What Qualifies As A Cold Streak For You?

[SlipFits]

Hey,

Cards don't seem to be going my way, only in the short term though. I have won approz. 5% of my last 350 hands, no hands have been holding up.

I say this is a cold streak for me, I wonder what you guys look at to see if the card gods don't like you.

[CarlNiclas]

Well, winning 5% of all hands isn't horrendous by any measure, unless you mean 5% of all hands you actually put money into. Then you have it bad...

Consider for example that you play 20% of all hands. Then compare that percentage to the percentage of hands you actually win. Ie in this example one quarter of all hands you play turn out to be wins for you (5 out 20), which is not bad at all.

[dylhead]

The other day I had some crazy statistics for a 250 hand session. I think I was seeing 15% of flops and only winning 4% of those pots I entered. I think I was winning 1% of all total hands. Normal statisitics for me are more like seeing 18-25% of flops winning at least 20-30% of the ones I enter and winning about 6% of all pots. I really think that you need to look at the factors involved in your cold streak though. Typically when I am on a cold streak I am

1. Not getting as many premium hands
2. Getting outdrawn

Make sure that you're losing in this way and not folding the best hand too often(it happens occasionally to good players) or playing too many pots.

[IlliniRyRy]

I decided to look about what people had to say about cold streaks since I'm sort of going through one right now. It's so bizarre how you can actually "see" your luck turn around one way or the other during a long enough time frame. I don't keep exact stats, but I started playing 3-6 on December 13th, and I've made about $6200 or so. That's a little less than 2 months, and I've probably played about 25-30 hours a week, so that's at least 200 hours, which is around $30/hr. The thing is, I haven't made ANY money in the last two weeks...before that, I was just making an absolute killing, and I think my hourly rate not including the last two weeks must have been something like $55. Since luck is random and has no memory, you tend to fool yourself by thinking, wow, I've made all this money and from this point on, I'm just as likely to continue doing well and making a considerable hourly rate. But the fact of the matter is, your luck WILL turn around and you'll start to get crap cards...to the point of bringing your hourly rate down to equilibrium. Pretty amazing how the numbers always seem to hold up. Not winning over all these latest hours is taking an extreme psychological toll on me, even though the drawdown in my account hasn't even surpassed 50 bets. I think sitting here and not making money is just as mentally painful as losing 100 BB, and probably just as unlucky.

[Kenshin]

I have difficulty believing that you make 30/hr at 3 6 unless you play 4 tables shorthanded. At full games, it is simply impossible to sustain a 5bb/hr rate

[J_V]

if you are good and play multiple table, it's doable.

[Ulysses]

Online, $36/hr is definitely doable playing 3 full tables of 3/6.

[scotnt73]

3 or more losing days in a row will make me start wondering about my game usually

[umdpoker]

holy sweet jesus. this is not a cold streak. that is a burp considered to how bad it can be. i think when you hit 100 bb loss, you start worrying. and after a couple days of running bad. i can't even imagine what poker pros in vegas feel like when they can't get anything for 3000 hands. thats a lot of sitting at one table watching morons catch cards.

[davidross]

I tend to describe cold srtreaks in 2 different ways. THe times you just lose money no matter how many hands you win, and the times where you just can't win a pot. THey are not necessarily the same. Quite often the times you can't win a pot, and winning only 5% of the hands played is very low as far as I'm concerned, doesn't actually cost you all that much money. Most of my big losses come on nights where I still win a good percentage of pots, but I win all the small ones and lose the big ones.

But 350 hands is way too small to even consider. I just finished 4 losing weeks, which for me corresponds to 48,000 hands. It's not unusual to lose 200 BB's, it's happened to me 3 times this year. GIve it some time and then reevaluate.