Stats Post - Sorry

[tonysoldier]

Okay,

So I've held off doing this for a long time, because these types of posts are usually frustrating and pointless. However, I think that this case may be an exception. If not, at least it's just the internet. Enough disclaimer.

I started a thread about 2 months ago about moving beyond 30/60 online. The thread got pretty big, but the general consesus seemed to be to take shots when the game was good, but mostly stay at 30/60.

I had been running extremely well and playing my best, and when I moved up for a couple shots, nothing changed. It was ridiculous I ran my first 10K hands of 50/100 at like 5bb/100 or something stupid like that. I was doing really well in both the party and UB games. By the end of August, I had played about 50K hands this summer, mostly 20/40 and 30/60 but with a fair share of 50/100 - 100/200. I ran at an unbelievable 3.7bb/100 overall. I knew I was getting really lucky, but I was also pretty sure I was a significantly winning player. I think that that confidence really hurt me, I started to get lazy and play formulaically. Not by a lot, but a little. I went on a really bad streak playing the bigger games and dropped like 200bb in 10K hands. Definately nothing to worry about, it happens. I took some time off, went over a bunch of hands, realized I was bluffing a bit too much, playing a little out of my comfort zone preflop and not folding enough post. These weren't huge leaks, but playing in the tougher games they probably took my edge down to the point where a -200bb streak is really really common.

I realized how much harder the bigger games would be, and that my really good luck when I started the game was starting to cause a lot of problems for me. I decided to move back down and play at 30/60 the majority of the time again.

So I did that, and I just can't win. I try to play good, and I think that I'm playing good, but I'm not winning. My confidence is pretty shot, so I'm know I'm not playing great, but I should be beating the soft games I'm in. I'm now going through a 17K hand streak at -1.5bb/100. Over this time I'm a significant loser both at lower and higher limits (for about the same amount).

Now for the stats and, hopefully, an analysis of what's up from some of you guys and girls.

I'm playing about the same preflop, although 0.5% more raises. My W$WSF is the same. My WtSD is 2% higher. My WSD% is down 5% !!!! However, my fold to river bet % is actually 3% higher. My W$ when just called the river is down 6% though. I have been folding on the flop significantly less of the time and folding less on the turn too. My no fold% is virtually identical.

My aggression is lower on the flop, but the same on the turn and river.

My guess is that I've been running quite bad, and missing a lot of flops and having my opponents hit a lot of flops, but at the same time, I've been more money in with my losing hands, trying to push people out, only to fold on the river. I'm not just giving up on the flop enough.

Anyone have a different opinion, a further explanation? Encountered similar negative development in their game? I think that all the talk about aggression on this board and between knowledable players sometimes skirts the fact that one needs to fold good hands quickly enough of the time for that aggression to be effective in having one's opposition fold holdings that they should continue to play. On the other hand there are these mysterious excellent ultra-aggressive players that play lots of hands, go to the sd with like half of them and still show a profit. Man, I'm just confused.

[BoxTree]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm now going through a 17K hand streak at -1.5bb/100.

[/ QUOTE ]

You're in a 255 BB downswing. This is just a bad short-term run. Lots of players will step down a level (maybe check out the 15/30) until they get their confidence back up. It sounds like this could be useful for you. Go win 300 BB at 15/30 and then return to the 30 game.

Yeah I'm going through a nice little 10K BE stretch right now as well. Nothing you can do but play through it. Just make sure that you're playing your best, and try not to let your stats or results affect you negatively.

I ran good for a couple of months at 15/30-30/60 5.5BB/100 over 25k or so hands (i normally 2 table so thats a decent amount of poker for me).

After that I ran bad got worried about my play and moved down where I continued to play bad and run bad. I went from still around 3bb/100 from the bigger games to something like 0.5BB/100 after 20-30k hands at 10/20 6max.

I studied a lot had people look over my hand histories and looked over other peoples hand histories. Obviously I found a few leaks but I was still up and down. You'd have a good day and think finally everything is back to normal and then follow it up again with heavy losses, this went on for a few months.

Slowly I worked my way back, working out what I have been doing wrong. Still not making much but not losing anymore. Not really getting anywhere so I wasted some time playing SNGs and a bit of stud. This helped me to start thinking properly about poker again.

The problem with running good is that you become so overconfident, hey I am crushing these chumps. You start to make too many moves and play a bit too loose thinking you can get away with things. Eventually it becomes your normal play.

