Do you win every day?

[Adde]

If you consider yourself a winning player, how is your winnings distributed on a day to day basis?

Last year I had much more winning than losing days. This year I have run into a new pattern, where I win as often as I lose, but the winnings are larger than the losings.

Anyone experienced this? How does it look for you?

[MattHatter]

Now that have input the pattern map into the poker bot....

yes.


But seriously... of course not. I win 'the majority' of the time though. Some days I wonder though.


Matt

[Nottom]

I win every day, well almost every day. In fact yesterday was my first losing day every only because every time I was about to drag a huge pot the server booted me, luckily I made up for it today by winning $10,000.

OK, maybe thats an exageration but I have been fortunate enough to not have too many losing days since I started keeping a daily log at the beginning of December. Looking at my numbers its just over 80% winners over that time period, not that 2 months is a huge amount of data to work with or anything.

[William]

Some days I lose a dollar or two /images/graemlins/grin.gif

[bigpooch]

Almost, but that's because of the quality of the opposition!

I haven't kept track of day to day results, but I think it's
over 90%. My really bad days aren't that bad at all: can't
even remember the last day I was stuck over $100 (it could
be pre-2003!).

I do have weekly records though, and do win every week, and
typically it would be between $500 and $1000 and explains
why I don't keep daily records!

[kdog]

I keep track by weeks, months, etc. and find I win an average of 5 days out of 7. Interestingly enough, I find I almost never win 7 consecutive days in the same week although I do frequently win 7 or more days in a row.

[Legend27]

No one wins every day. I win money probably 75% of time, lose money 15 % of time and break even 10% of the time. I play No Limit.

[ZeeJustin]

I can't tell you how often I have winning days, but I would guess less than 80% of my days are in the green. Every now and then I'll have a losing week, but I have never had a losing month, and hope to continue that streak.

[Drunk Bob]

I win a little every day.If the bad beats startcoming down I go up in limits .By the time I hit 15/30 I have it all back plus a small profit.

This strategy is not recomended for newbies or the fainthearted but it seems to work for me.

[MadSci]

[ QUOTE ]
I win a little every day.If the bad beats startcoming down I go up in limits .By the time I hit 15/30 I have it all back plus a small profit.

This strategy is not recomended for newbies or the fainthearted but it seems to work for me.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nor is it recomended by those with a grasp of mathematics. All it does is increase your variance, and right when you are suffering a downturn. And may I ask: what is the motivation for being at least a little up every day? Isn't it better to maximize your long term profit by losing trying to get biger wins?

If you have the cash lying around in your account to play 15/30, and you are good enough to win at it, why not play there or almost as high on a regular basis, instead of waiting untill you are in the middle of a bad day?

On those bad days, you may actually be doing something wrong, or have a bad mind-set, so why go to higher stakes?

[LondonBroil]

Started keeping track of my daily results on July 4th last year.

98 days won: 44%
52 days lose: 23%
11 days win or lose under $5 (break even): 5%
61 days of no playing: 27%

So the days I do play I win a little over 60% of the time.

My longest winning streak was 10 days (+$2,151 during the streak including a nice $1,074 day at a 10/20 intercasino table).

My longest losing streak was 4 days about 2 weeks ago(-$359 during the streak). I've lost more than that on one day before but that week seemed like super-fish-suckout week. Very frustrating.


Also note that I count any bonuses earned towards my results. So if I earned a $100 party poker bonus and lost $30 doing it, it still counts as a winning day (It's my money after all damnit!)

[Webster]

It really depends how LONG you play every day - I play NORMALLY 2 hours a day and win 61% of those days.

18,000 hands 2.78BB per hour at 2/4
$1.2K per month about

[Adde]

Thanks all!

LondonBroil, good record keeping format you have. I will change my Excel sheet a little to mimic that too.

Adde

[GuyOnTilt]

I haven't kept track of day to day results, but I think it's over 90%.

Start keeping records of your sessions. You'll find that your win% is not even close to 90%. Most winning players' sessions won% is between 60% and 70%.

...can't even remember the last day I was stuck over $100 (it could be pre-2003!). I do have weekly records though, and do win every week, and typically it would be between $500 and $1000.

