losing nearly half a bankroll in a matter of hours...

[BaronVonCP]

If you are mutitabling for that long it isn't that strange of a downswing. One thing I would suggest is to take frequent breaks. Online play can be very taxing, and it can become difficult to realize when you start making mistakes. Its also not good for your eyes to be staring at the screen for so long. Not good for your overall health either.
Whenever I'm not in school, and I'm putting in a lot of hours; I play in 2-3 hour incriments. That's about the most I can take without losing my mind.

[scrub]

[ QUOTE ]

Do you guys realize that this is the equivalent of almost 140 hours of B&M play? Losing 200 BBs in the course of around 5000 hands isn't unheard of--I think most players who have played long enough have had swings like this.

I think you guys are overreacting because it's a "single session" but are failing to recognize how freakishly big this session is.

A -200 BB swing over the course of like 4 weeks of fulltime live play doesn't sound as extreme, but tilt issues aside it's exactly the same.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is a good point.

All of the "never lose more than 50 BB in a session" or "cut down on the number of tables you're playing when you lose X bets" are pretty stupid unless you have tilt issues.

That being said, 6-8 tabling for 6-8 hours straight is probably a sign that you're not playing your best and are playing to get back even. Most people I know who are successful extreme multitablers break their sessions up into smaller chunks. B+M guys who play insanely long sessions are almost always stuck and playing poorly, although they never know it. I'm sure that the same situation happens online--I used to have problems playing too long back when I thought poker was fun, and I'm sure I was almost always playing losing poker when I did it.

200 BB is also a huge swing to have at 3/6. The game is beatable for a big enough WR that swings like this one should be very rare. A combination of not playing well enough to beat it for a big winrate to begin with and playing too many tables to come close to the WR you could achieve at fewer tables may drop your WR so much that swings like this are more likely or even make you a loser in the game.

I think 6-8 tabling is a bad idea for most players. I know that a few posters have very good results playing this many tables, but I doubt that there are more than a handful of posters on this site who would do better playing 6-8 tables instead of a more manageable 1-4 tables.

I also doubt that any player with enough playing experience and skill that they ought to be 6-8 tabling would make the post that started this thread.

scrub

[Hermlord]

[ QUOTE ]
If that pattern happens to you on a daily basis then its not the cards or the poker site.

It sounds like you play badly at first and then play well to recover.

[/ QUOTE ]

Not to start a whole thing, but....no. I mean, I'm not a pro but I know what a 2-outer is, and if I'm betting or raising at every opportunity (limit), what else can I do? It's not always like this, just the last week or two. It's not the site, it *is* the cards, and I consider these losses a loan, to be recouped starting....now.

[MicroBob]

Agree 100% with BDK.

I think a swing like this should deem it necessary to analyze one's play and figure out if you are playing well or not.
But it is hardly evidence that you are DEFINITELY playing sub-optimally and are just rationalizing.
It is POSSIBLE (and maybe even LIKELY if you have your suspicions) that you are playing sub-optimally...but hardly a guarantee.

Playing 4k hands and dropping 200BB isn't that impossible.
For a B&M player this equate to dropping 50BB/wk over the course of a month. Definitely not good....but something that happens occasionally to good players.


I would also suggest that anyone playing in the VPIP-18 range would have to be a REALLY horrible chaser to lose THAT much based solely on their sub-optimal play.


I also believe Dr. Al grossly underestimates how multi-tabling online (at 60hds/hr or faster) changes things compared to traditional B&M games.
Dr. Al has previously made statements about online-games that are not true.

A single-day of multi-tabling online one can EASILY play 1k-1.5k hands.
3k-4k hands is a pretty long haul but it's not THAT unrealistic.
Since 1k hands per week can be kinda/sorta standard for a 30/hr week B&M player it is not incorrect to say that an online-miltitabler can play as many hands in one day as a B&M player can in one month.


FWIW - I have played 10-12 hour sessions varying from 3-8 tables before online. If you are comfortable multi-tabling and used to it, etc etc, I don't think it is too different from playing 1 table (live or online) for 10-12 hours.
Obviously, for some, it's not a good idea. But for other it's just not that big a deal when you're pretty much playing on auto-pilot against bad player on low-limit party.


Anyway...to the OP...hang in there and hopefully it will turn around.
It also wouldn't hurt to fully analyze your play either.
Even though you don't think you made any more mistakes then you normally would...it certainly wouldn't hurt to use this session as something that can drive you to plug those leaks as best you can. And, for all you know, maybe your leaks are indeed bigger than they think they are.
This is almost always the case for me when I go on a huge down-swing (yes...I know I'm pulling a little bit of a John Kerry flip-flop here....so sue me).

