Live vs online

[SA125]

On the subject of losing streaks, I find a difference in understanding them live vs online.

I played 2 sessions live yesterday, each 4 hours long. In the afternoon I was ice cold for 2 1/2 of the 4 hrs and lost. At night I had an even mix of warm, hot and cold runs of cards and grinded out a win. My experience live is the grind is much more the case than the long hot or cold runs in a session.

Online is different though. I find the swings, or streaks, to be the norm. Whether you stay at 1 table, or bounce around from 1 to the other, it's the same. It's the streak rather than the grind.

I think I play tight (for the pokertracker guys VPIP 23% and 15% other pos), so the constant swings each way should be out of the ordinary, like they are live.

It just seems illogical to me how bad luck can follow you from table to table on a regular basis. Same with good luck. They say it's because of so many more hands dealt. Why would more hands dealt eliminate the leveling periods you see so much live?

To make the analogy to the coin flip, over the course of time, shouldn't it be an even mix of a few one way or the other, a few even and a few runs here and there? As oppossed to the constant run one way or the other?

Any ideas or comments are appreciated.

Steve A.

[cardcounter0]

"It just seems illogical to me how bad luck can follow you from table to table on a regular basis."

You are correct. Since their really is no such thing as "luck" any feeling of it following you around would be illogical.

The Standard Deviation of Poker is fairly high, so any type or number of extreme runs or streaks are possible for short periods, and still be within all is 'normal'.

4 hours play is nothing. Such a small sample, it is totally meaningless. Much like flipping a coin twice. It should come up 1 time heads and 1 time tails -- but would you be really amazed if you got 2 heads, or even the exact opposite two tails? Would you be talking about extreme streaks of luck based on two coin flips? That is about the same as talking about 10 or 20 hours of poker.

I think the streaks in poker start to even out after about 10 million hands or so, so if you play full time in about 20 years it will all smooth out.

[SA125]

Appreciate the response.

"4 hours play is nothing. Such a small sample, it is totally meaningless."

That was an example of my point, not a basis for it. My question is why is the degree of variance so different online just because you're playing more hands in a shorter time?

I would think the deviation would be close to the same as live, the cycles would just come around sooner. Not just go up or down with few leveling periods.

I figured someone would say it had to do with different players. Not all players playing 5-10 and 10-20 online suck. Most are tight and good. Just like live. That doesn't mean the fluctuations with them should be all or nothing.

[BarronVangorToth]

[ QUOTE ]

Not all players playing 5-10 and 10-20 online suck. Most are tight and good. Just like live.

[/ QUOTE ]


Not all players are bad players -- but most are. A lot of winning players are bad as well. The more and more I learn about poker (and I don't believe I've scratched the proverbial surface) the more I've come to the same conclusion time and time again: poker is a game of degrees of how bad you are, not about how good you are. If you're talking "average," "above average," and "below average," fine -- those fall into the bell curve -- but if you're talking about sucking or not sucking, being a good player or being a bad player, many would become better realizing that they are bad, their opponents are bad, but it comes down to being better than those bad players. I'm not a good player -- heck, I think in most situations I'm a bad player -- and yet it works out for me since most players are worse.

Regardless: when thinking about why people do things, why things happen, etc etc. you will be much better off realizing that most players you play against are bad.


Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com

[Paizzon]

I agree with the last reply. I have been studying a lot and the more I seem to learn, the more I realize I have to learn. I played in four 30 person (3 table) tournys over the weekend and came in 1st 3 of the 4. In two of them, I won exploiting the bad plays of the other players and not necessarally playing great myself.

I think the swings, or what I call trends, are created somewhat by us. I play quite a bit of blackjack, and one of the rules I use to win is making sure I have staying power at the table. That is having enough of a bankrole to wait for the trends to come. An analogy for that is if you take a coin and flip it 100 times, at the end you will have almost the same number of heads as you will tails. However, if you tracked each flip, you might see flip #9 through #15 are all tails...that is a trend. Same thing with waiting for the correct hands, position and situations to play in poker.


