If you hit a bad run, how much of it is your own fault...

[Karak567]

and how much is just variance?

[dmmikkel]

Do you see why this is a stupid question?

This obviously vary from player to player. Some players can lose 30 buyins and not let it affect their game, some will tilt after losing three in a row.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=singletable&Number=237 2560&fpart=&PHPSESSID=

[Karak567]

I don't think it's a stupid question.

And it varies from player to player... that's why each individual player gives their response. They don't respond as a "whole."

[viennagreen]

all of it

[stanzee]

I don't know if it's your fault or not, but i can tell you what was going through my mind when i went on a downward spiral.

I had a horrible run a few weeks ago where i lost 60 buy-ins in 1 week (funnily enough, the bad run started when i discovered this forum). With the lower variance of SNG's i didnt think it was possible to hit such a bad streak, when i'd been mostly winning before that.

I was asking myself questions in my head like "am i playing too tight early on?", or "am i pushing too much late on?", or "am i not calling enough on later levels?".

After losing about 40 buyins i was still fairly confident in my game, and just put it down bad luck/variance. However, the frustration grew and i still wasnt winning so i did start tilting which probably accounts for losing the next 20 buy ins. I was then asking myself questions like "has the general standard of play improved?" or "is this sh!t rigged to take my entire bankroll now they have me hooked?".

Enough was enough, i was becoming irrational, so i cashed the remainder of my bankroll before i lost it all(which was still 2k) and took a couple of days off. Before that i'd never cashed out before. I've now re-started my account with just $100 and back to playing the $10 games (wanted to go back to basics), and i'm pleased to say i'm crushing the game, so i'll be back to playing the 22's 33's then 55's again very soon.

I don't think it was my fault that i initially hit a bad run, but it was my fault that the bad run extended when i started tilting and chasing losses. Hopefully this experience will help me if i ever hit a bad run again.

[viennagreen]

you WILL hit a bad run again... the only way to avoid it is to not play.

prepare for a bad run--- both financially and emotionally

[Voltron87]

Bad runs are usually from both bad luck and the bad paly which results from them. I've gotten to the point where the beats just bounce off... I know I have a winning Sng player, that's what I do.

[Freudian]

It is my own fault. Withdrawing money puts the curse on me. I should know that by now.

[maddog2030]

Well in the past 22 SNG's, I'm down 20 buyins. I got 1 2nd along the way and that was it. My bankroll is pretty much decimated (I started playing $10's on a $50 freeroll I got, built it up to over $300, now I'm at $50 again). Needless to say, I'm questioning the hell out of my play. It especially hurts because this is the $10's. How the hell do I lose $300 here? I'm just hoping its the variance...

In conclusion: Variance is a bitch.

[DasLeben]

[ QUOTE ]
Well in the past 22 SNG's, I'm down 20 buyins. I got 1 2nd along the way and that was it. My bankroll is pretty much decimated (I started playing $10's on a $50 freeroll I got, built it up to over $300, now I'm at $50 again). Needless to say, I'm questioning the hell out of my play. It especially hurts because this is the $10's. How the hell do I lose $300 here? I'm just hoping its the variance...

In conclusion: Variance is a bitch.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I'm in the same boat. I'm currently crawling out of a 32 buyin swing. I've come to the conclusion that 1) I started 4-tabling before I was 100% ready to, and 2) I wasn't taking advantage of as many +EV opportunities as I should for fear of busting early.

Now that I've made some adjustments to my play (including going buck nutty on the bubble), I'm showing a nice healthy string of wins, and an ROI headed back in the right direction.

[Mr_J]

Geez. Why the hell are there so many $22ers here now. Now I've got no reason to play them again or play poker during slow hours.

[Degen]

awesome (well not really) but i had a swing that dropped 50-60 recently, and i'd never heard of one the same length.

i know i played fine through it, and fine now and before...but i hadn't heard anybody else cop to losing so many.


Andre

[Big Limpin']

If you have dropped 30, 40, even 60(!) buyins, you are not a winning player. More accurately, you did not play winning poker during that spell. Period. You may be capable of winning, you may be a winner in your "good times", and overall with the good and bad, you may still come out ahead.

But there is absolutely no way you can drop more than 30 buyins and chalk it up to variance. You were "unlucky" AND you played bad.

Sorry to be harsh, but thats how it is.

[ilya]

when it happens to me it's 100% variance. i dunno about you though.

[Degen]

this is absolutely incorrect.

i haven't looked at the exact number of Buy-Ins because it was spread accross levels but i dropped a total of 1.9k playing 33's and 55's last week, and i reviewed my HH's and i played fine.

variance is a dirty mother sometimes.


