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

[teddyFBI]

Forgive the X-post, but it wasn't getting much play in the probability forum:

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...?

[Mempho]

If I had to guess, this is probably indicative of something else wrong with your game. I'd be curious to see what the statmasters had to say on this. I can just offer you this from personal experience. After beating live play middle limits for about a bet and a half per hour for about 2 years (including 5 months as a pure professional), I was unable to beat the middle limits online. This is not to say that I was losing, rather, I was playing live and online at the same time and using the same game to beat both games (except I was not beating the online version for any amount of money that could be considered "worth my time.")

The reason for this was that I had not adjusted to the changes in the game.

As a second story, consider that the same live game that I'd beaten consistently over the two year span started beating me. I was playing 10/20, 20/40, and experienced a $6,000 downswing in these games. Granted, my luck was bad. In fact, it was very bad. The amount of this downswing, however, gave me reason to pause. Only then did I realize how much the game had changed in front of my eyes without me even realizing it. I had failed to adapt to my live game. In my game specifically, I had been used to loose-passive play. Television, however, had produced a lot of LAG play and I had failed to adapt at all.

I'm not saying that this is your problem, but I would be concerned about this and think through your strategies because, more than likely, either your game has changed or the game has changed.

[BarronVangorToth]

Sounds like you're sweating your losses, so why not drop back to limits you know you can best to get your confidence (and your bankroll) replenished?

Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com (http://www.BarronVangorToth.com)

[pokerjo22]

Its pretty difficult to be playing the exact same game after 25k of break even poker that you were playing after 45k of winning poker.

I'd lay money that you're probably better than a -0.2 BB/100 player, but probably worse than a +2.5 BB/100 player.

Hope that helps /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
Its pretty difficult to be playing the exact same game after 25k of break even poker that you were playing after 45k of winning poker.

I'd lay money that you're probably better than a -0.2 BB/100 player, but probably worse than a +2.5 BB/100 player.

Hope that helps /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[/ QUOTE ]

Thanks much for the input so far guys -- still hoping someone with a real stats hard-on will be able to give some more specific quantitative intervals that might speak to what kind of downswings should still be considered well within the NORMAL range.

[pokerjo22]

It would help if you'd provide your standard deviation/100.

[teddyFBI]

[ QUOTE ]
It would help if you'd provide your standard deviation/100.

[/ QUOTE ]

Will do -- is that something I can find in my PT DB?
for whatever it's worth, i posted my basic VPIP/PFR/etc stats in a blog post about a week ago www.zbasic.com/pokerblog.html (http://www.zbasic.com/pokerblog.html)

[pokerjo22]

Yeah, go to the session tab, and there's a more detail button. Its at the bottom of there. I'm at work though so this is from memory.

[AviD]

I'm running worse than you over my last 25K hands and in fact probably worse over my last 40-50K hands.

How long is a "normal" bad stretch? Damned if I know, I figured I've had an asston of normal bad stretches and a few abnormal ones, with my current one being by far the worst.

I've come to only one conclusion and that is that poker sucks! /images/graemlins/grin.gif

Seriously, hang in there, if you are a winning player it will even out on the + side. Based on your post its difficult to determine if you are as 45K hands at any +BB/100 IMO is moot, as is 25K hands at any -BB/100.

When you reach the 100K mark look at ALL your results and overall BB/100 and that may give you an indication of where you stand. Re-assess after 200K hands and see where you stand. Over time, you'll see which side of the line you are on.

As far as the Party 15/30, in my experience it can be a rough game with mega high variance and really test your patience (well at least mine)...far above any other limit I've played (which is really just up to 20/40 live and 15/30 online). Could just be an indication of better players, and you certainly cannot expect to beat the 15/30 for the same BB/100 as 2/4, again IMHO.

[bernie]

Too much relying on stats and results.

Don't you know how to tell if you're playing well by the hands you play and your reasoning behind the plays? Don't you review after each session? How about after you just played a hand, you don't instantly replay it in your mind if it's an iffy situation?

I think many people should throw out their PTs for awhile and concentrate more on how to analyze their own game without relying on stats. Someone could have the exact same stats as you and they could mean completely different things.

You should ignore your mediocre results and study your game regardless. Even if you were killing the game.

There's a thread somewhere about longest breakeven streaks. Mine was 21k hands.

b

[Senor Choppy]

Post a screenshot of the general tab in Poker Tracker and I bet the consensus here as to whether or not you're a winning player would be pretty accurate.

