My March results and thoughts on hit-and-run

[FishyWhale]

Two weeks ago I posted about maybe going pro and got a lot of responses, so I thought I´d let you know

1) my March results: slightly over 2100 for roughly 20 hours played per week, mostly 10-20 (10-20 hold´em: 1.753 bb/h over 46h55, 10-20 stud: 1.673 bb/h over 46h), but I surely wasted a couple hundred due to dumbass play, but I´m working on that.

2) I know that hit-and-run doesn´t make sense because it´s all one long game. But when I think back of my March sessions, it went like this: up 700 in short-handed hold´em (short-handed is great!), then I quit -600; up 250 in stud, I quit -600, up 1000 in 20-40 hold´em (shorthanded), I quit with +350; etc.etc.etc., and even though I realize that I might have wasted more money than necessary due to a possible tendency to play looser when ahead (a leak I have taken care of meanwhile), there is no way these downswings can be attributed to bad play alone, it´s more like natural downswings combined with bad luck.

Nevertheless I didn´t want to experience being up XXX and having to quit with -XXX yet again because I was getting sick and tired of that phenomenon, and when today I was up 600 after an hour of 10-20 stud where I could do no wrong I simply stood up and announced seat open. You know, I don´t plan to become a hit-and-run artist, I just didn´t want to see my winnings evaporate yet again (and 30bb/h is rather evaporateable) so I quit prematurely this one time - and I felt good about it.

Thoughts or Comments?

[astroglide]

i think it's fine if you do it occasionally for an emotional/confidence boost, but if it's any kind of habit your head isn't on straight

[Tyler Durden]

I agree with Astroglide but if you're feeling outmatched and you win a big pot or two in a short period of time, I don't think there's anything wrong with leaving the game at that time.

[brad]

what a lot of these guys who say never leave a game that youre running over dont mention is that

a lot of times

theres one or two chip burners

who tighten up after they burn through their mad money.

so even though the lineup may be the same, its not really the same.

p.s. if youre on a short bankroll, the best thing you can do is leave when youre way ahead, and leave when youve got a mild loss and you feel like youre getting outplayed or even youre just confused.

[Ray Zee]

you got some of it right brad. never leave a game that is still very good for you. nothing has to do with past results.

always leave when getting outplayed.

dont play in stakes that reflect a short bankroll.

[brad]

hey im getting better im up to partially correct /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

but right? in some games you can win all the 'loose' money (remember hes playing 10/20) and then its a lot harder to win more. not always true but something to think about.

[mikelow]

Another advantage of hit-and-run is that it makes you hard to read.

Despite what Mason says, money management isn't silly, it's a necessity. You'll eventually get to the long run. You have to not play too big and not loosen up too much, whether ahead or behind.

You should read Roy Cooke's Cardplayer article on the ups and downs (losing streak of 365 BB) long-term play. Good luck in your poker adventures.

[FishyWhale]

never leave a game that is still very good for you. nothing has to do with past results.

You are - of course - correct. It´s just that I didn´t want to see it all happen *again*, so I quit prematurely this one time, but I´m certainly not going to make it a habit.

[FishyWhale]

in some games you can win all the 'loose' money (remember hes playing 10/20) and then its a lot harder to win more. not always true but something to think about.

An interesting thought indeed. I will watch out for this.

[FishyWhale]

Another advantage of hit-and-run is that it makes you hard to read.

You mean it makes me harder to read because I´m playing fewer hours?

Hmm, yet another interesting thought, but as I said in my post to Ray, I´m not going to make hit-and-run a habit.

(Besides that, how you play also depends on what day you got, so my play changes a little bit everytime I sit down, and it also changes a little bit during the session, and - even more importantly - there is "varying your play".)

[SoBeDude]

I'm glad you mentioned this phenomenon fishy.

I have seen the same thing myself many times on the tables. I find myself up a very big chunk. then procees to bleed it back as my good cards turn second-best, and/or the cards just evaporate and I bleed them in the blinds.

Many times I've said to myself why didn't I get up!??

I look at the players and I see people playing horrible cards. 78o UTG, 72s from the BB WHEN I raise UTG, etc., etc. I say to myself I'm still a top player at this table, so I stay...and bleed.

So what is with this phenomenon? Is it possible this is indicative of some specific leak in our game that we share?

Lets face it, if you're a winning player its not like punching a clock. you don't steadily get your 1.5BBs every hour on the hour. Some hours you win, others you lose. but it averages out to some respectable value.

but what if you're way ahead of your expected win for an entire evening after just one hour? who is to say that you're going to continue to win?