If you're making between $25,000 and $50,000 per year, there's absolutely NO WAY that you haven't had a day where you've lost over $100 in the last year. You're fooling yourself by not keeping accurate and/or detailed records. Start keeping a spreadsheet of your day-to-day activity. I would be willing to bet money that you think you're a bigger winner than you really are. Your claims are absolutely unrealistic. Not saying that you're lying persay, but I do think you're deceiving yourself if you really think you win 90% of days and that you haven't lost $100 in a day for over a year while averaging over $500/wk. Any pro will tell you that those numbers are absolutely ridiculous.

GoT

[OrangeHeat]

I think it depends on the limit your playing i.e. the variance changes. Standard partypoker low limits up to 3/6 I ran at a nice 65% win rate.

When I moved to 5/10 to 10/20 it dropped to about 62%.

Now at 15/30 it runs at 59% win rate. My hourly rate is the same in terms of BB's but the variance is higher with the higher aggression levels.

Some months I have had 80% wins and some like the hell that last month was I have 30%. Since February rolled in I am at 85% for the month - but that won't last - it just makes up for January.

Over all limits and time online the average is floating around the 60% mark.

It's a tricky way to look at performance because it also depends on how consistent your session lengths are.

Anyway enough rambling. GL

Orange

[daveymck]

As I have pokertracker I can keep track on there for party etc.

What I have also found is that pokercharts.com is pretty good for those sites outside of pokertracker from a session to session basis and gives SD etc that is extra to a spreadsheet, but I also have a spreadsheet of daily movements of bankroll on each so I can keep full track at the header level.

[daryn]

i win 57% of my sessions, and i consider myself to be making "a killing"

[superleeds]

Since Jan' 03 (when I starting keeping proper records) I have had 120 winning sesions and 64 losing sessions. Mostly at limits of .5/1 to 3/6.

This has taken just over 400 hrs and i have won in the region of 1BB per hour. More at the lower limits /images/graemlins/cool.gif, less at the higher /images/graemlins/tongue.gif

[bigpooch]

I am not fooling myself! Most of the money I make is on
Paradise Poker playing 1-2 draw: I have kept statistics
that show that my hourly rate per table is between $7 and $8
with a standard deviation of $20 per hour. I usually play
three tables there at the same time I play on ub or Poker
Stars bonus whoring in low limit LHE. Because my ratio of
SD/EV in draw is a mere 1/3 of what it is in LHE, I have
approximated that if I did nothing but play 20 table hours
of draw every day for a month, I will be expected to have
just one losing session per month. Any real expert who
plays the draw tables on Paradise will have a good idea how
much money can be won by just considering the opposition! I
am 100% sure there was not a single week in 2003 that I was
not up substantially playing 1-2 draw and unfortunately, I
was only able to play two tables at most on Paradise for
2003! I found Sundays were very good for me: there were
so many Sundays I was up over $300 playing just two tables
of 1-2 draw!

Of course, my LHE results are not nearly as good! I only
make approximately a mere 1 BB per hour per table. Of
course, if I were to look at my LHE results (mostly 5-handed
and 6-handed), the ratio of days I lose almost certainly is
between 30% and 40%. Because of my draw results, I cannot
justfiably play anything smaller than 5-10 LHE, so it only
makes sense to play 5-10 (6max or 5max) or bigger.

But you may well be right! I may have had ONE day in 2003
that I did lose over $100 but that was because my losses in
LHE were not compensated by winnings in draw. And there was
a very ugly day where I started playing 3-6 LHE and got beat
up for over $300 (because there were no draw games for most
of the day on Paradise) but then made it all back and more
by playing over 15 hours of 1-2 draw. I then told a friend
of mine, "Why do I even bother playing holdem?". /images/graemlins/laugh.gif

