch: What Was The Worst Downswing Of Your 0️⃣ Career? Alex Foxen: I’d say the worst downswing of my career probably came in 2024. I definitely overextended a bit 0️⃣ from a bankroll perspective, probably playing overconfident and not critical enough of my own game and that is the perfect 0️⃣ recipe to create a big downswing. I don’t have an exact number but probably a couple million lost in that 0️⃣ one. Chance Kornuth: I have taken the shots and went up to a million and then down toR$100-$200k before I 0️⃣ stayed over a million when games were softer and I thought I should have taken a lot more but now 0️⃣ that I’m a family man, I don’t do that anymore (laughs). Justin Lynch: What is your go to activity to 0️⃣ reset during a downswing? Alex Foxen: Absolutely working out and doing something physical. Getting your mind out of whatever state 0️⃣ it is in. Anything that creates that meditative singular focus that a workout or maybe doing something with your hands 0️⃣ does. Something that can get you out of your head and into your body, that gets you into the present 0️⃣ moment as much as possible. I think physical movement is really really good for that. Chance Kornuth: I like working 0️⃣ out and spending time with my friends and family, watching movies and playing games. Doing anything nonpoker to get 100% 0️⃣ of your focus onto other things. Justin Lynch: How Do You Measure if you’re running bad vs not playing your 0️⃣ best? Alex Foxen: I don’t think that there is a perfect way to measure these two things. That’s why it 0️⃣ is really important to be constantly critical and the best way to avoid a downswing is to always act like 0️⃣ you are in a downswing, always put work into your game, always question everything you do even when it works. 0️⃣ Ask the questions “Could I have made more on that line?”, “Could I have possibly bet bigger here?”, “What if 0️⃣ he had this hand?”, “How would I approach it if the turn was this?”. All these different varying questions to 0️⃣ ask yourself to keep yourself in a state of growth instead of stagnation. For me and I also feel it 0️⃣ is true for most people, downswings always come after a period of stagnation and then the downswing almost always end 0️⃣ after a period of effort into change. I know so many people who decided to work with a mental game 0️⃣ coach or decided to seek coaching for the fundamental side of their poker game or start working with a solver. 0️⃣ So many of these people get instant results and I think there is an energetic aspect of that, putting your 0️⃣ effort into productive things allows you to be at your best in the game and to be more open minded 0️⃣ which leads you with more room for growth. If you just think what you are doing is right and you’re 0️⃣ not questioning it constantly then when something comes across that someone else does or that is an option to do 0️⃣ something it will be harder for you to accept it or consider it as an option for you just because 0️⃣ of the nature of it and the state that your brain is in at the time. Chance Kornuth: I think 0️⃣ that’s actually something that people mess up as far as running bad vs not playing your best. Focusing on the 0️⃣ things that you can control as opposed to things you can’t is imperative Justin Lynch: During a downswing do you 0️⃣ put in more study vs more volume- what’s the mix there? Alex Foxen: For me it’s mostly playing, I am 0️⃣ doing a little bit of both all the time. So I think that studying is valuable, however without regular play 0️⃣ it’s pretty worthless. There is too much to think about in poker, you need some things to be automatic, so 0️⃣ if you just study when you get to play none of those things are going to be automatic, if you 0️⃣ just play you are not as likely to question your decision making and improve on what you are doing and 0️⃣ your process in the game. That side is pretty heavy in favor of playing over study, but you can’t optimize 0️⃣ one without the other. Chance Kornuth: I would say definitely put in a little more study, it is definitely easiest 0️⃣ for us to want to study more when we haven’t been losing, however for me it’s like preparing for a 0️⃣ stop. I study for the WSOP or before I do certain things and if I notice that I was inadequate 0️⃣ on a certain board texture and I didnt know what to do, I tell Foxen,”Let’s go through the spot and 0️⃣ do a webinar on it.” Justin Lynch: What do you consider a downswing at this point in your career? Alex 0️⃣ Foxen: Honestly, I don’t have any kind of metric for it. I don’t think about that in that way at 0️⃣ all. I consider a downswing when I look at how much cash I have and I am surprised with how 0️⃣ low it is. I am not super meticulous with managing my bankroll, I have an idea where it is and 0️⃣ I take risks accordingly but I am not necessarily looking at my results and saying “Oh wow, I am on 0️⃣ a 23 buyin downswing”. The moral of what I am saying is downswings are only in your head, they are 0️⃣ a construct they don’t exist. Yeah we go up and down in the chart but if you zoom out no 0️⃣ downswing is actually real on a players graph, they just go up and down. There is only the present moment, 0️⃣ that is the only thing that exists in whatever kind of esoteric principle. If the present moment only exists there 0️⃣ is no such thing as a downswing and there is no such thing as feeling bad about it. So if 0️⃣ you stay in this present focused ideology of constant improvement and constant growth, then yeah downswings will happen but then 0️⃣ you wont notice them because all you are doing is trying to improve your current self and trying to improve 0️⃣ your current bankroll not worrying about what it was yesterday. Chance Kornuth: I consider a downswing more of a monetary 0️⃣ percentage. For example If I lost 60k today that’s more how I measure it. I never really thought about it 0️⃣ in terms of not cashing X amount of tournaments or losing X amount of buy-ins.