In my live 10-20 I went up $1100 in about 2 hours. then stopped winning hands. I finally got up 7 hours later with 34 bucks of winnings in my hand.

I know the mantra too, about it all being one long game. And there are times I've scrapped my way back to a profit after a very heavy loss early on.

I do think though there may be some merit to getting up if you're ahead. maybe not. maybe this is one of those situations where subjective observation leads to an incorrect conclusion.

I do know I seem to win more when I get up...

-Scott

[Ulysses]

Two big donators at the table. A few other weak players as well. Cards are also running pretty good for me. I loosen up a bit appropriately, adding some small suited connectors late, weak suited Kings on the button, etc. I'm fresh and on my game. If I don't get the flop I want, I am able to dump second-best hands very quickly. I take down big pots with lots of money put in by the donators and the other weak players. I also manage to make some big hands when I go against the stronger players. All of this combines into a huge win in a couple of hours.

Now, after buying in a couple of times, the two big fish are finally completely busted and go home. The other weak players still have plenty of money, and the replacements don't seem too tough. I'm not getting great cards, but I'm still outplaying the field and making some more money.

Now, I'm a little tired, but how can I leave this game? I just missed a few super-draws in a row, and my big pairs just got cracked a couple of times on the river in monster pots. I definitely had the best of it when most of the money went in. I'm still way up, but I've burned off a little bit of my winnings. One of the strongest and most aggressive players I know just sat down, but that's OK. I'll be able to protect my hands better now. Don't know the other new guy, who happens to also be really good. Things are still OK. Except I've missed the fact that even the weaker players have tightened up their standards now. And most of the weak stuff I'm still limping in with is punished by an LP raise. And I'm a little more tired than I realize. And I'm taking my hands a little too far and overplaying some of them. I'm still 3-betting with TP/TK except that now the flop checkraise that earlier in the evening meant a middle pair/draw that I could punish is now usually two pair. And the next thing I know, I'm barely up.

That's how it happens for me. It used to be a big problem for me, but it's pretty rare for me now. However, it just happened a few days ago, so I still have some work to do.

I think one underrated factor is the "rhythm" of the game. Even when a good player is replaced by a worse one at the table, I find the game at first (counterintuitively) actually becomes a little harder for me to win at, simply because the rhythm or tempo of the action is now changed - and the cues I've been using to drive my actions now often mean something completely different. When I'm fresh, I pick up on and adapt to these changes very quickly. After a few hours of playing, though, it definitely takes me a lot longer to realize things have changed and adapt appropriately.

[SoBeDude]

Hi Ulysses,

Thanks for responding.

I'm not sure what you described is what is happening to me, but I'm going to try and watch more closely and see if there is some of what you say in my "problem".

I have a little pet theory that is probably all wrong, but fun to think about:

We all concede that there are swings in our bankrolls and winnings. There have been some recent posts about players having a bad run in the range of 300 BBs. And Mason (I think) says its possible to have a 1000 hour losing streak without playing badly.

So this means there are other times in our "life-long" poker game where the swings are on the upside - where we win more than our share.

Why then, isn't it possible to have these same ebb-and-flow swings in one session!??

We've all had nights where we were either up early and gave it all back and more, or losing big early only to recover and post a win.

It seems that if one session is a micrososm of our greater lifelong poker game, then can't it exhibit similar patterns?

And can't we possibly detect these patterns and use them to adjust our actions?

Just my thoughts

-Scott

[Ulysses]

Why then, isn't it possible to have these same ebb-and-flow swings in one session!??

It seems that if one session is a micrososm of our greater lifelong poker game, then can't it exhibit similar patterns?

A session of any significant length will definitely exhibit those patterns of swings.

And can't we possibly detect these patterns and use them to adjust our actions?

No. Each hand is a random (well, not really, but close enough for the purpose of this statement) independent event. Take any set of events like that and it's easy to detect/observe the patterns after the fact. But if we could detect and adjust to them while they were happening, they wouldn't be independent random events.

Detecting and adjusting to those patterns would be akin to detecting to and adjusting to the times when a roulette wheel comes up black 10 times in a row or 22 hits 5 out of 10 times. If the game is legit, you can't do it.

[SoBeDude]

You're talking about a simple statistical event, like the flip of a coin. It is a (mostly) random event.

But nature gives us other examples where apparent randomness is actually not so at all.

Chaos theory tells us there are patterns in "chaotic" systems, like turbulent air or waterflow...and that we can identify and use those patterns to actually predict events. Other examples are wingtip vorticies and the weather.