[MaxPower]

There are some formulas you can use, but I'm too lazy to help you with that. Maybe this will help.

I fed all of my 15/30 sessions for the year into StatKing. I have a very nice win rate since January. StatKing says that I can break even for 682 hours. It also says that there is a 99.87% chance that I am a winning player.

So, yes a winning player can run bad for 25K hands. I can break even for 682 hours which will be about 48K hands.

Your results may vary.

[dogmeat]

Natethegreat was interested in the exact thing you mention - a long mediocre streak (or a long losing streak). If you have a total of 70,000 hands at $15/$30, and now find yourself at 1.53BB/100 (or $46 per 100), this may very well be a strong indication that you are evening out towards what you can honestly expect to win in the game.

A standard deviation of 16bb/100 is often mentioned here, mine happens to be 21 (but I play a large dollar range of games from limit and NL), and at 21bb/100 you can easily see yourself either + or - $630 every 100 hands. If you are playing a single table, that is about $400 per hour, either way.

If you are going to plot your bell curve with your current stats, then your mean is 1.53bb, your value x is -.02, and your sigma is (?whatever you have, but lets use 16).

z=x-mu/sigma or z value is equal to -.2 - 1.53/16 which equals: z=.11 or from the area under a normal curve, you should experience this only 6.2% of the time.

Since the chance of this happening is only 6.2%, and it represents 36% of your total hands, I make the assumption that you should not expect to make even 1.5bb/100 - If it happens for 1000K it is an abberation, but for 25K, it is very significant (unless you already had at least 250,000 hands in your database).

Keep playing, and see where you end up in another 30K hands..........The long run is very long. Sorry.

However, winning 2.5BB/100 for 45,000 has an even smaller chance of happening, so all told, you are probably a decent player with what will average out to somewhere around 1-1.2BB/100 as you approach 100K hands.

If you want to be more precise and do a frequency distribution from your grouped data, take your stats on poker tracker from every 5K hands and you can look at your range and mean deviation. You can get your own standard deviation this way, get a new mean, and recalculate to see how "rare" your current numbers are.

Dogmeat /images/graemlins/spade.gif

[magithighs]

I'm with Bernie on this one.

I had a 10k breakeven roller coaster -- running at 4BB/100, then -2BB/100 and then 0BB/100. It was ugly on the downswing. So many premium hands going down in flames.

I did what bernie suggested. Actually used pokertracker to review my hands from each position. What I found was extremely interesting. My loses were not from my premium hands getting busted. They were from grinding hands where I made some basic mistakes. Pushing too hard, when I knew I was beat, and giving up when I could have won the pot with some more aggression. Optimistically, I figured I should have been a 2BB/100 winner over the 10k hands, had I played every hand correctly. Well, that just isn't right. But, had I played halfway better, I would have been a 1BB/100 winner -- that's something I could have done.

Went back at it, making the minor tweaks and I was back in the saddle at my normal win rate.

Look at your hands and figure out how you should have played. It's amazing what you'll find.

Cheers
Magi

[DcifrThs]

streaks like that happen...look at your game to find some leaks, but i wouldn't worry. it still helps to go over a few sessions hand by hand to make sure you're not tilting. also, if you have a friend to look over a session or 2 that wonthurt, nor will posting questionable hands

-Barron

[Mempho]

Freddy,

If I remember our NL$50 days together on Party (before the TV made it huge), I will recall that you were a strong player. I'm sure from what you state here that the same holds true for limit. Just make sure that you haven't developed any leaks. You won't recognize me from my ID on here, but we've played many thousands of hands together.

[phish]

[ QUOTE ]
Too much relying on stats and results.

Don't you know how to tell if you're playing well by the hands you play and your reasoning behind the plays? Don't you review after each session? How about after you just played a hand, you don't instantly replay it in your mind if it's an iffy situation?

I think many people should throw out their PTs for awhile and concentrate more on how to analyze their own game without relying on stats. Someone could have the exact same stats as you and they could mean completely different things.

You should ignore your mediocre results and study your game regardless. Even if you were killing the game.

There's a thread somewhere about longest breakeven streaks. Mine was 21k hands.

b

[/ QUOTE ]

Best advice i've heard yet. Seems there's way too much focus here on PT stats, almost to the exclusion of playing strategy. I use PT too, but I hardly pay attention to the stats. I use it to keep track of how i'm doing overall and to replay key hands (rather than have to read thru them).