Diminishing earnings over time

I've been playing online for approximately 9 months, butI do my homework and work at it, so I am actually showing a slight profit, about $12/hour in 2/4 and 3/6 ring games. What I have noticed is that I am much more profitable in the first 2-3 moonths on a site, then begin to take a ton of bad beats, usually in the larger pots. This has happened on Empire (two separate runs)and Full Tilt. I was $650 up on Empire for July-Sept, and then dropped to $150 in the first week of Oct, everything that could go wrong did. I moved to Bodog, and have been winning consistantly since. Am I just going through slumps or is it possible that somehow the sites recognize that I haven't made a deposit for a while, and target me? I understand I am playing low-limit and find it hard to believe that the sites really care about my measley cash flow, but I just wonder if others have noticed this trend in their play?

[teddyFBI]

Welcome to the forums.

Do a search for "cash out curse".

Then come back here and explain to us what you've learned.

Hey Teddy, thanks for the reply. I tried to search for "cash out curse" but haven't found anything pertaining to my question, although there is some interesting stuff in that search result. Please try to help me understand the situation I've recognized.

[rmarotti]

[ QUOTE ]
Hey Teddy, thanks for the reply. I tried to search for "cash out curse" but haven't found anything pertaining to my question, although there is some interesting stuff in that search result. Please try to help me understand the situation I've recognized.

[/ QUOTE ]

There is no situation. You are superstitious and/or tend to play worse as time goes on.

[SlyGuy]

You have recognized that you can't accept the fact your play has gotten worse or that sometimes in poker the cards don't work out in your favour, or the Poker Jesus has decided you don't need to win anymore.

That's what I expected. I can live with that. Just gotta practice more. Thanks all for the replies.

[excession]

YES IT's ALL RiGGED I TEEL YA - GET OUT now etc....

sigh...

[phish]

There is a statistical process at work here.

Take a group of newbie poker players. Some will run well at first, and some will not. Those who don't usually just disappear and may not return to poker. Those who run well love it and think they're better than they are. Maybe they cash out some money. But eventually, they'll run bad and start question the integrity of the game, etc. You happen to fall in the second category.

Which is not to say that you're not good. But all newbie players are only marginally good. Your edge is probably small and running below average can make you a loser. When you are truly good, you can then run below average for a while and still win, just not as much as when running well.

[FlFishOn]

There is no experiment that I can practically execute to test a site for the cheat you describe. It's one of the few that would, for all practical purposes, be completely undetecable.

It strikes me that any site choosing to gift new or long lost players with superior cards on a temporary basis would profit handsomely from it at near zero risk. I hate the idea that such software cheats are available since I'm sure there are many in the online poker industry anxious to use same.

[mtgordon]

How in the world is this untestable? All you need is the stats from when people started and compare them to the stats later. I'm not talking about how well they did but how the cards fell.