I do believe there is luck in poker, but I also believe we have some control over our outcome. That may seem like luck, but I don't think it is. Anyway, just a thought.

[J.A.Sucker]

Online players are much more aggressive than live players, for the most part. The fact that they make so many raises and the fact that you just have to suck it up and pay off so much makes for HUGE swings. The streaks are due to this; it's so hard to be near average for any small period of time when the swings are so large; eventually, they will all even out to the mean, but this takes a long time. In fact, it takes more hands than it would live, since the aggression is so much higher.

[cardcounter0]

"why is the degree of variance so different online just because you're playing more hands in a shorter time?"

Exactly. Not why, but that is the reason. If you do something once, you can only be off expected results at the most 1 unit. If you do something twice, you can be off at the most by 2 units. So if you play twice as many hands online as live, then there is the potential for the variance, or the length of a streak, to be twice as large. If you were to compare 4 hours of online play to 8 hours of live play, then you are getting more apple to apple comparison. But, since these samples are so small, you could still see major differences. Plus, as you already point out, you have different types of players playing online vs live at those limits.

As far as streaks being more extended online than live, since you are limited by time, maybe you aren't noticing a 4 hour live bad streak continued on the next time you play live for 4 hours, making it an actual 8 hour live bad streak. But you might notice a 4 hour online bad streak (which is equal to the two session 8 hours live play) because it is occuring all at once in one sitting. Selective memory. A lot of slot machine players will swear they see 'patterns' in the reels and results on the machines.

Which brings up another point. Two live 4 hour sessions would occur on different days against different people. You could also be in a different mental state and a different mood. One live 4 hour online session would be played with you in the same mental state, no recovery period in between.

Also, what kind of reads do you get in live play? Doesn't that help you in laying down a hand that the math tells you to play online? Do you get tells that say my hand is good RAISE playing live, that you wouldn't get online and might actually fold? This would also help smooth out results in live play.

[SA125]

"poker is a game of degrees of how bad you are, not about how good you are"

That's a good point. I've said the same thing talking to guys about getting better. Because you're dealt many more losers than winners, it's how you play them that counts.

I just try to avoid saying others are bad because we're never as good or as bad as we think we are. It's funny. You're one of the few guys who play these limits I've heard say they're not that good.

Guys who seem to know what they're talking about and downplay how well they do at something usually are pretty good at it.

[joker122]

[ QUOTE ]
Guys who seem to know what they're talking about and downplay how well they do at something usually are pretty good at it.

[/ QUOTE ]

You really think so? In that case i suck. i'm actually, like, the worst ever.

[BarronVangorToth]

My buddy is here (who is normally a lurker on these boards, but he writes random poker anecdotes on my site) and he has just likewise chimed in that he thinks he's a bad player -- and he is a consistent winner at 20/40 and beyond to the No Limit game, whether it's at Foxwoods, Vegas, or AC.

You shouldn't think it's odd that I say I'm a bad player -- you should find it odd that EVERYONE thinks they're good.

Seriously, think about it, it's SCARY how delusional people are. Which is why when people that I play with at Foxwoods ask me why I don't play higher limits over 5/10 and 10/20 on any regular basis, my answer is always the same: because I'm bad. I say this after they see me winning more often than I lose. I won't say THEY're bad ... but when I tell people that consider me better than they are and they hear me saying I'm bad, they get ... a look.

It's funny.

Regardless, a point regarding this same topic, if we sampled 100 random 10/20 online guys and 100 random 10/20 live players, and then mixed everyone up on 20 10-man tables, I'd bet on the online side doing better overall (if they could get over having to put on pants since most seem to talk about playing in their underwear).


Barron Vangor Toth
www.BarronVangorToth.com
"Only Live ... Only in Pants"