Bankroll volatility at lower limits

[PraetorianAZ]

After a few months of playing and winning consistently at the Paradise free tables I finally went to the .50/1.00. (and losing fast... $45 in 400 hands. More bad beats than I can count, although $10-20 of the losses were pure mistakes on my part.)

What kind of volatility can you expect? At the free tables I came up with an estimated drawdown of 100 BB. Is this reasonable for the money tables? Does that translate directly as you move up in limits? The greater question is: At what point do you decide the volatility is due to something you're doing vs. a bad run of cards?

[ramjam]

I would suggest having a read of this post from one of Granny's toy boys moving up (http://www.twoplustwo.com/forums/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Board=inet&Number=275417&For um=inet&Words=bankroll&Match=Entire%20Phrase&Searc hpage=3&Limit=25&Old=1month&Main=275202&Search=tru e#Post275417).

To estimate (statistically, that is) whether your results are more luck than skill (or lack of it), you can also try the following concepts:
-Work out your standard deviation (SD) in big bets/hour. I can't remember the formula but it's in one of Mason's books [perhaps some other kind soul could supply it]. When I last worked it out, my own SD at 1-2 online was about 11.5BB/hour (which I think is not too far from the norm).
-The total SD in BBs for the total time you have played can be estimated as SD/hour times the square root of the number of hours you have played.
-For a normal distribution, about 95% of results fall within 2SDs of the mean and 99% fall within 3SDs of the mean. Thus, if your total wins/(losses) are more than twice the total SD figure, you can be fairly confident that you're a winning/(losing) player at that level (ie. that your "true" mean win rate is more/(less) than zero).

There's probably more accurate ways of doing it based on sampling theory and other such stuff but I think the above is roughly on the right lines.

[bernie]

only 45 bets? you could go on a much worse streak than this and still be playing good. you could blow $200.

but you should still be checking your game and keeping up on it regardless of results. there may be a leak. there may not.

b

[Schmed]

I have found on those play money tables that while they can be amusing they relate zero to actually playing the game for your own money. I think Holdm is the worst play money wise because an opponents bets mean absolutely nothing. Omaha is a little different because nut hands win so it at least gets you practice in playing nut hands only.

Like Bernie said I wouldn't get too worked up about a small swing. The thing that helps my game a lot is posting hands and responding how I would have played a posted hand and then comparing my strategies to others. It will help you find the leak.

My biggest leak was playing too many suited cards and playing cards that I could play from a late position in an early position, for example j10s

[Robk]

I can't remember the formula but it's in one of Mason's books [perhaps some other kind soul could supply it]

It's posted here in the Essays section.