But with 2004 being a big year for poker, I will most likely
be playing some 10-20 LHE and bigger in the next month or so
as the games on Party seem so incredibly soft. I also have
to give up my penchant for bonuswhoring and simply look for
fish to scale! Of course, then I will expect to have many
losing days (I would expect about 1/3rd or so) and have to
be psychologically prepared to get beat up! But it's nice
to be able to crawl back and crush the draw tables if I ever
run bad for a week! And besides, I usually try to play 4 or
5 tables simultaneously to make most efficient use of my
time; hopefully, that means 3 draw tables and 2 LHE tables
rather than 2 draw tables and 3 LHE tables. I have played
6 tables quite a bit before, but that was just 1-2 LHE on
Party to pick up some Jucy Lones $80 bonus while I was at
3 draw tables. I have found it more difficult to play 3
5-10 (6max) tables on Empire at the same time I am playing
3 draw tables; on the other hand, I did take a shot at 7
tables at the same time and I can definitely see that some
players on this planet could do so for a few hours, but not
6 short-handed tables! And because Party players are
notoriously slow (or the servers are busy), I definitely see
that there are players out there that play eight or nine
ring tables and even if they play just 2-4 or 3-6, if they
are in any way competent, they should do extremely well (as
long as they don't burn out!).

[TimM]

I win maybe 6 out of 7 days. By session of course it's different because I might change tables while losing. My brother kids me that the reason I win so many days is because I always keep playing until I win. There is some truth to this, but I don't think that would be possible if I were a losing player.

[AAmaz0n]

It depends on what your criteria for winning is.

I've adjusted mine to "every day above ground is a win," so yes, I actually do win every day. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

If I'm still breathing as well, then that's a cause for downright celebration.

Shauna

_________________________________

Breakfast Beer - don't forget, it's the most important beer of the day!

[Jim Easton]

[ QUOTE ]
I've lost more than that on one day before but that week seemed like super-fish-suckout week. Very frustrating.


[/ QUOTE ]

lol. Yes it was, I remember that week very well. Must have been something in the water.

[Troy92]

I used to focus too much on winning money every day. Sometimes I would leave after big wins--possibly missing out on even more wins against weak players. Other times I would find myself chasing in the wee hours of the morning to catch up--a couple successful runs of this gave me a false-sense of being able to catch up in any session. I was winning about 70% of the days I played. However, I only won about 60% of the weeks due to some large losing sessions. In November, I started treating my poker play as one large session and focused more on time than $$$. I play approximately 2 hours a day. My rate of winning days has dropped to 60%, but my winning weeks has climbed to 70%. The losing weeks have generally been shallow with three out of four being under $100. Whereas, only one of my winning weeks was less than $100. Needless to say my bottom line has vastly improved since I began focusing on playing solid poker for a couple hours rather than worrying about short-term wins and losses.

[AleoMagus]

This question makes little sense in a way. The reason I say this is that it really depends on your style of play and the way you move from one game to another.

It is actually possible to be a losing player and win over 90% of your poker sessions. Similarly it is possible to be a winning player and lose most of the time.

As a very common example, many losing players will tend to move up in limits when they book a loss and will often do it again and again when they keep losing. Finally, at some high limit, they may catch a big hand and quit for the day a winner.

This is similar to the Martingale strategy in blackjack. You double your bet each time you lose and when you win, you fall back to your base unit bet. With a theoretically infinite bankroll and betting limits, this strategy is no fail. In real life, it can work for a long time, but the big losing streak will eventually come that wipes the whole bankroll out (or leaves you with just enough for a pack of razor blades)

I guess what I am saying is this - If you play NL a lot and try to trap with inside straight draws, thinking about huge implied odds AND if you like to make fishy plays to lure opponents into a big mistake - You might lose 60% of the days that you play, despit being a winning player.

On the other hand - If you play solid, no risk poker at small limits and avoid potential trouble all the time, and are always willing to put in extra hours on those losing days (though I'd recommend this only if you stay at one limit and are very good at dealing with tilt) - you might win nearly all the time.

It's really as varied as anything in poker.

Regards,
Brad S

[Adde]

What tools do you use for record keeping? I have tried three but are not 100% happy with any of them: Statking, PokerCharts.com and Excel.

[astroglide]

what do you dislike about statking? i use it along with pokertracker.

[Adde]

what do you dislike about statking? i use it along with pokertracker.

I don't like to book every single session, I book my results on a daily basis instead, and for this I have to have another way to keep track of totals. I use Excel to keep track of every site I got an account at, and then move the daily result into StatKing.

I would like StatKing to present better breakdown of weekly results, in list style.