Andre

[viennagreen]

if you haven't dropped 30 buy-ins, you haven't played for long enough... it'll happen to you eventually--- it's a certainty.

show us the math behind the "absolutely no way you can drop more than 30 buyins and chalk it up to variance".

there no doubt in my mind that a person will play differently on a bad streak--- but a winning player doesn't HAVE to play differently to drop 30 buy-ins or more.

[Mr_J]

"If you have dropped 30, 40, even 60(!) buyins, you are not a winning player. More accurately, you did not play winning poker during that spell."

True. I know this isn't what you mean, but it is quite possible to be a losing player but still be a +EV player. Winning or losing just refers to whether you profit or not. +/- ev refers to skill.

"But there is absolutely no way you can drop more than 30 buyins and chalk it up to variance."

That's a bit silly to say, and is completely ignoring probability. The more you play, the more likely you will encounter wild swings. I doubt there are many here who have played 2k sngs and have NOT dropped at least 30 buyins at some point.

Several of the higher buyin regulars (109+) have posted swings of 40+ buyins. I highly doubt they were -EV players during that time, and it can just be chalked up to the variance that comes from playing thousands of sngs.

[ilya]

[ QUOTE ]
if you haven't dropped 30 buy-ins, you haven't played for long enough... it'll happen to you eventually--- it's a certainty.

show us the math behind the "absolutely no way you can drop more than 30 buyins and chalk it up to variance".

there no doubt in my mind that a person will play differently on a bad streak--- but a winning player doesn't HAVE to play differently to drop 30 buy-ins or more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Are you very sure that this is true at the lower buy-ins? I've played about 3000 $10s-$33s and I've never dropped more than about 20 over any given 100.

[Degen]

J either you contradicted yourself there, or you are thinking on a whole other level I cannot comprehend.


[ QUOTE ]
it is quite possible to be a losing player but still be a +EV player

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't understand this at all. Isn't your 'winning' or 'losing' player status the same thing as your +/- EV status?

+/- EV are relative to the game you are in and the players you are up against...please explain this a little more because i don't get what you mean at all.



And how can you agree with

[ QUOTE ]
If you have dropped 30, 40, even 60(!) buyins, you are not a winning player

[/ QUOTE ]

but not with...

[ QUOTE ]
"But there is absolutely no way you can drop more than 30 buyins and chalk it up to variance."

[/ QUOTE ]

He reiterated himself and you agreed with the first part but disagreed with the second...unless i am missing something...

Not trying to nit-pick but i just went through the afformentioned swing and would like to get some peoples opinions on what he said.




Andre

[Big Limpin']

Hmmmm. Perhaps i was out of line. I just ran an excel RAND() simlulation for a 11%/11%/11% player (break-even guy), and that poor bastard DID have some horrendous runs. He had some >100 BI drops, although this was over the course of 32,000 games, and the drops themselves were not as sudden as we talk about here ("i dropped 30 BI in 50 games")

So, i will take back what i said, although just for modification.

Perhaps this is more fitting:

"When you drop 30+ buyins over the course of less than 100 games (which is more pertinent to the streaks we read about), it is VERY LIKELY that you played poorly during this span"

I can say personally that i have never had a 30 buyin drop, although several in the high 20s. And this is over 3 years of >10k t/yr. But, i play at a rather low level, where my roi is quite large. It is this that makes all the difference. I certainly agree that a winning high-level player, with a 5-15% roi has an exponentially greater likelyhood of having bigtime drops than your humble narrator. I suppose any of my multitude of "doldrum weeks", where i break even over several hundred games would be equivalent to much greater losses for the high buy-in/low ROI player.

Hope this clears up my first post. I dont like admitting i'm wrong, but in this case, i was. /images/graemlins/blush.gif

[viennagreen]

for any sustainable ROI's for any level, it is an absolute certainty.

the frequency is less as your ROI (say, a 95% confidence of your ROI range) increases.

one expects higher ROIs at lower buy-ins, so a 30-buy-in drop (or greater) at those levels will be less frequent than at the higher buy-ins, BUT--- it is still a statistical certainty given enough play.

[dmmikkel]

Poker is math and probabilities wether you like it or not. If you threw a dice 100 times, how could you tell it wouldn't hit six every time? Drops like these are rare, but WILL happen. Bigger drops will happen to, and have happended.

Its also possible for a +ev player to lose his entire life. You can't control cards =)

[Mr_J]

"I don't understand this at all. Isn't your 'winning' or 'losing' player status the same thing as your +/- EV status?"

Prett much. When we talk about "winning" player we usually mean +EV player, since by "winning" player we mean longterm winner. However, when you are losing, you are technically a losing player (but not necessarily -EV).

I just argued he is right technically (that while we are losing, we are losing and therefore losing players), but incorrect by the way he meant it (he meant "losing player" as -EV).