Then you run bad and start to get paranoid hey maybe that guy is bluffing me again I'll call him down. Suddenly you are playing a loose style of game and making loose postflop calls taking anything to showdown just so you can win.

You then become weaktight also, hey I'm not betting the turn when they always raise me I'm not going to semibluff because they always call me.

Running good can become a double negative when variance catches up with you. You expect to win and when you go from some godly amount to suddenly losing over a decent amount you go crazy.

My tip would be to move down for a bit, write reminder notes on how you should play certain situations. Make sure you look over these notes fairly regularly.

And lastly dont worry about the money that you should be making. No one likes to take a huge paycut but thats how poker goes.

Its easy to start thinking hey I'm a 50/100 player I should be beating 30/60 but it doesnt work like that. Just move down again until you are beating the game then work your way back up when you gain confidence.

Its taken me 3 months to get back to what I was at before I went on my downswing. But I am thankful I have experienced it and survived I know I will become a much better player with more realistic expectations.

And finally dont worry about how much others are winning and how loose they are playing they will all experience the same thing you did.

I'm in a similar downswing at 30/60, also after taking shots at the bigger games. Its very frustrating.

[LearnedfromTV]

I lurked the first thread and it was very good - I expect this one will be too. My advice comes out of my experience as a tournament player.

When I started seriously playing medium buyin tourneys I did very well for a couple months, several 1K-2K scores and a couple a bit larger. I went through a period soon after that where I busted on the bubble a lot, and on the final table bubble if not on the money bubble. Very very frustrating, and I made a similar post to yours in the MTT forum. I've since gotten back on track with a couple big ones and some steady FT's, but that's not really the point.

We all know that poker results are volatile when compared with expected results. This is standard knowledge. It's tough because the best way to handle this fact is to focus on long-term average results, but what volatility means is running "average" isn't all that common, at the very least you can't count on running average in the next X hands (or tournaments).

It sounds to me like you had your long hot streak and told yourself you weren't that good but were still pretty good. This is probably true. You figure this means you deserve to run "average" for a while, 1.5 BB/100 or whatever. In one sense, this is true. In practice, however, over short runs you are much more likely to run "not average", whether that be hot or cold.

It isn't that you are getting paid back for your hot streak, we all know probability doesn't work that way, it's just that this particular not-average streak happens to be a bad one, just like your earlier streak happened to be a good one.

What I noticed during my streaky tournament results is that the psychological state you are in during each type of streak is what really matters in terms of figuring out what to do to improve your play. When you are winning, you feel invincible and are probably more effectively aggressive than you would be normally. When you are losing, some of what felt like good aggressive plays turn out to be leaks that are getting exploited. The natural tendency to search for leaks when losing is a good thing, partly because you probably play worse when losing, but mostly because you need to search for leaks sometime and people are usually more willing to be self-critical when losing.

That all said, I think the best way for you to approach this is to say:

Running at -1.5 over 17K hands doesn't mean anything compared to that i've run at XX over 100K hands overall (whatever that number is). But, since I happen to be in this rough short term run and it is important to reevaluate my game anyway, I might as well help myself feel better about the short term by looking for things to fix.

I wouldn't suggest you drop a level since you still clearly have the bankroll for 30/60. I think it would be better to work through it at your level than below it. As not much of a limit player, I'll let others comment on the meaning of your stats differences.

Hope this helps.

[Fillamoore]

So far the replies that i have read seem to be right on. As far as the numbers go and the differences in your stats, i can say mabey two things. First, the sample size isn't really big enough to tell whether or not your playing all that differently. What i like to do...since you obviously have PT or some other analyzer, is during the course of a session, have a note pad with you. On EVERY hand that youre not ABSOLUTELY positive about the decisions you made, record that hand number, and go back and analyze it later...every aspect of it. Also, as far as you folding a bit more often on the river, if there has to be a discreptency between previous stats and recent ones, id prefer they were tending to call a bit too much. If you're calling incorrectly its a much smaller mistake than if your folding incorrectly, as im sure you know. Anyways, hope this helps. Good luck.

[catlover]

You wrote:

"My WSD% is down 5% !!!! "

You mean your won dollars at showdown?

If so, this is proof that you are definitely getting unlucky.

That said, you probably also have some leaks in your game. Most people, when they get all that bad luck, generally develop problems with their play. And pre-existing problems tend to get worse.

So go plug 'em [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]. Based on your earlier postings, I know you know how to do this.