Confused about my results.

I've been playing online since mid-July. I've played on nine different sites since then, collecting bonuses. I've played almost exclusively at .25/.50 limit.

At eight of the nine sites I played for only a few weeks--enough time to clear the bonuses and maybe a little more. I stopped playing at each of those sites shortly after clearing the bonuses because I was only a slight winner, and sometimes a slight loser, at each. At one site, the first one I ever signed up at, I've played regularly since mid-July.

My results are confusing. At each of the eight sites that I've played 3-4 weeks at, I am either slightly up or slightly down overall. At the site I've played continuously at, I am a very consistent winner, and am now up over 2000xBB total--about $1,200 total. I have no stats software yet--I've only kept a running total of my results at each site. I've probably played on average about 12-14 hours/week since mid-July.

The site I am a very consistent winner at has a high volume, and in almost all of the online reviews I have seen the competition on the site is rated as tough. Some of the other sites I've played at are rated as much more easy.

So I am basically confused as to how my results can be so dramatically different. There is little to no variation in my play across sites, so I am at least initially inclined to attribute the difference in results to a much-too-small sample from the other eight sites. Yet every time I go back and try one of them for a couple of weeks, I get similar results--tough to win.

So, can someone tell me what is likely to explain this difference in my results?

[ClaytonN]

Well, how big was the hand sample(s)?

[A_K]

Two explanations, in decending order of liklihood: (1) variance. It takes a startlingly large number of hands for your observed winrate to converge with your true winrate. I suspect that this is particuarly true for games like .25/.50, which are typically loose and wild, generating larger variance (but hopefully a higher win rate in the long run) than tighter games. (2) If your "regular" site is tigher than the sites where you have whored bonuses, you are not adjusting your game for the loosness of the other sites (or vice versa). TPTK hads go down in value in multi-way action, for example, while drawing hands go up.

Get poker tracker, it will give you a much better sense of your play, win rate, variance, etc.

[quoteThe site I am a very consistent winner at has a high volume, and in almost all of the online reviews I have seen the competition on the site is rated as tough. Some of the other sites I've played at are rated as much more easy.


[/ QUOTE ]

Perhaps the reviews weren't aimed at .25/.5 players, and the games your are successful at are in fact better games.

your winning at ub right?

[ QUOTE ]
your winning at ub right?

[/ QUOTE ]

I was figuring poker stars. It sounds funny but I win at Poker Stars more than other sites. I think it is the table format is easier for me to follow my opponents. Sounds weird but I think it's true.

[DCWildcat]

I'm thinking stars, ub, and ftp, in descending order (want to place bets?).

Variance is your problem. Tell us how many hands you have at each site, and I'm almost sure that's the answer you'll get.

If it is stars though, you might be beating it because it's rigged.

My conservative estimate (since I have no tracking software yet) for the total number of hands I have played at the site I play at regularly is about 30 thousand.

[ QUOTE ]
I'm thinking stars, ub, and ftp, in descending order (want to place bets?).

Variance is your problem. Tell us how many hands you have at each site, and I'm almost sure that's the answer you'll get.

If it is stars though, you might be beating it because it's rigged.

[/ QUOTE ]

aha its so ub, how much?

ok how about... loser has to make their avatar in to a pikachu

FWIW, I also like the software at the site I've been winning at better than the others. I can't imagine that that has much of anything to do with my results though. It simply seems to me that I get playable hands more frequently at that one particular site. I can sit down for 2-3 hours and 3 out of 4 times I'm getting decent cards and I'm a winner, sometimes a little, sometimes more. The longest drought I have had without a decent winning session at that site is about 5 days, and that's only happened once or twice.

At the other sites I can and have sat for 2-3 hours many times getting maybe a half-dozen good starting hands. It's just always an uphill battle it seems--and with the good cards being so infrequent to be a winner at those sites it seems like I would have to avoid bad beats and suck-outs almost altogether, and that just ain't gonna happen, especially at these limits.