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Running Bad/Good & the many flavours of luck

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RiverMonkey

06-17-2005, 07:32 PM Post subject: Running Bad/Good & the many flavours of luck

#1 (permalink)

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Join Date: Nov 2004

Posts: 446

Ok, I apologize in advance for the length (and the potential pointlessness and randomness) of this post. (It's all about the wpp+ baby. I don't want to be a lowly flush forever you know.)

I've been thinking about the idea of 'running bad'/good & bad luck for a while now, and would like to hear other's point of view on it. I know that this is just variance at work, but would like to hear others' perspective on how long a bad or good run can last, and on how you tend to handle it psychologically.

'Running bad' is used to label a streak of bad cards and/or bad suck-outs. In my direct experience, running bad can last for a session, or two, maybe three at then most, or it might be shorter and only last for hours. However, I've heard people say that it can go on for weeks and months. I've never experienced this myself, and there's a large skeptic in me that thinks these people are just in denial and are using ' bad luck' as an excuse to rationalize their poor results. Anyone care to comment on their direct experience re: the longevity of 'running bad' streaks?

I always like to say that there are just so many flavours of good and bad luck. So, it's not surprising to me that good and bad runs happen. However, this 'clustering' of good or bad luck that we think we are all experiencing is just our brains' pattern recognition capabilities fooling us. There is no pattern, and yet your short-term results clearly indicate there is. That's the seemingly paradoxical reality of poker. How you handle your good and bad luck is what separates the best/good from the average/bad.

Seeing good or bad runs is just our innate tendency to be results oriented, and focus on short-term happenings. Nevertheless, when you've just taken a $500 hit three sessions in a row in $10/20 it sure does feel like a concrete kick in the teeth; a pattern of losses that seems to have no end in sight. It's very hard to avoid letting this affect you. I always try and tell me myself that 'bad runs' happen to everyone equally over the long run, and that I can view it as an opportunity to improve my game by saying 'yes, your luck seems to be off today, but the hallmark of a good player is to still break even or book a small win even when the cards are being cruel'. In other words the ol' minimize your losses and maxmize your wins point of view. The trick is to keep playing the same, solid, EV+ game irrepective of your short-term results. Much easier said than done. I find that it helps to realize that there are just sooo many different ways you can get lucky or unlucky, and its how you handle it psychologically that counts.

The many flavours of good and bad luck and the different ways people let it affect them (just some examples):

o You're getting excellent starting cards, but they just aren't hitting. Your pre-flop raisies are just costing you money (they aren't in an EV-sense, but they are in a result-oriented sense for this playing session). Meanwhile Mr. 'I play any two suited cards' keeps taking down pot after pot, reaping the benefits of the large pots that YOU keep building with your premo cards/pre-flop raises and his #$%$#% stack dwarfs yours that lucky SOB!

o You sit there for hours at the B&M and you only see one or two sets of good starting cards over a 3-hour period. (this could be viewed as good luck too given that you are simply not going to lose money as a result unless youmake a habit of playing bad cards). Your stack erodes simply due to the occasional limp, the rake and your blind payments.

o You flop the nut str8, and lose to a one card flush on the river. Or hit your set and lose to a higher set, or a runner-runner like trips, flush or str8. Shit happens/Suck-outs happen! You go into a mode of 'well they suck on on me, maybe I can do the same to them'.

o You get many good starting hands that hit but you still seem to end up second best again and again. You start playing weak and timidly.

o You finally hit a big hand after playing good solid tight poker for hours, and end up second best yet again. This happens 3 times in one hour. You get frustrated, and loosen up in an attempt to will in pots. You start to over-play your marginal hands.

o You finally hit a big hand after folding for what seems like hours and no one else has any connection to the board whatsoever so you win a tiny pot as a reward for all your patience that doens't even come close to covering all the blind you payed while waiting.

o You get dealt Aces or Kings 5 times in two hours and lose every time on the river. This has cost you lots of money since you were leading the betting/raising the whole way. You get Aces again, and raise from EP and end up winning just the blinds. Two orbits later, you get Kings again in your BB, it gets folded around and you end up having to chop with the SB. See all the different ways you can get unlucky.

o You put yourself into too many marginal situations, and make the wrong decisions too often, but end up getting lucky to win more than your fair share and now you think that you're the shit. The bad luck is that you did win and as a result you've fooled yourself into thinking you're playing well so you keep doing it and the odds finally start catching up to you.

o Your two-over cards plus back-door flush draw type hands keep hitting and you take down big pot after big pot because you were in hands where two or threee others had what they thought were good draws even though they were drawing slim or completely dead. You were mathematically correct to make those flop calls and during this session it was working out for you. In another session these kind of hands just cost you money because you missed again and again. The trick is to realize that you are making the correct EV+'ve play and to not shy away from it because you missed the last 3 times you went for it.

o You've been playing at the B&M for 4 hours and have lost half your buy-in mostly as a result of not hitting cards and/or ending up second best. You raise before the flop with a premium hand, and you flop a big hand, and yet again you end up losing to a two-outer on the river. Two hands later this happens again. You go on tilt and start throwing your chips around out of frustration and impatience instead of taking a step back and saying I just lost two big pots when I was almost a 96% lock to win. I want that guy calling me down with his pocket 7s every time; he will win 4% of the time so tell him nice hand and move on to the next one.

