I want to believe I'm a winning player, i REALLY do

[teddyFBI]

After running extraordinarily bad over the past 25,000 hands at the Party 15/30 (-0.2BB/100 ...OK not catastrophic, but a real lesson in humility), I've begun to slip into that dreaded mindset of wondering whether I'm a winning player at all at those stakes (my first 45,000 hands were at a +2.5BB/100, and i had been beating the 2/4 and 3/6 for around 2.5 to 3.5 BB/100).

My question is about confidence intervals and/or standard deviations...perhaps I'm framing this poorly, but I just want to know how long a BAD stretch is "normal", and at what point I should start really taking these mediocre results to heart...i think i remember there being some spreadsheet floating around that discussed how prolonged a drought an exemplary +1.5BB/100 should expect, etc. etc. i.e. what kind of a downswing (and for how long) a 1.5BB/100 player should accept as well within the "normal" range...?

[diebitter]

IF you got pokertracker, why don't you look at your stats etc for the winning period, and compare stats to your losing period.

You can at least spot for consistency, and also spend some time looking for leaks that've developed?

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
IF you got pokertracker, why don't you look at your stats etc for the winning period, and compare stats to your losing period.

You can at least spot for consistency, and also spend some time looking for leaks that've developed?

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks for the suggestion -- i've actually done this already (and spoke at length about it in my blog www.zbasic.com/pokerblog.html (http://www.zbasic.com/pokerblog.html) ) and found that one of the most frustrating thing in the world are that my stats are pretty much IDENTICAL between big winning vs. big losing sessions (in fact, i posted my stats in my blog just the other day if you want to have a look)...so I guess it's good that I'm consistent, just maddening that results vary so widely despite the same play.

[diebitter]

That sucks. I haven't been playing that long, and find it unbelievable a bad run can last 25K hands, but there are posts that suggest this is indeed possible and nmaybe even inevitable for any logn term player.

Personally, I think a bad run over 300 hands is a downer!

If things were going this bad for me - and I speak from profound ignorance of playing at the levels you're at - I'd be thinking about changing sites, taking a lot more time over game selection before getting into a game, or dropping a level.

That's my two cents, but it's probly not even worth that.

[LetYouDown]

The problem is you have a BLOG. This results in negative karma. There have been studies.

[liquidboss]

After a nice long downswing following months of profit I have found myself wondering the same thing. Stats look good, play looks good, but I'm slowing losing. Frustrating to say the least...

[gaming_mouse]

If you are a 1BB/100 with a 15BB/100 SD, you standard error for 25K hands is:

15/sqrt(250) = .95

Using a normal calculator, the chance that you are -.2BB or worse over the next 25K hands is about 10%. So it can happen.

For a 2BB/100 player, this chance drops down to 1%.

However, if you have played 1 million hands, the chances obviously go up that you will have at least one 25K stretch without winning.

Any time I am not winning over 10K hands or more, though, I always re-evaluate my play and look for leaks. Just because you can write it off as a downswing doesn't mean you should.

In your case, you have very strong evidence that you're a winning player. I wouldn't question that fact. But you might want to really scrutinize your play, post more, etc, to see if you can find anything.

HTH,
gm

[AaronBrown]

The pattern looks bad. It's not just the recent set of losses, you were increasing, then your win rate declined, now it turned negative. That could happen by random chance, but if so it's more likely that the good results were lucky than that the bad results are unlucky. So you don't want to go down this road.

You didn't say how you play. Are you playing with the some of the same opponents? They may have figured you out. That's good news, you can change and profit double. That makes your losses productive losses. If you're playing against different people or on-line, perhaps it's the competition that has changed rather than you.

Regardless, my general advice is to over-react rather than under-react to slumps. If it's just random chance, it doesn't hurt to shake up your game once in a while. It keeps you sharper as a player and it's more fun. If it isn't just random chance, the sooner you change, the sooner you'll start winning.

I don't suggest trying to go back to what you were doing when you were winning, that assumes that all the change is due to changes in your play. I suggest figuring out how you are losing, and resolving to at least lose in different ways. That's what keeps your opponents off balance the most. They expect you to enter few pots, but to raise a lot and fold a little once you're in. So maybe loosen up a bit going in, but be willing to fold when you don't improve. While most players suffer from too much calling, looking at your numbers (I admit I'm guessing here) you could maybe stand to call a little more.

At worst, you'll lose money on different hands than before. At best, you'll start winning again.