What's a bad losing streak?

[bigredlemon]

After string of bad beats on the bubble, that got me thinking: if you're playing tight, you're probably going to be behind when you do hit the bubble. I usually only have 600 to 1000 by the time the blinds hit 100/200. To make it ITM, you usually need to win two hands when you are a large favourite. You'll only survive both about 50% of the time. Add in a few coin flips, and now it's pretty easy to see busting out of 4-5 SNGs in a row with the best hand.

[Xhiggy]

yes, while a lot of the times you are a subpar stack when the blinds hit 50/100, I don't see how you'll be as low as 600 that often. norally it's around 800-950. now you have to pick your spot and go for it.
don't discount the fair number of times you'll be up to 1500 or 2000 when you catch a good hand early on.

I would say the standard bad run in a SNG is around 8 losses in a row. my worst stretch over the past 2 months is 18 losses out of 21 tourneys.

[daboze]

Everyone has had (or will have) a stretch of 8-10 OTM in a row at some point. And over 500 SNGs you will most likely have several of these runs.

[citanul]

I think the discrepancy you're having here is that one of you is thinking about sngs that start with 1000 chips and the other about sngs that start with 800 chips.

Your next piece of advice is invaluable and is not at all appreciated by those who complain about the early tightness of the "beating the 10+1" "guide." On average, in the low limit sngs, you most likely do not lose chips by playing tight. In fact, at the high limit sngs, you probably don't lose chips by playing tight on average. You double sometimes, you triple sometimes, and these more than take care of the bunches of times you lose 100-200 chips by folding a lot.

citanul