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ChezJ

06-17-2005, 08:13 PM

#2 (permalink)

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ChezJ is an unknown quantity at this point

good summary, good post.

most people i know complain about having "bad luck" when all they're getting is crappy starting hands for hours on end.

but to me, bad luck is catching a great hand like a straight and losing to a better hand. it's not just "suckouts," either. sometimes the flop hits me big but simply hits another guy even bigger.

if i can avoid having this happen to me for an entire session, i consider that very good luck.

because i know that in the long run, i am going to show down the second best hand quite a few times, and that pain is inevitable.

ChezJ

TylerK

06-17-2005, 08:53 PM

#3 (permalink)

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Join Date: Oct 2004

Location: PEANUT BUTTER JELLY TIME

Posts: 1,791

Maybe I'm thick, but I'm not getting the point of your post...

TylerK: its just gambling if i want to worry about money i'll go to work lol

Nehmer

06-17-2005, 08:58 PM

#4 (permalink)

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Location: Decatur, IL

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Quote:

Originally Posted by TylerK

Maybe I'm thick, but I'm not getting the point of your post...

I'm right there with you, but I will say that if he thinks cold runs of cards don't occasionally last much longer than 3-4 sessions, he is dead wrong and will eventually find that out the hard way

RiverMonkey

06-20-2005, 08:01 PM Post subject: Re: Running Bad/Good & the many flavours of luck

#5 (permalink)

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Join Date: Nov 2004

Posts: 446

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiverMonkey

Ok, I apologize in advance for the length (and the potential pointlessness and randomness) of this post. (It's all about the wpp+ baby. I don't want to be a lowly flush forever you know.)

Seriously though .... the point of the post was to get others' input on the longevity of good/bad run streaks they've experienced. I was also hoping that this will help newer players realize just how many different ways there are to get lucky and unlucky in this game; which might allow them to psychologically handle the ups and downs of variance more easily.

I wasn't trying to claim that a cold run can't last longer than 3 or 4 sessions. I've been playing regularly for 3+ years now (mostly B&M) and I've heard many players talk about bad runs that last weeks and months. I haven't experienced this myself, and I can't help but wonder if some of that could be attributed to the cards, but some of it has to also be attributable to not handling the variance as well as one could and simply using bad luck as an excuse for not playing your A-game.

Nehmer

06-20-2005, 08:18 PM Post subject: Re: Running Bad/Good & the many flavours of luck

#6 (permalink)

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Join Date: Oct 2004

Location: Decatur, IL

Posts: 666

Quote:

Originally Posted by RiverMonkey

I wasn't trying to claim that a cold run can't last longer than 3 or 4 sessions. I've been playing regularly for 3+ years now (mostly B&M) and I've heard many players talk about bad runs that last weeks and months. I haven't experienced this myself, and I can't help but wonder if some of that could be attributed to the cards, but some of it has to also be attributable to not handling the variance as well as one could and simply using bad luck as an excuse for not playing your A-game.

Bad runs of cards can most definately last for long stretches of hands. We're talking easily for 10,000+ hands and possibly a LOT more. If you are playing B&M poker, you are probably only seeing 30-40 hands/hour which means that depending on how often you play, these stretches could definately last for weeks/months. Online where you can see 50-60 hands/hour and play multiple tables increasing that to easily 200+ hands/hour the bad runs of cards will go by a lot quicker, so a whole month of cold cards quad tabling and playing fairly often seems like it would be pretty unlikely, but in a bad situation, I could easily see even this happening. I've personally never had anywhere near a whole month of cold cards playing online, but I have had some fairly bad weeks for sure. Of course with the bad runs of cards, you are also bound to have some exceptionally good runs of cards that last equally as long as the bad runs, so it's all good

gutshot

06-20-2005, 08:43 PM

#7 (permalink)

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Join Date: Feb 2004

Location: lemonade was a popular drink and it still is

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I'm in the middle of a bad run right now. I'm having a losing month since Jun 1. I had a nice little swing into the green the first couple days of the month, but that quickly turned around and I have been slowly sliding down since. I'm not down alot, but I've played over 5k hands since the first(I usually dont play 5k hands/month). I'm still grinding and it sucks to watch the bottom line just stagnate when you put in so much effort.

I had a good look at PT stats for the month the other day and everything is within acceptable ranges. I'm just losing huge pots with good hands and winning small pots with monsters.

I really didn't think a swing could last this long either, but I guess I was wrong. I'll just keep playin until it turns around.

-jay

"i think the biggest leak in my game is using 2nd level thinking against players who can't think on the first level." -Renton

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