How do I know if my variance is normal and not bad play?

[steamboatin]

I am in a losing streak at the Brick and Mortar Casino and I am needing a reality check. How do you know if your losing streaks are normal or if you suck? What I absolutley don't want to be is in denial. It is really easy to say, "They got Lucky! They shouldn't have called! etc." But it is also very difficult to step outside your own perspective and look at your play objectively.

I have only been playing a year and I started keeping track on Poker Charts.com. I expected to lose in the beginning because I started out cold, only played poker a couple of times in my life. I built back up to even but now I have headed south again.

Here is my chart:
http://www.967andy.com/images/pokerchart1.jpg

Hopefully it will display properly. I am now down $530 and some cents for my entire poker career at B&M.

I read Dr Al's book many times and am rereading NPA Ed Miller's book. Studied HPFAP, TOP and HEP amoung others.

I think I am a good player for only playing a year but even the biggest fish at the table believes he is a good poker player. Every poker player I have met believes he is damn good.

So the question remains, How do I know if I am experiencing normal variance or have pulled an Incredible MR. Limpet and turned into a fish?

[Blarg]

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How do you know if your losing streaks are normal or if you suck?

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It couldn't be both?

Seriously, losing isn't that good an indication of anything over a short period of time.

It looks like you peaked after about 37 sessions and peaked again after about 42. Not too bad considering you have only a measly 45 sessions in. By the way, that's a pretty tiny amount of sessions. If you were playing five days a week that would be just over two months. Not exactly plenty of time to get definitive proof of anything. I've gotten 75 sessions online in only 3 months. You've got what, 150 hours in? Some poker players get in that much in a month, and online players get many more.

Forgive me for maybe screwing up any terminology I might use from my old days of stock market analysis a very long time ago, but if you look at the trend lines from the valleys you've hit starting about the 23rd session, you'll see your latest downswing has a way to go before it approaches the trending average of your previous losing streaks. This is not a devastating result.

f you draw a line from the valley on the 33rd or so session to the one on the 41st or so, you'll see that your latest downswing violated the trend line sharply, but it only comprises a lousy three sessions. It's inappropriate to worry about what happens over three sessions when you haven't even violated the boundary of the earlier trend line established from the 23rd session. When it gets there, then worry a bit.

The upward swing during your streak from the 33rd session to the 37th was astounding, climbing at better than 75 degrees at some points. You can't expect that kind of a trendline to continue long term. Over time, you will zero in on your natural win rate.

Worry about the long term trends more than the short ones. With so few data points, your short-term trends are too unreliable.

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I think I am a good player for only playing a year

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I have to emphasize again that I wouldn't consider someone who has played for 150 hours or so as someone who has played a year. You shouldn't consider yourself that either. You know what I mean -- you may have spread those hours across an entire year, but it's just not a whole lot of time or experience. Don't compare yourself to other people who have played a year and feel bad, as many will have literally ten times or more played hours in a year than what you're showing. I've been multi-tabling for three months and have more than 718 hours in.

So give yourself proper credit for the limited time you've been playing. You've made a nice comeback in the last 23-ish sessions and are still on an upward trend.

[RydenStoompala]

The pretty chart is interesting but tells you nothing about your play. It's just a time versus money plot. Post some hands in the mid, high limits. After each hand you are in, take notes and review them later. Did you play position? Are you raising more than calling? When you are beaten did you get sucked in by a great hand or draw dead with junk? How do you play big pairs versus drawing hands? What are you doing when you are not in a hand? Do you watch others play so you'll know a little about them on strong hands and bluffs? Get away from the money math and start looking at the plays.

[pzhon]

It is good that you are worried about whether you are a winner or loser. It is good that you recognize that it is tough to judge your own abilities. These mean you now have a math problem, not a problem of psychology.

Estimate your standard deviation per session or per hour. This will depend on the level you play, your playing style, and how loose and aggressive your opponents are. The standard deviation for n sessions should be sqrt(n) times the standard deviation for 1 session. If you are within 1 standard deviation of breaking even (as it appears to me), you have only weak evidence about whether you are a winning or losing player. If you are 2 standard deviations below breaking even, then you have strong evidence that you lose on average, though you may have improved over the year.

I'm not sure, but I believe a reasonable guess for the standard deviation in a B&M ring game is 10 BB/hour, so after 150 hours the standard deviation would be about 120 BB.

[Dan Mezick]

Lou Krieger in his introductory poker book MORE HOLDEM EXCELLENCE shows research evidence that confirms you could play up to 4000 hours perfectly and still have almost no winnings.

Conversely you can play in an absolutely and fundamentally incorrect fashion and still get very misleading random rewards ("winnings") that have absolutely nothing to do with your play and everything to do with poker's incredibly wide variance.

Without this variance, are there any personal psychology issues at all in this game? Probably not.

[steamboatin]

Thank you for your intelligent and very helpful input. I plan to always be a recreational player, I just don't want to be a recreational fish. Poker is fun anytime but it is much more fun when you win!

I will play some more, study some more and keep a close eye on my play. It could be that last bit of running good spoiled me a little.