When is it no longer variance?

I've been playing for a living for a little over 2 years, mostly live. Expenses, expenses, bad money management and expenses forced me to start from scratch last January. Since then I've been playing mostly online. I finally got myself up to 5/10 about 6-8 weeks ago and began making $40-50/hr. I think I've been running a little to well for most of that time. Occasionally losing over a grand at a time, but usually making it back within 30 hours or even the same session sometimes.

But now those convenient upswings have dissappeared. I don't even make small wins anymore. I'm down about $1000 for the last 8 days (6-9k hands). The volume doesnt concern me so much as the duration.

I'm getting very concerned and today in just 450 hands I've lost $450! My bankroll isn't in danger, but how much longer can I let this go on?

-It's never a bad beat when the better player wins-

Definately within variance. 6-9k 100BB. That's not a big sample at all, and that's not a huge loss. I'm sure it happens all the time. That's poker.

[toss]

It sounds like you don't quite understand variance nor bankroll management. Variance will never go away. You should highly consider playing with a 300 Big Bet bankroll. ($3000 for 5/10) Losing $1000 (100BB) is a common occurence. Bad streaks can last for 30k hands or more.

Post hands and respond to hand example to certify if you're a good player or not.

[stillbr]

[ QUOTE ]
You should highly consider playing with a 300 Big Bet bankroll. ($3000 for 5/10)

[/ QUOTE ]

You need larger than a 300bb bankroll if you are doing this for a living. That is unless you can allow yourslef to constently move up and down in limits depending on how good your running. But moving up and down like that is not a good idea if you ever tilt or have doubts at all.

[ QUOTE ]
Definately within variance. 6-9k 100BB. That's not a big sample at all, and that's not a huge loss. I'm sure it happens all the time. That's poker.

[/ QUOTE ]

Like I said, the loss doesn't bother me, its the duration. I don't know if I ever went over a week at 3/6 without some sign of breaking even or winning. Maybe my memory is bad or I'm just finally getting my cummupance.

I don't expect variance to go away. Variance is easy enough to explain and understand, but its the hardest part of poker to prepare someone for. I guess I needed you guys to say how common it is.

[ QUOTE ]

You need larger than a 300bb bankroll if you are doing this for a living. That is unless you can allow yourslef to constently move up and down in limits depending on how good your running. But moving up and down like that is not a good idea if you ever tilt or have doubts at all.

[/ QUOTE ]

I agree, thats partly why I stayed at 3/6 long after the 300bigbet rule. I kept taking shots when when the game was loose and kept getting punished for it.

-It's never a bad beat when the better player wins-

[sweetjazz]

300 BB is a good bankroll for a casual player who doesn't want to risk losing his bankroll, but won't miss paying bills if he were to lose it. Also, the higher the limits, the smaller the edge and thus the more BB needed in a bankroll to make the risk of ruin (which is always a positive number) small enough to be pracitcally zero.

And if you are playing for a living, you need to be able to pay your bills without dipping into your BR. I think an absolute minimum to be pro with reasonable amount of safety is 3 months living expenses plus 300 BB. I think having 4-6 months living expenses plus 500 BB is a wiser decision, adding to the number of BBs required as you move up in limits.

The goal with your total bankroll is NOT necessarily to maximize EV, but to both gamble with significantly positive EV and to avoid going broke. This is in contrast to your thinking and decision-making after you have bought in for $250 on a $5/$10 table, where your goal should be to maximize your EV at every opportunity. By carefully managing your bankroll, you can safely do this and not worry if you happen to lose the $250, as long as you were making good decisions.

[ncboiler]

It's always hard to tell if its variance or just bad play. Variance can easily account for this kind of swing. This is just judging from the numbers as I don't know anything about your play. Post some hands that you think you may have played questionably and get some feedback.

I started doing that a few days ago. When I'm in a long downswing poker tracker usually says im only winning 5-6% of ym hand instead of the 7.5% that i usually win 10 handed. This used to happen because i was folding to maniacs to often and not being agressive enough. When these streaks happen I usually start trying to play more pots and playing them more agressive.

I do ok with multi way pots and on early streets but I am not doing so well with value betting. I keep posting hands that Im uncertain about and everyone seems to say "raise, raise, raise." Maybe i'm just giving a biased sample, but each time I usually wanted to play it more less aggressive than I did and end up costing myself a couple bets from playing the way the forums dictate.


-It's never a bad beat when the better player wins-

[Harv72b]

[ QUOTE ]
I keep posting hands that Im uncertain about and everyone seems to say "raise, raise, raise." Maybe i'm just giving a biased sample, but each time I usually wanted to play it more less aggressive than I did and end up costing myself a couple bets from playing the way the forums dictate.

[/ QUOTE ]

You'll get a lot of great advice on these forums. You'll also get a lot of poor advice (generally corrected in short order) and even more advice that starts out with "I don't play..." or "I'm not really sure, but...". Like any other form of learning above elementary education, it's important that you not just repeat it by rote, but understand why it is correct, and how to correctly apply it to your own experience. If you don't immediately grasp the underlying reasons for the answers you get, keep asking questions until you do. Just try to do so politely, because a lot of the veteran posters here have seen enough trolls come and go to be very wary of a relative newbie who won't stop arguing about something. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

All that being said, keep in mind that we tend to remember our bad beats much more so than our routine wins. It's easy to remember when your aces get cracked by a runner runner two pair with 82o, but you're far less likely to recall the times when your aces hold up at showdown in a medium or small pot, or you win with a turn bet. So yes, there are going to be times when proper aggression ends up losing you a few extra bets in one particular hand; the point is, by maintaining that aggression at the right times and in the right situations, you are collecting enough extra bets the times that your hand is good to more than cancel out the times you lose to some freak hand on an unlucky board.

In answer to your initial question, a relatively moderate downswing like 100 BBs over 9k or so hands is not at all unusual for a winning player. Some of the language you used in your initial post does alarm me, though--things like dropping some large amount of bets and then "winning it back" quickly. It's much easier said than done (and believe me, I have much trouble as anyone at sticking to this), but especially as a pro, you need to stop thinking in terms like that. You aren't "winning it back"--you're working. You should be sitting down at your computer with the intention of putting in your daily hours of "work" and then getting on to the rest of your life. It's just a nice little perk if "work" happens to be something you enjoy, and which you can do from the comfort of your own home and around whatever hours you choose.

It sounds to me like you're pressing a bit too much at the tables to "make up" for your losses. Try not to. Focus more on the number of hands you're playing or the amount of hours you're putting in, and less on the number of chips you win or lose. In a pursuit like poker, this is one of the few things you can personally control on a day to day, hour to hour basis.

As always, if the beats are getting to you or you're otherwise not playing good poker, take a break. Ten minutes or two days, however long it takes before you can rejoin the tables with a clear mind and unclouded focus. Multi-tabling 5/10 as you are with anything approaching a decent win rate, I can't imagine that you could need to play a thousand hands a day, every single day, in order to pay your bills. If you do, then you need to take some serious looks at those money management skills again. [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]