On a 180 BB downswing, is the following analysis correct?

[GrekeHaus]

I've been playing online for a while now, and have recently made the jump to the $10/20 game on Party. For my first 11,000 hands, I was absolutely killing the game at over a 3 BB/100 clip. I don't doubt that this was actually higher than my expected win rate, but since then, I've completely tanked and am on the biggest downswing of my career. As a good poker player, once the downswing started, I took a look at my play and considered the fact that I might not be playing well. However, I feel like I've been playing quite well, so I decided to look at the numbers to see if I could find anything. Just for reference, here are my $10/20 numbers from before my downswing:


BB/100: 3.21
Total Hands 11,311
VP$IP: 16.08
Went To Showdown: 31.45
Won $ At Showdown: 54.85
Win %: 7.93

Here are my numbers during the downswing:


BB/100: -2.10
Total Hands 8,645
VP$IP: 14.71
Went To Showdown: 31.22
Won $ At Showdown: 52.48
Win %: 6.78

By contrast, here are my numbers from when I was playing $3/6 (I only have a limited number of $5/10 hands in my DB):

BB/100: 2.35
Total Hands 35,410
VP$IP: 14.49
Went To Showdown: 30.17
Won $ At Showdown: 55.55
Win %: 7.63

For my analysis, I'm going to basically ignore the $10/20 numbers from before my downswing, since there aren't all that many hands and just compare with $3/6.

The one thing that really jumped out at me when looking at the numbers was how low my winning percentage has been during the downswing. I've condisered several things:

1) I could be playing too tight

I sort of threw this one out of the window right away when I looked at it. Both my VP$IP and WtSD numbers are actually higher than they were at $3/6, so I'm playing more hands and going to the river more, while winning less.

2) The Players around me are calling down more

This also doesn't make much sense, since the players at $10/20 are generally tighter. If I'm playing more hands here, I'd expect my actual win percentage to be higher, since I won't be getting sucked out on by terrible draws nearly as much. I also doubt I'm getting called down my more than one person regularly, which could also lower this number.

3) Bad Luck

I can't really think of any other reasons that my win % would be so low, so I've decided that it's quite likely that I'm just experiencing a terrible run of cards.


With this in mind, I assumed that all other things being equal, playing the same number of hands and going to showdown about the same ammount, I should win the same percentage of hands.

Thus, the difference between my actual winning percentage and my "expected" winning percentage (I'm just assuming here that my $3/6 win % is more or less accurate) is about 0.85%. Over 8,645 hands, this corresponds to about 73 hands which I nomrally would win that I've lost over this stretch. If we assume an average pot size of 5 BB (an underestimate since I hardly ever play in a game where the average pot <$100), this corresponds to about 365 BB that I would normally win during this time that I didn't win. Had I won these hands, I would have been +185 BB over this span rather than -180, which corresponds to about a 2.12 BB/100 win rate.

Even if I'm slightly off about my true win %, it seems like I would normally be a strong winning player had I won these extra hands. So, I have a few questions about this analysis.

<ul type="square">[*]Is there any other reason that I've neglected that could cause my win % to be so low over this span?[*]What other numbers are useful to look at in assessing your play over a downswing?[*]Is my logic in assuming that my win % should be higher flawed in any way? (I'm not concerned so much with my guess of 7.63% being accurate, but more of the general principle I'm using)[*]Based on the information presented here, would you say that I'm a strong winning player (2 BB/100 or so) at this level? I'm still averaging 0.91 BB/100 over almost 20,000 total hands now.[/list]

[pokerjo22]

Check out the number of AAs, KKs and QQs you've been dealt in that time.

You should also consider you're just playing against better players, so they may be calling you down LESS and not giving you action.

[Brian]

Insufficient sample size.

-Brian

[A_C_Slater]

[ QUOTE ]
Check out the number of AAs, KKs and QQs you've been dealt in that time.

You should also consider you're just playing against better players, so they may be calling you down LESS and not giving you action.

[/ QUOTE ]

I don't think that getting dealt AA,KK,or QQ less is what causes downswings greater than +150BB. I think it's from whiffing on the flop over and over and over again. And making second best hands continously.

Regarding your avatar: How can anyone consider a picture of a cute lil' poker playing gal like yourself to be gay? Clarkmeister is gay. Don't listen to him.

[The-Matador]

[ QUOTE ]
Insufficient sample size.

-Brian

[/ QUOTE ]

That is such total BS. He has more than enough hands to analyze his play.

I get so frustrated when people constantly beat the "insufficient sample size" drum when they have nothing to say. It's garbage.

[emonrad87]

Matador - I'm not flaming you this time.

To show how sample size needs to be HUGE to accurately calculate win rate, Homer made this post:

"How many hands do I need...." By Homer


It's truly eye-opening.

[emonrad87]

With the move to a higher limit, this is probably a combination of three factors. First off, you are most certainly facing, on average, better opponents who will not pay off as much as those at 3/6 did. Secondly, you are probably just running bad. Finally, because of the downswing combined with the jump in levels, you are probably not playing your best poker.

Keep in mind that overall you are still positive at 10/20. Also note that your downswing is much shorter than your upswing (in terms of # of hands). If it's messing your play up, drop down and get your confidence back. You could drop to just 5/10 if you wanted.

[Brian]

Don't feed the trolls. [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

[EDIT]: Over the course of almost 20,000 hands, the guy is up $3,630, or approximately 180 big bets. Not only is 20,000 hands an extremely tiny sample size in which almost anything can happen, but also he's actually up. He needs to put some more hours in and come back if he's still having a problem at 200,000 hands.

-Brian

[kendal14]

While I agree with Homer's analysis and really found it useful... I am going to be siding with The-Matador (aka various other people) on this one (excuse me while I put my flame suit on).

Too many posts are the generic "sample size is too small". For example, in this reply there is no mention of which sample he is talking about. Okay, we can infer from reading comprehension that he may be talking about the 8k hands during the downswing... but what useful information is being given by "sample size is not big enough".

I know that in all online communities the veteren and long time posters get tired of answering the same quesitons and "use the Search noob" is a pre-determined phrase on their keyboards..., and I think in many situations this reponse is sufficient or required. Specifically when the OP asks a generic "Help me find the answer to generic question XXX". However, in this case it is obvious that the OP has put some tought and work into analyzing his statistics and is looking for 3rd party insight to his thoughts. Reading between the lines a little tells any reader that it is obvious that the reader is not looking for long-term win rate judgement, but more comments on how he is analyzing his own data and ideas on other things he can do to improve his analysis.

To the OP:
I would take a look at how your big hands have held up (AA, etc.). How many times have you been called on the river during both your up/downswing. Thinking players that have seen you might be less willing to pay off on the bigger streets after having some information on your aggression factors on each street. Learning when/whom to try to induce bluffs on the bigger streets is a new skill that I think can be added in the short handed game (I am hoping at least... because i just started dabbling in the 6-max and know for a fact I have no idea how to do this correctly).

[A_C_Slater]

You could look at it as winning 1BB/100 over 20000 hands?

Or is that just unacceptable to you?