A simple example is a pachinko machine. We've all seen a ball drop down the pins. In isolation, its path is mostly random...just like cards (no true randomness exists ya know).

Even though the start of the ball is from essentially the same place, it doesn't start from EXACTLY the same place. These minor changes in initial starting conditions expand to produce dramatically different final results.

Now drop 100 of those balls and a pattern emerges.

(But perhaps my pachinko machine example is no different than a roulette wheel, I don't know.)

But why can't we learn to detect that we are in a specific part of one of these patterns and learn to adjust? Perhaps a simple hit-n-run or getting up when the cards are simply not going our way?

I'm probably all wet here but for some reason this concept is appealing to me...

-Scott

[FishyWhale]

"So what is with this phenomenon? Is it possible this is indicative of some specific leak in our game that we share?"

Given the fact that both of us are young players, my first suggestion would be that we perhaps loosen up when ahead because we are in high spirits

Brad or mikelow also has suggested that the "loose money" on the table is gone once the worst players go broke, and that once that happens, it´s harder to win.

Third, our concentration goes down the longer we play.

And fourth, these fluctuations are natural (and if you or I are ahead 1000 after two hours or something, well, that´s way beyond the hourly average you can expect to make, so a downswing is natural).

Not to forget that, fifth, "It´s all one long game", so if you had stood up after those 2 hours, you´d probably have lost the 900 the next time you went to play.

Must be a combination of these things, and as long as it isn´t No1 (which I hope it is not), there is little we can do about it.

[DanS]

"Not to forget that, fifth, "It´s all one long game", so if you had stood up after those 2 hours, you´d probably have lost the 900 the next time you went to play."

Dude, if you really believe this (and I can't find anything which suggests you meant this tongue-in-cheek), you've got a lot to learn. If your earn in a 10/20 is a big bet an hour, you're probably going to win the next time you play. The fact you're coming of a big session, either up or down, is totally irrelevant (statistically speaking, though not necessarily psychologically speaking).


"(and if you or I are ahead 1000 after two hours or something, well, that´s way beyond the hourly average you can expect to make, so a downswing is natural)."

While I've experienced the phenomenom of dumping money back after winning money, this is another unenlightened statement. Why is a downswing "natural." The long run concept you mention refutes what you have said. The next hand is a new deal, everything is random, and you have (I assume) a +ev on this hand. W(hy)TF is a downswing "expected?"

Dan

[FishyWhale]

Dude, if you really believe this (and I can't find anything which suggests you meant this tongue-in-cheek), you've got a lot to learn.

Sorry about not expressing myself clearly; I didn´t mean it literally - I just expressed my doubts that hit and run works, after all you cannot escape those fluctuations by simply quitting when ahead.

"(and if you or I are ahead 1000 after two hours or something, well, that´s way beyond the hourly average you can expect to make, so a downswing is natural)."

Well, it is, isn´t it? 1000 in two hours in 10-20 equals 25bb/h - and you can´t expect to to stay at 25bb/h.

[Tommy Angelo]

Three things:

1) My secret weapon is the hurt-and-run. I fold every hand for a while, maybe see a couple flops but no rivers, and then I see the flop with KK and fold on the turn when the ace comes and it's two bets to me, and then I fold up to my big blind, and quit, stuck $500.

2) Here's something to consider, from my buddy Alex. How many times have we thought (or heard), "Man, I was up $500, and I ended up losing $500. I should have quit when I was up $500."

Answer: lots.

But how many times have you thought (or heard) this?

Man, I was up $500, and I stayed and won $1000 more. I should have quit when I was up $500.

Answer: never.

3) I have found that my best quitting decisions are those based on my own state, not the state of the game. Games change. And other games and casinos are available. But if I'm not in the mood to win, I'm better off not playing, no matter who the opponents are.

Tommy

[FishyWhale]

2) Here's something to consider, from my buddy Alex. How many times have we thought (or heard), "Man, I was up $500, and I ended up losing $500. I should have quit when I was up $500."

Answer: lots.

But how many times have you thought (or heard) this?

Man, I was up $500, and I stayed and won $1000 more. I should have quit when I was up $500.

Answer: never.

True indeed, it also works the other way.

But if I'm not in the mood to win, I'm better off not playing

Yep, the "I-factor" is what it boils down to in the end - because it´s the only thing we can influence (so "hurt-and-run" is a good idea).

(Thought: It may be right to do the hit-and-run stuff if you are so convinced that your results will spiral downward if way ahead, because then playing on might affect your mood and hence your play).

Great post, Tommy.