I'm new to NL Tourney's -- is this normal

[magithighs]

I've played mostly limit for the past few years and have a pretty good appreciation for streaks -- good and bad.

Tonight I played in a Pokerstars NL Satelite tourney to get into the WPT tourney on Saturday.

I've played for the past few weeks and have gone down in flames mostly because of dumb stuff, which I understand.

However, tonight I play much more tightly. Play over 70 hands. Not one was a winner. Not one opportunity to bluff, because there will be callers. I finally get top pair on the flop from the BB and go all-in with my short stack T500 at the time. I get out drawn by an AK in the bushes. That's not strange. But not having a legitimate winning hand -- not one in over 70 hands.

Is this normal. Or is it just the random number generator of Pokerstars?

Love to hear your thoughts. I cannot crack these NL tourneys and it's driving me nuts.

Cheers
Magithighs

[Grivan]

Having a streak this small is normal...technically if you play long enough you will hit a streak of 1000 losing hands in a row, or even 10000 losing hands in a row. A streak of 70 losing hands is pretty common.

[M.B.E.]

[ QUOTE ]
However, tonight I play much more tightly. Play over 70 hands. Not one was a winner. Not one opportunity to bluff, because there will be callers. I finally get top pair on the flop from the BB and go all-in with my short stack T500 at the time. I get out drawn by an AK in the bushes. That's not strange. But not having a legitimate winning hand -- not one in over 70 hands.

Is this normal. Or is it just the random number generator of Pokerstars?

[/ QUOTE ]
It happens sometimes. Don't even entertain the thought that the Pokerstars random number generator is out to get you. You probably made a bunch of playing errors, but also just didn't catch good cards when you needed them. Nothing remarkable.

[eastbay]

[ QUOTE ]
I've played mostly limit for the past few years and have a pretty good appreciation for streaks -- good and bad.

Tonight I played in a Pokerstars NL Satelite tourney to get into the WPT tourney on Saturday.

I've played for the past few weeks and have gone down in flames mostly because of dumb stuff, which I understand.

However, tonight I play much more tightly. Play over 70 hands. Not one was a winner. Not one opportunity to bluff, because there will be callers. I finally get top pair on the flop from the BB and go all-in with my short stack T500 at the time. I get out drawn by an AK in the bushes. That's not strange. But not having a legitimate winning hand -- not one in over 70 hands.

Is this normal. Or is it just the random number generator of Pokerstars?

Love to hear your thoughts. I cannot crack these NL tourneys and it's driving me nuts.

Cheers
Magithighs

[/ QUOTE ]

And what is your idea of a "winning hand"?

[magithighs]

I hear ya -- winning hand == you get the pot.

There were absolutely no bluff opportunities. I know this sounds closed minded, but I went over the hand histories and there were 2 hands that did not have a showdown. There was allways a player that would call an all-in. There were three on the table who were happy to put their stacks in with anything -- inside str8 draw, low pair no backdoor flush.

I never had a hand that would showdown. I never had an opportunity to buff -- absolutley a waste of 1.5 hours.

Oh, and BTW, in those 70 hands six 22 to 1 shots hit the river. Four 5 to 1 shots pre-flop drag down pots -- one time a QT suited takes down two AKs.

I just wanted to know if this is "normal". Or are these tournaments a crap-shoot, unless you get into the third hour with a half-decent stack.

I hate wasting time playing for nothing when I could be dragging down some pots in limit.

[Mike Gallo]

Tomorrow will bring another day. Just keep playing solid. Eventually things will balance out.

[magithighs]

I couldn't make playing errors since I rarely played -- I know not playing in hand could also be an error. I looked at the hand histories the day after and still didn't spot any opportunities.

Glad to hear this is not abnormal. I'll try again tonight.

Cheers
Magithighs

[magithighs]

Sorry a streak of losing 1000 hands is just about impossible. Say I'm a horrible idiot with an IQ of 50 -- perhaps 99% chance I will lose a hand -- a string of 1000 hands has the odds of 1 in 100,000 (1-(.99^1000)).

Thanks though for making run the numbers. A string of 70 hands is about 1 in 10,000, assuming I can do better than have a 10% chance of winning each pot if I showed down my hand to the end of every hand.

Assuming I have a half decent skill level, I should be able to boost that percentage up a tad on the hands I choose to enter, so the odds get more astronomical.

So, I can expect this to happen at worst once every 10,000 tourneys.

I'm at it again tonight and will report on my results.

[CrisBrown]

Hi magithighs,

<Thanks though for making run the numbers. A string of 70 hands is about 1 in 10,000, assuming I can do better than have a 10% chance of winning each pot if I showed down my hand to the end of every hand.

Assuming I have a half decent skill level, I should be able to boost that percentage up a tad on the hands I choose to enter, so the odds get more astronomical.>

Actually it's not nearly as astronomical as you suggest. Consider that out of 70 typical hands dealt, if you're a tight player, you're probably only going to get 10-14 playable hands (i.e.: 15-20%). At least half of those will be hands you'd limp or lead at the pot with, but not hands you'd call a raise with. At a loose-aggressive table, you can figure you won't get to play more than 1 or 2 of those, so you're down to 6-8 flops. At a loose-aggressive table, most of those will be multi-way pots, but we'll say you're in on stronger than average cards so you'll win 50% of the pots you play. That means as a tight player you expect to win only 3-4 pots per 70 hands dealt, or about 1-in-20.

So what are the odds of going 70 consecutive hands without winning a pot? Surprisingly high ... p=.95^70 = 0.026 or about 1:40. If you play enough tournaments, it's going to happen....

Sorry,

Cris