Do we concentrate to much on the long term?

[Roland32]

A quick thought on this. If anyone read my posts lately you know I am coming off quite a hot streak. I cant help but think that this might in fact have hurt my game in the short term. How is that you ask. Well after running so hot I kept thinking well I have to lose this hand or I am do for a bad beat arent I? Not that this interfered with my actual decisions. But after my heater ended I felt relieved. To the point that there was a voice in the back of my head saying I hope I lose a few so variance will catch up. Again this did not make me put myself in suicide positions or anything. But I will say that I think it hurt my killer instinct. That ability to bounce back on the bubble and still finsh strong. Has anyone else felt this way?

[pergesu]

I would be thankful for a nice heater..not try to kill it

[raptor517]

i dont think i have ever actually hoped that i would lose.. i want the heater to go on forever, cuz the dry break even spells last 10 times as long. holla

[john_galt]

When I'm running hot, I think the effect of running hot is self-perpetuating. By that, I mean that I tend to play more aggressively. Not so much that I am out of control, but probably enough to counteract some of my weak-tight tendencies that I normally concentrate on counteracting. /images/graemlins/tongue.gif
Players probably handled streaks (good or bad) in their own ways, but I think there are ways for a player to identify and harness some of the positive aspects of their emotional reactions.

[TheNoodleMan]

If you are worried about hitting a downswing, you are not looking at the long term. The point of long term thinking is to keep your head down and play your best.

It's really hard to actually understand probability intuitively. There are a lot of aspects that are absolutely inherent to probability that seem to be paradoxical. The one that you're struggling with in this post is the law of independent trials (If Rosencrantz and Gildenstern plan to flip a coin 10,000 times, there'll be 5000 heads and 5000 tails on average. If they flip a coin 5000 times and happen get heads each time, and then flip it 5000 more times, there'll be 7500 heads and 2500 tails on average). I'm sure you're well aware of this concept, but it's easy to convince yourself otherwise. I think it's important for your bankroll's sake that you realize when you're allowing yourself to misunderstand probability and stop.

In regards to the specific issue, suppose your EV for playing poker over your entire life is $1M. Now, you went on a heater which earned you extra ROI worth $1k. Now your EV on poker lifetime is $1,001,000. It's free money; there's no guaranteed extra downswing to cancel out your extra luck, just like there's no guaranteed heads after 5 tails.

Gratz.

Also, if you allow this thinking to get to you, you can very easily lower your lifetime EV. Don't do that.

[fnord_too]

Ugh! You are mistakenly thinking that good runs have to be canceled out by bad runs. This is one of the many forms of the gamblers fallacy. Here are a few simple truths to keep in mind:
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In a random walk, the probability of you being exactly where expected is very low for any appreciable number of steps, so you will almost definitely be on the happy side or unhappy side of expectation at any given point
The RATIO of the distance away from expected position to steps decreases the farther out you go, but the average distance away from expected increases. (That is, your actual rate will aproach expected rate, but small differences amplified by many steps can be quite significant. I don't know how to show this without a bunch of math.)
If you go on a 1000 hand heater, you do not need a cold streak to bring you back towards your expectation, 20-30K of expected results will dilute the impact of that heater considerably
Heaters and coolers can only be observed in the past (except when they impact your play and become self fulfilling prophecies or self correcting aberations, though correcting is a bad term if you "correct" away from a heater)
[/list]

Except for psychological impact, hands are independant. You don't need to worry about when a heater will end, you are never "due" for hot or cold cards.

Well put.

[pergesu]

Why is he mad?
I DON'T KNOW!!

[ QUOTE ]
A quick thought on this. If anyone read my posts lately you know I am coming off quite a hot streak. I cant help but think that this might in fact have hurt my game in the short term. How is that you ask. Well after running so hot I kept thinking well I have to lose this hand or I am do for a bad beat arent I? Not that this interfered with my actual decisions. But after my heater ended I felt relieved. To the point that there was a voice in the back of my head saying I hope I lose a few so variance will catch up. Again this did not make me put myself in suicide positions or anything. But I will say that I think it hurt my killer instinct. That ability to bounce back on the bubble and still finsh strong. Has anyone else felt this way?

[/ QUOTE ]Past performance does not affect future performance. That is: a lucky run does not mean that you are due for an unlucky run. If someone is a 20% ROI player and has a month of 30% ROI, that does not mean that over the next ten months they are likely to be a 19% ROI player (to get their average back down to 20%).

A 20% ROI player is likely to have months above and below 20%, but a below expectation month one does not mean a highly likelihood of an above expectation month two.

I recently found myself happy, or at least content, to lose a bit. Not because I knew the cold spell must follow the hot streak, but because I knew I was running lucky and was concerned that if it kept up I would let it go to my head, decide I was god's gift to poker, and jump to a game that was well over my head and quickly lose my winnings.

Sometimes it's good to have a little dose of reality for grounding purposes.

[Ixnert]

[ QUOTE ]
Past performance does not affect future performance.

[/ QUOTE ]

While true in one sense, this is not a game that is completely determined by random chance. I certainly play somewhat more aggressively when I've been running hot and more timidly when I've been taking vicious bad beats, both alterations that have an effect on the results I would expect to see. (I probably don't play quite aggressively enough most of the time, so quite likely, both tend to be self-perpetuating.)

The ideal would be that you always just play your game, and in that case, truly, past performance would have no effect on future results, but very few players are that even-keeled. All most of us can do is minimize it.