Tight Play and Long Streaks

[Lexander]

I am curious how the people who make money regularly deal with the long streaks.

I am familiar with probability theory. And if in general I play only 15% of the hands, and fold half of those at the flop, then I am playing only 5% past the flop.

Clearly, with such a small percentage of winnable hands, the distributions can be considerable over the course of 400-500 hands.

What I am curious about is how a person can maintain that long streak of tight play, and when it should be loosened.

For example, last evening I sat for ~150 hands at Party. I played about 20 total. I hit a playable flop about 4 times. I won only one of those. I had AK beaten after it flopped AKT. I wasn't sure how to play that one, and sure enough a Q hit the turn and J3 took it.

Ironically, I won two hands from the BB that got checked out to me.

I won a total of 3 pots, all of which were for minimal value since I only hit a good hand one time and that was in the SB against a single player. I chased one hand with 66 after it made a low straight (not the nuts) that was a pure mistake on my part. All of this is within the bounds of a single evening of randomness.

Now, ever since I began to play this level of tight, I have experienced considerable slowness in winning hands. I was curious about what was a reasonable expectation over the course of a few hundred hands.

I figure that of the 5% of the hands that end up okay, I will get killed by the river/turn on 25% of those, resulting in the need for a very small number of hands to pay off all those antes.

So, what I am curious about is some advice for handling all this randomness, and whether or not I am playing too tight or not.

- Lex