Boy this game is fun when the cards work WITH you!

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]
Exactly. If you're playing games with 5-6 preflop callers and 3+ players at the showdown, playing tight agressive with just Group 1 hands will induce some more sizeable swings.

Throw some drawing hands into the mix: suited connectors, A-x suited, middle and low wired pairs (in late positions).


[/ QUOTE ]

Adding drawing hands in these games, while profitable, will increase your swings, not decrease them

[ QUOTE ]
There was someone who mentioned a 13k hand month that was a "bad streak." I'm sorry, the law of averages completely defies 13k hands being one long bad streak.


[/ QUOTE ]

This is absolutely, completely, 100% false.

[Chazbot2000]

To your first point, if you're playing all the hands you should be playing instead of just playing premium hands agressively against a lot of calling stations, I'm pretty sure this reduces your bankroll volatility per 100 hands. After all you're in more hands and they're all +EV. Thus, the odds that all of the hands you play per 100 are losers decreases.

To your second point, back it up with some facts or logic.

Here, let me help you out: Good players for their limit can average 2 BB/100 hands. So the "true mean" should be $.08 per hand (playing $2/$4). What's the probability that your true mean is $.08 when your observed mean is $0 or negative over 13,000 observations?

[Fitz]

I recently went through a horrendous stretch it consisted of ~ 21,000 hands over a six week period; I dropped over 300 bb's. Fortunately, my bankroll is sufficent to withstand a beating like that. More importantly, it forced me to take a serious look at what I was doing. I discovered:

1. I was tilting far more than usual.
2. I was not being patient enough and I was trying for force wins with sub-standard hands.
3. I was playing sessions that were much too long.
4. I had begun to chase hands I shouldn't thinking more of possibility than probability.
5. I was bluffing too much and at the wrong times.

I took some time away from the game, and I began to reread HPFAP and TOP. I have made a nice comeback, although it has been a little slow, and I'm within 50 bb's of my all time bankroll high again. I don't enjoy the downturns any more than the next guy, but it sometimes takes this kind of ugliness to force us to take a critcal look at what we are doing.

Good luck,

Fitz

[PokerNoob]

I too had a horrible May. Suckout after suckout begat "too-tricky-for-my-own-good" play, weak/tight play, overaggressive play, you name it. I did two things that helped me. The first was in my style of play. I just went back to basic small stakes a-b-c poker. I tightened up a little, particularly in EP. Its hard to detect, but you start thinking "I can outplay these yokels postflop" and maybe you start making some EP limps you shouldn't and calling some raises preflop you shouldn't. I hit bottom about a week ago when in the span of about 50 hands I lost set over set, boat over boat and flush over flush, in addition to having premium pockets cracked by utter dreck calling raises. The second thing I did was to play other sites, which in retrospect I should have done a lot more of. I was getting killed at Party, but won at Pokerclub, the crypto skins and the prima skins. Because I was trying to make up my losses at Party, I kept playing there. I don't know what it is, but somehow the different sites play different. I think sometimes when you're game is not working at one site, it plays well at others.

[pudley4]

[ QUOTE ]

To your second point, back it up with some facts or logic.

Here, let me help you out: Good players for their limit can average 2 BB/100 hands. So the "true mean" should be $.08 per hand (playing $2/$4). What's the probability that your true mean is $.08 when your observed mean is $0 or negative over 13,000 observations?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you're pretty condescending, especially considering you're wrong.

Here, let me help you out. First of all, to answer your question, we also need to know the standard deviation for this winning player, since this dramatically changes the answer. We'll use 8 (absurdly low), 14 (reasonable for a good player), 18 (reasonable for an average player), and 25 (more aggressive player)

Second, we'll use the formula Homer provided here. This gives us the probability that a player with a specific win rate and SD is behind after a certain number of hands. Using your given win rate of 2BB/100 hands, using 13000 hands for the total number of hands played (equal to 130 100hand "groups" to match up with the win rate measurement), and using 8, 14, 18, and 25 as the SD, we get the following:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
SD probability of being behind after 130 "groups"
8 .002
14 .05
18 .10
25 .18
</pre><hr />

Notice this player has a 5% chance of being behind with a SD of 14 (good player), and a 10% chance of being behind with a SD of 18 (average player).

Next.

[JDErickson]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]

To your second point, back it up with some facts or logic.

Here, let me help you out: Good players for their limit can average 2 BB/100 hands. So the "true mean" should be $.08 per hand (playing $2/$4). What's the probability that your true mean is $.08 when your observed mean is $0 or negative over 13,000 observations?

[/ QUOTE ]

Wow, you're pretty condescending, especially considering you're wrong.

Here, let me help you out. First of all, to answer your question, we also need to know the standard deviation for this winning player, since this dramatically changes the answer. We'll use 8 (absurdly low), 14 (reasonable for a good player), 18 (reasonable for an average player), and 25 (more aggressive player)

Second, we'll use the formula Homer provided here. This gives us the probability that a player with a specific win rate and SD is behind after a certain number of hands. Using your given win rate of 2BB/100 hands, using 13000 hands for the total number of hands played (equal to 130 100hand "groups" to match up with the win rate measurement), and using 8, 14, 18, and 25 as the SD, we get the following:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
SD probability of being behind after 130 "groups"
8 .002
14 .05
18 .10
25 .18
</pre><hr />

Notice this player has a 5% chance of being behind with a SD of 14 (good player), and a 10% chance of being behind with a SD of 18 (average player).

Next.

[/ QUOTE ]

I am the 13k hand "bad streaker" My SD for May was around 15

[ QUOTE ]
There was someone who mentioned a 13k hand month that was a "bad streak." I'm sorry, the law of averages completely defies 13k hands being one long bad streak.



[/ QUOTE ]

Not sure if this matters but during my "bad steak" I ended up about $30. So it wasn't a negative streak but it wasn't up to the standard 2 BB/100 hands.

Currently in June I am running at 2.6 BB/100 hands. Stats look almost identical to May except for win rate.

Jim

[arkady]

Pudley,

Great post.

I am interested that u described 14 SD as a good player and 18 SD as an average player.

Are you basically suggesting the lower the SD the better the player? Doesnt SD depend on many factors, including most importantly opposition? Just curious.

As far as streaks go, I had a 15k break even streak and found many people in the same boat in May so listening to Chazbot spew his garbage makes me laugh, considering he refuses to back up any of his facts with...probably because he cant.

anyway, thanks again pud.

[pudley4]

You're right - "good" and "average" are probably the wrong words to use to describe these different players.

An expert player does probably have a lower SD than someone less skilled (in the same game), due in part to his hand-reading ability. Of course, this also probably translates into a higher win rate too.