[Al Schoonmaker]

I think your criticism of me is reasonable. Since I have never significantly multitabled, I do not realize how many hands someone can play in a relatively short period.

However, I am always suspicious of claims that someone is losing ONLY because of bad luck.

This subject came up recently in a discussion with David Sklansky of my next book. I had made the point that people falsely attribute their losses at poker to bad luck, but don't do so about their poor play at golf and tennis, David wrote in the margin, "Bad luck can be the culprit in poker."

We agreed on this language. "To be fair I must admit that in poker bad luck is often the culprit. However, since there is nothing you can do about luck, blaming it accomplishes nothing."

That's the critical point. As long as you blame bad luck, you cannot do anything useful. So stop blaming luck and focus on the ONLY thing you can control: your own play.

Regards,

Al

[elwoodblues]

[ QUOTE ]
As long as you blame bad luck, you cannot do anything useful

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a great point and, quite honestly, something that I'm struggling with right now. I have taken a few weeks off of playing to think about my play (because of pretty bad streak.) I KNOW that part of the reason I had a bad streak was luck. I also KNOW (though haven't yet concretely identified) that I must have been doing something wrong that contributed to my losses. By focussing on the luck part, I am more likely to not examine the second part (the part for which I have control.) Even if a significant downswing is due entirely to luck, you are still better off examining your own play to try to plug leaks than blaming luck because the process of self-evaluation is beneficial and can help your game.

[cardspeak]

I think blaming either bad luck or one's supposed bad play, based on very general information, is a major problem. Dr. Al addresses the problem of being in denial by focussing on bad luck when one might really being playing badly. But it might be equally costly to conclude bad play is the culprit. Why? Because it can result in "fixing things that ain't broke." It can also be a cause for tilting because it causes a sort of general anxiety that "I must be doing something wrong," when what's really needed is to identify specifically what part of one's results is due to good/bad play and which part is bad/good "luck."

One day, in my B&M 10-20 game, I dropped $700 in 25 minutes. Following the logic I sometimes see in our forum here, I must have suddenly become an awful player. Clearly a winning player couldn't suffer such results. Well, what really happened was that I was dealt some really great hands that simply lost to some breathtaking suck-outs. e.g. I was dealt pocket aces three times. Twice I flopped a set and once I turned it. Twice I lost to back-door gut-shot draws and once to a back-door flush draw. I gave no free cards. I was pounding away with my advantage, but lost. It happens. The other notable hand was I flopped a set with 88 and lost to 33 who'd also flopped a set but who caught the case 3 on the river. Again, no free cards. Shall I suddenly get weak-tight with my flopped sets just because I must've been doing something wrong? (BTW, I ended the session $300 up, after a low of -$1000)

I don't think the advise that there's "nothing you can do about luck" is complete. Discriminating which part of one's results is luck and which is skill (or lack thereof) is essential. Knowing which part is luck can actually be calming and allow the player to focus on what really needs work. This also applies to good luck, of course. Concluding one is a great player when mostly what's happening is that you're getting great cards and no one is smacking you with bad beats can be just as costly (but hidden) as when you're running bad.

Anyway, my point is to encourage more precision in the self-evaluation. In the short term (which is very long) near anything can happen. I suggest it is better to quantify the actual cost/reward of bad/good luck. And the cost of errors. FWIW

[ricdaman]

[ QUOTE ]
My VP$P went from 21% down to 17%. Like I said, ... I KNOW that I have leaks in my game.

[/ QUOTE ]

Try tightening up. 21% = ~30% flops seen. 17% = ~25% flops seen. There is no way you are getting delt good cards 1/4 of the time. You should be getting above average cards approx. 7% (1/16) of the time. Therefore, your VP$IP should be around 7% (slightly higher on a loose table, slightly less on a super-tight table). Stop calling Kxs, J9s, JTo, QTo, and a lot of other marginal hands.

Every time I start slipping in profits, it is directly related to my pre-flop play. It is very easy to play poorly post-flop when you're holding QTo and the flop comes Q56. How many times are you beat by QJ, QK, AQ, or even someone who calls down with 78s or AK? Tightening up will limit the amount of times you get beat more than it will decrease the amount of times you win.

[jonoo]

[ QUOTE ]
My VP$P went from 21% down to 17%.

[/ QUOTE ]
What exactly is VP$P and how do you calculate it?

[Hermlord]

[ QUOTE ]
You should be getting above average cards approx. 7% (1/16) of the time.

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you should be getting above average cards approx. 50% (1/2) of the time.

Sorry, couldn't resist.