Redefining "Cold-Decked"

[Scotch78]

Since dropping down to 3/6, I've gone from 22/15 to 17/13. I had tightened up my starting requirements a tad shortly before changing levels and lost a little over 1% VP$IP from SB because of the 1/3 structure, but there's no way those two factors could account for 5% of my hands. So, I figured out what my hand distribution should have been (20 for pairs, 55 for offsuiteds and 14 for suiteds) and compared it with my actual hands dealt:

<font color="green">AA +5 . . . KK +5</font> . . . QQ -2 . . . JJ 0 . . . TT 0
AKs -2. . . KQs -7. . . QJs -1. . . JTs +1
<font color="red"> AK -14 </font>. . . KQ -9 . . . QJ -13
AQs -7. . . KJs +7. . . QTs -5
<font color="red">AQ -24</font>. . . KJ -19. . . QT -12
AJs +4. . . KTs +5. . . Q9s +1
AJ -7 . . . KT -16
ATs -1. . . K9s -2
AT -5
A9s +2
A9 -20
A8s +4

99 -2 . . . 88 +3 . . . 77 0 . . . 66 +6 . . . 55 -6

That's a deficit of 121 hands, or 2.7% VP$IP! The effective difference is probably under 2%, but that's still an enormous difference after 4,500 hands. We've all seen how long and deep fluctuations in win rate can go, but who would've thought VP$IP could vary so much?

Scott

[SomethingClever]

Yuck, man. Hang in there.

And stay off my tables... I don't wanna be there when the + side of variance catches up with you. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

[Scotch78]

And today I ran under 15.5% for 1,000 hands. Anybody out there know the math on this stuff? I've never heard of VP$IP swings like this and I'm getting pretty curious now.

Scott

[naphand]

[pedant mode: ON]
This really is a new definition of "cold-decked". I always assumed it meant getting dealt good but 2nd-best hands (at showdown), which is the most expensive way to lose.

Crappy starting hands cost you the least amount of money, call it getting bad cards or running cold, but it is not getting cold-decked.

Cold-decking is where the deck is set up to give you good hands that you take to SD and lose big on (set over set, K-high flush to Ace etc.).
[pedant mode: OFF]

I have run at V$IP 12 PFR 8 for quite a few sessions of 600-800 hands. Worse is running Won$atSD&lt;45% for 1,000 hand stretches. I know which I prefer.

Folding garbage that other players see the flop with is making you as much money as raising PF for value against those same crappy starters.

I guess there is not much advice that can be given other than stick with it, frustrating as it is. Too much navel gazing may lead you to conclude you are shockingly unlucky (I went through this late last year after 2 long bad months) but wont change anything. Master your impatience and keep reading books. Keep the sessions short if you are getting frustrated and maybe play some full-ring/tourneys where you can feel more comfortable folding for 1 hour at a time...

[MyssGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
I have run at V$IP 12 PFR 8 for quite a few sessions of 600-800 hands. Worse is running Won$atSD&lt;45% for 1,000 hand stretches. I know which I prefer.

[/ QUOTE ]

After last night, about 1k hands, of 35% W$SD, I will definitely say I'd rather have the low VP$IP. Saves a lot of money, but is rather boring/tedious, but better than having second best time and time again.....

[Scotch78]

[pedant mode:ON] Given the common practice of referring to the large downswings associated with having one's premium starting hands outdrawn as "running cold", one can only assume that getting cold-decked refers to something else.[pedant mode:OFF]

[ QUOTE ]
I guess there is not much advice that can be given other than stick with it, frustrating as it is. Too much navel gazing may lead you to conclude you are shockingly unlucky (I went through this late last year after 2 long bad months) but wont change anything. Master your impatience

[/ QUOTE ]

I came to that conclusion years before I started playing poker, though the game has confirmed my initial surmise [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img], that's neither here nor there though. Running cold as you defined it actually doesn't bother me at all. I was simply posting what I thought to be an interesting occurrence that isn't normally discussed. Speaking of which, it has gotten worse. I am currently running under 17% VP$IP for over 5,000 hands.

Scott

[Guy McSucker]

Yay, Scott and nap are at each other again. Huzzah.

Originally, cold-decking was a method of cheating at poker: introducing a pre-arranged (stacked) deck - not the deck in current use, hence "cold" - which has been set up in such a way as to give action-generating hands to the suckers and a winning hand to one's accomplice. Such a deck is also referred to as a "cooler".

Usage quickly extended the meaning of "cold-decking" to include all cheating situations in which chumps are dealt good but losing hands; and from there, to situations which look like that, e.g. when you AA cracked by KK on a AKK flop.

It's different from "running cold" but I believe usage is now extending to incorporate that, too, to the detriment of the colourful language associated with poker, in my opinion.

How's that?

Edit: hey, Scott did say he was redefining the term...

Guy.

[Scotch78]

[ QUOTE ]
Yay, Scott and nap are at each other again. Huzzah.

[/ QUOTE ]

I resent the implication that I would ever go easy on the napster. While it's true that I save the most biting wit for the enjoyment of all, his unique blend of ignorance and arrogance offends me equally as much in our e-mails.

Scott

[naphand]

And I agreed with him... [img]/images/graemlins/smirk.gif[/img]

However, what stimulated my response was Scotch's bizarre notion that talking about low V$IP sessions qualified as "interesting".

Scotch "Interesting" 78?

ROFL

I enjoyed making this post, which is what matters to me... [img]/images/graemlins/cool.gif[/img]

[chris_a]

For a binomial distribution (sums of yes/no events) the standard deviation of the event after N hands is:

sqrt(p * (1-p) * N)

So if your true VPIP is 17%, then after 1000 hands your standard deviation in number of hands that you voluntarily put money in is:

sqrt( 0.17 * 0.83 *1000 ) = 11.9 hands. Divide that by 1000 and you get that your corresponding deviation (in %) is 1.19%. So after 1000 hands, you are within 1 standard deviation if you are between 17-1.19 = 15.81% and 17 + 1.19 = 18.19%

2 standard deviations would be between 14.69% and 19.38%.
3 would be between 13.43% and 20.57%

So I'd say that what you saw wasn't that out of the ordinary.