The graphs suck.

Some things are good though. Hard to please everyone /images/graemlins/wink.gif.

[Troy92]

I use Excel to keep track of my daily results. For each day I track: daily balance, daily profit/loss, Cash outs /images/graemlins/grin.gif, a $$$ won/lost column for each limit that I typically play at, hours played, $$$ won/lost for special events (i.e. tournaments) and notes. I typically play three tables at a time and will pro-rate my time played if less than three tables. I update my results in the appropriate limit column when I leave a table. For more detailed information on my play I use pokertracker.

[Adde]

On a similar note, how do you get your hourly rates?

PokerTracker don't work for all sites. Also, often many hand histories are corrupt and thus PT will not be 100% Party won't send any or you forget to fetch them (maybe not a big deal?).

With StatKing you have to keep track of your play time for every single session. I think this is too tedious a task because of the irregulairy of online play; you play some, you have a break, repeat ten times and I have trouble knowing for real how long I have played in a day.

How do you do?

[astroglide]

forgot to mention i use a spreadsheet with macros to make statking entry easier /images/graemlins/smile.gif it has the following fields:

time begin
time end

party begin
party end

intertops begin
intertops end

time total
party total
intertops total
complete total
win/loss

statking total

i hit 'ctrl-b' to initialize it, and it will flush out the existing time begin/end values, and move the party/intertop end values to the begin values (to denote that's where i am money-wise at the beginning of the session).

i hit ctrl-; (std excel feature) to enter the time into the time begin.

when i finish playing, i hit ctrl-; into the time end, and note my cashier totals from party and intertops in their respective ends.

i end up with a time total and a win/loss to plug into statking. the 'statking total' field is party total + intertops total - bonuses/withdrawals, so i can verify that statking has perfect to-the-dollar results.

makes statkinging a breeze, even for multi-site/multi-table play.

[Adde]

I update my results in the appropriate limit column when I leave a table.

Oh my, I'm way too lazy to do that since I'm table hopping so much. But I would love to have them stats there without doing the work. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

One feature I like with my Excel chart is a 10- and 30-day average of daily winnings.

[Adde]

forgot to mention i use a spreadsheet with macros to make statking entry easier /images/graemlins/smile.gif

Very nice!!

Come to think of it, it might be possible to create something more automatic, like an import file to import into StatKing. Also, couldn't you create a button and attach some commands to that and get rid of those key strokes?

This is bad, -EV, no more poker for me, I have to look into this. /images/graemlins/wink.gif

Do you want to collaborate and send me a copy of your spreadsheet?

[astroglide]

i find the keystrokes easier than buttons. i would have to 'de-me' the spreadsheet. really my goal is to write a little app in c# to handle this sort of thing, more properly and for multiple people.

[pretender2k]

I use PokerTracker and Excel. One of my favorite stats I have Excel figure is how much I make per hand of hold'em. I figure this per site and over all. Last year I made .04 per hand on UB and I think .02 overall. That helped me on loosing nights. I could just say well I played 400 hands so I made $16 tonight.

[bygmesterf]

[ QUOTE ]
I haven't kept track of day to day results, but I think it's over 90%.

If you're making between $25,000 and $50,000 per year, there's absolutely NO WAY that you haven't had a day where you've lost over $100 in the last year. You're fooling yourself by not keeping accurate and/or detailed records. Start keeping a spreadsheet of your day-to-day activity. I would be willing to bet money that you think you're a bigger winner than you really are. Your claims are absolutely unrealistic. Not saying that you're lying persay, but I do think you're deceiving yourself if you really think you win 90% of days and that you haven't lost $100 in a day for over a year while averaging over $500/wk. Any pro will tell you that those numbers are absolutely ridiculous.

GoT

[/ QUOTE ]

No, those claims are very realisitic for a Draw Pro. I like to play 1/2 Draw at paradise, and It's real hard to have a losing session. For somone like bigpooch who plays 3 tables at once, to have a losing session takes some pretty bad luck.

Rick Nebiolo said in an RGP post (I keep it handy):

"Some of my draw playing friends indicated that they often would have a hundred winning sessions in a row in the old days, where in holdem they do well to win 60% of the time."