"Not trying to nit-pick"

That's fine, that's actually what I was doing to BigLimpin' /images/graemlins/smirk.gif

[raptor517]

@$^#$^# all of it is just variance. none of it results from inferior play on the part of me. people make too many godamn mistakes, and love to suckout. that means there is a lot of freakin variance. yea, im gettin killed so far today. im on a laptop at donbutton's crib 6 tabling for 338750328953895 hours striaght. holla

[Tilt]

[ QUOTE ]
"When you drop 30+ buyins over the course of less than 100 games (which is more pertinent to the streaks we read about), it is VERY LIKELY that you played poorly during this span"

[/ QUOTE ]

I would add..."You should take a reak, go back and evaluate your tourney histories at that point, and analyze your play for your mistakes. Look for reasons why it is NOT due to variance."

[dfscott]

Anyone wondering about variance should download AM's variance demo spreadsheet (http://www.aleomagus.freeservers.com/Spreadsheet/) and play with it.

I think most people will be shocked at the amount of variance that is possible (and probable).

[Degen]

great post

just out of curiosity, was your style over those 30k+ tourneys one that is more conservative and geared toward the money or one that is maniacal on the blinds and geared toward winning?

and if you don't mind...at what level?


my style, as you can probably deduce from my question, is crazy on the bubble and late tourney...and so it has a greater ROI but also greater variance (according to the blind stealing theorum that is...).


Andre

[VoraciousReader]

[ QUOTE ]
Look for reasons why it is NOT due to variance."

[/ QUOTE ]

This is, imo, the gem of this thread. I've been blessed thus far in my (short!) poker career to not have any extended losing streaks. But when I have had a bad run, I'd MUCH prefer that it be due to bad play than bad luck. Why? Because I have control over how I play. The laws of probability...on the other hand...

Which is not to say there isn't bad luck. But that sort of thing I can't control. So the first thing I want to look at is me and my play. It can ALWAYS be improved, whether my current losses were due to poor play or variance.

[Big Limpin']

[ QUOTE ]
was your style over those 30k+ tourneys one that is more conservative and geared toward the money or one that is maniacal on the blinds and geared toward winning?

[/ QUOTE ]

I'd like to say im *always* trying to get 1st, but i think ultimately my style would tend more to the latter. That is, when im not having a buttload of chips come the bubble, im always looking at the other shorties..."is he gonna bust?"..."can i just chill"...etcetera
My finish dist'n is almost perfectly flat, but i think on average i am below avg stack when ITM, but am able to make up the difference somewhat, casue i play with the fishies

[ QUOTE ]
and if you don't mind...at what level?

[/ QUOTE ]

These days, i play mostly $33s, some $22s. But thats since i found 2+2 about a year ago. Prior to that, i was exclusively $11s


I think ultimately the biggest reasons why i havent had the horrendous runs is that:
#1 - I play below my level. Yes, a 30-35% ROI is sustainable, although relative to #2 below. I have 15 months of Aleo spreadsheet to back this up.
#2 - I play at pokerroom. 1500 checks, and weaker than stars. No matter what ppls say, your results are more consistent when you play more hands in a given tourney.

[Degen]

/images/graemlins/grin.gif

I feel so much better now. You were in no way qualified (sorry if I AM being harsh now) to make the observation/s that you did for the following reasons:

1) You play with nearly double the starting stacks we do (obviously considerably reducing the variance of a good player)

2) You play a style that is tailor-made for low variance, though in the eyes of some, a tad shy of optimal.


Not saying you don't know what you're talking about, I'm sure what you said applies to your situation a great deal...but i sure wish you'd have laid that all out before hand.


Andre

EDIT: I am thinking about moving to PokerRoom, know any good rakeback deals? /images/graemlins/wink.gif

[Big Limpin']

/images/graemlins/blush.gif and since when is full disclosure is a prerequisite here? /images/graemlins/blush.gif /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Edit : Note new "location" below avatar

[KJ o]

Did an Excel quickie. A $11 player with 12%/12%/12% chance of finishing 1,2 and 3 playing 10k tourneys had the worst losing streak in the 50-62 interval. The outliers in about 20 runs was 40 and 68.

Such a player is solidly winning and will always make more than $5K over then 10k tourneys.

What does this say about real life?

1. In real life, yuor play isn't always of the same quality. This would usually imply that for actual players, one should expect longer losing streaks.

2. It's of course perfectly possible to be a far better player than 12%/12%/12%. Change that to 13%/13%/13% and the average size of the most buyins dropped decreases to ~36. The best players are of course even better than that.

Note that increasing ITM from 36 to 39 reduced the size of the worst downswing by almost 40%!