I have gone / am going through a bit of a a torrid time at the moment. Everything seems to be going against me. Let me just give you some background:

I started at FR 25nl with absolutely no concept of bankroll management or poker in general really. I put $20 (not even a full buy in) and had a winrate of 7.55PTBB/100 over 23k hands, making $850 and learnt many things along the way. I then moved up to $50nl FR with a win rate of 5.88PTBB/100 winning $1400 over 24k hands. I then moved on to $100nl FR and had a winrate of 8.36PTBB/100 over 13k hands winning $2200. By now I had won about $5k including bonuses. As you can imagine I was pretty happy and thought I was a solid winning poker player and although I was up about $400 on poker EV I though I had made $5k more by skill than luck. I thought I had a sound understanding of the game at micro and small stakes and was quite content to grind it out at 100NL making $50/hour as I was doing with maybe a view to moving up to 200NL when I had a sizeable bankroll.

However from thereon in it all started going wrong. I had had minor downswings of maybe 3 BIs before but out of nowhere I lost 6BIs at 100NL in 1500. I switched to 6-max, something I saw as necessary to continue to maximize profit since there were many more games available. I then lost a further 6BIs at 100NL 6-max. I was down $400 in EV for this period meaning I was level in EV overall. At this point I was in freefall so I decided to stop and pulled all my money out of my poker account.

I didn't play for a couple of months until recently when I deposited $200. I ground that out at 10nl to $500 at a winrate of 8.4PTBB over 17.5k hands. I found making a few $/hour very frustrating and was on the end of some horrific luck, for example I flopped set over set twice and failed to win either: on one the guy hit quads on the river; on the other the cards came runner runner to make a straight so we split the pot. Having reached the magic 20BI I moved up to 25nl 6-max but had another large losing streak, dropping 10BIs in 3.5k hands. At this point I was so frustrated it is untrue. I was running sooooooooooooo bad - poker ev said I was down 6BI for 10nl and 6BI for 25nl. Admittedly I should have dropped back down to 10nl but I couldn't face making $4/hour so I just decided that I would stay at 25nl and if I dropped to my original $200 that I would take that money out and be done with poker completely. Fortunately my luck seems to have turned around and I am at $370 with a $75 bonus which should be cleared with the next 500-750 hands.

Forgive the long winded post but I just needed to explain what's happened. Basically I have just doubted my poker skills massively. I don't understand how I could be such a good winning player in my first 60k hands but then have such a terrible downswing and then suck at 25nl where the players play way too loose! I had planned on making money from poker over the summer as I am a student and £20/hr at 100nl is much better than any £6/hr summer job I can get (I'm English). What I want to know is:

1. Does it sound like I am a good player and should I continue?
2. What is the longest / worst downswing you guys have had?
3. How did you cope with it?
4. Is 6-max more swingy than FR and if so why?

1. Does it sound like I am a good player and should I continue?
2. What is the longest / worst downswing you guys have had?
3. How did you cope with it?
4. Is 6-max more swingy than FR and if so why?

i'll try to answer these as best as i can.

1: your graph shows you as a consistant winning player at those stakes over 50k hands before your downswing. without any more information on the way you play your hands it's impossible to be sure, but a lot of people would ( i think) agree that being a good player in poker is defined as being a winning player. That doesn't mean a winning player over the course of a single session, or a single tournament, or even a week or a month. It means in the long run. It's simply 'can you reasonably expect to win money when you sit down". It has nothing to do with how much you are up or down over the last however long. Judging by your first 50k hands, it looks as though you are a winning player.

2: My biggest downswing was, i believe, -20 buy ins. given, I play at limits way below what my roll can handle, but it certainly was frustrating.

3: I cope with it much the same way you did. I take a break, and then I come back and move down to a lower stake. My goal is typically to make back whatever I've lost at the higher stake before I'm ready to move back up.
to put that in actual dollar terms... I went on a 10 buyin downswing at 2/4nl in febuary. that's $4000 (ish). Once I decided I was sick of getting creamed, i took a week or so off. No poker. no BTP. I just stayed away from it. Then I came back and tried to objectively analyze as many of my big hands as possible - both the winning and losing ones. I tried to be honest with myself about what sort of mistakes I was making. I then dropped down to 1/2, and proceeded to play there until I had made back most of the $4000. After that I just went back up to 2/4.

In other words, take breaks. move down to a limit you know you can beat, and don't worry that you're making less money there. It took me 3 weeks to lose 4k at 2/4, and probably 5 weeks to make it back at 1/2. I can't stress this enough - don't worry about the fact that you're making tiny amounts/hour. I started with a bank roll of $50, and I played penny stakes for 3 months before I even tried 25nl. It was almost a full year before I ever ventured to 100nl, and another 6 months before 1/2, and another 9 months before 2/4. It takes time. You have to be willing to pay your dues at the lower limits to build up your bank roll. Just grind it out, work on your game, and you'll be able to get back to the point where you're making more than $50/hour. But if you get frustrated and move up too quick without putting in the work that you need to, you won't ever get there.

There's tons of good players who weren't ever willing to put in the time at the lower limits and went broke because they moved up too fast. There's only a handful of guys who made that attempt and came through ahead.

As far as your last question about swings, the answer is yes and no. For most players at 6-max, playing more hands means having more opportunities to make mistakes. With the exception of the top tier players at any limit, everyones going to make mistakes, and you're simply going to make more of them when you play more hands.

Hope that long winded response is somewhat useful.