Regarding Variance

I'm going through another downswing. I'm perpetually in another downswing...probably 2,000 out of every 10,000 hands I swing pretty hard down.

I've played approximately 2000 hands today, and I'm down approximately four buy-ins.

Things of note in this period:
Twice I was stacked with two pair vs a set (the set being the same denomination as one of my pairs)
Twice I held a set under another set on the flop.
Once I was outdrawn with the nut straight vs a set.

It has gotten to the point where I almost can't ignore geting reraised preflop when I hold KK. Today I held KK ten times and was stacked four times. All of them all-in preflop, one a bad beat and three by AA.
Over the past 50K hands, I've had KK about 220 times and someone else held AA about 12 times that I could find. That's approximately 5.5%. What ever happened to 1 in 74?

On the other hand, I held AA eight times today and was up against KK zero times. In the past 50K hands I found five times when I held AA that an opponent had KK.

Anyway, these streaks are not uncommon. I often have five or six set under set situations in a similar time frame. My question is this:

If you had a day (or 2,000 hands) like this, would you consider it unusual? A bad run? Variance?

I don't fault myself for putting money in the pot with KK or a set or nuts that get outdrawn. But the KK is getting expensive when up against AA. And I keep having retarded streaks like this, so how long can I go about "not faulting myself?" I was stacked for a full stack nine times during the 2000 hands. I stacked someone else a few less times. I'm not always getting the money in with the best of it. With hands I'm supposed to? Yeah, I think. The typical advice is "go broke there, suck it up."

I just don't know if my downswings are 1) typical variance, 2) atypical variance that still isn't my fault, or 3) my fault.

Email Lee Jones and ask him to disable your doomswitch. Lambchop did the same and then won 90k.

Wert's a doomswitch? Hell, if I had known about that before...

Its a bad streak Sejje.

Originally Posted by bigred

Email Lee Jones and ask him to disable your doomswitch.

Can he do this for me too?

Down 4 buy-ins over my last 7k hands. Off the top of my head, AA stacked at least 3 times. 25s limped EP, call off another 5 to my 33, flopped set, turned straight, $240 pot. AA vs KK, K river, gg. Lost the better part of a $220 coin flip post-flop w/ nut flush draw + gutshot + over vs his QQ. ...and lots of other assorted stupidity. Lots of worst possible turn and river cards killing action or provoking a check/fold. 99 vs A7s all-in pre-flop for $80, I lose. Top set of Queens runnered by top pair. Had a nice little run where I had multiple 12+ outers that didn't get there. Meh.

At least I've gone through this crap often enough to know it's just a passing thing and to enjoy my magical turn + river prediction powers until things turn around.

it might help to realize this.

Whenever you bust someone with set over set or AA vs KK, you typically aren't winning any money in the abstract.

All that money just goes to a secret limbo place until the same events happen to you in reverse.

Originally Posted by Fnord

enjoy my magical turn + river prediction powers until things turn around.

Heh. I feel you.

As I keep getting told: All the bad beats where you lose instead of winning (like you _should_ have done) mean that the Karma bank account with your name on it get's another little credit. Sooner or later, You get to make a withdrawal from it and you get paid off.

James

Sejje, on your post you said
"That's approximately 5.5%. What ever happened to 1 in 74? "

Others can correct me if i am wrong but i thought i read somewhere its 1 in 24. so you are seeing what you are supposed to be seeing as 1 in 24 seems about 4%.

man i feel your pain i signed up for interpoker for like 50 bucks trying to clear a bonus and withing a few hours i lost it all..... i have been running really bad, getting rivered, people kept hitting there gutshots.

SO i have to re deposite to try a clear the bonus..... its only 10% cleared

Anayways then back at my main site golden palace i have been running bad as well i had KK the other AA getting rivered by shit. Lost another 50$ there. I only play like 20$nl so iam like 5 buy ins down

Time to play devil's advocate and piss everyone off (again).

If you hit a "downswing" over more than 5k hands.. it's most likely not the cards.

Like if I start to focus on the bad luck I've had over the past days, my god.. constantly facing AA, never getting it myself (like yesterday), or people always folding when I do (like today) and all these horrible suck-outs on runner runner I have faced on big pots.

But then, if I'm really honest.. I actually lose more when I play like shit than when b/c of badbeats. Playing shit hands you shouldn't, crappy calls when you should know you're beat, ignorant bluff attempts, lack of wit to notice opp bluffs.. those weigh a lot more. Because if I'm really honest.. over more than 5k hands (about 25 hours at my pace), there's plenty of idiots to pay off my "ok" hands with crap to compensate for the bad beats.

I know I'm new and I don't know anything and it'll all happen to me, the big downswings, etc.. but as long as there are plenty of donks at the tables you play, bad luck with the cards WILL be offset by superior play over sample sizes like 5k hands.


So what I'm saying is: if you have downswings over thousands of hands instead of over hundreds, and if they have recurring patterns etc.. it's most likely not the cards but a leak, possibly a psychological one, in your game. That's atleast my philisophy when I face these kinds of problems.

(hopefully some people can accept some "tough love" instead of the usual sympathy)

I remember an article by Mike Caro about running bad. He said even when he's running bad he tells everyone at his table he's running really good. Partly so they all think he's going to win, and they expect it, partly so that he keeps a good attitude. I know when I run bad it tends to be because of my attitude. It starts with one bad play, I beat myself up about it, then I'm gone for at least the rest of the night.

Just my personal experience... I don't play online enough to have any statistics to back it up tho.

Originally Posted by jackvance

Time to play devil's advocate and piss everyone off (again).

If you hit a "downswing" over more than 5k hands.. it's most likely not the cards.

That is a ridiculous statement. I play about 5k hands every 2 days. I wish I never hit a 2 day downswing...

Originally Posted by Renton

it might help to realize this.

Whenever you bust someone with set over set or AA vs KK, you typically aren't winning any money in the abstract.

All that money just goes to a secret limbo place until the same events happen to you in reverse.

not true. KK vs AA is foldable, as is set under set in certain situations. It's just another place where the more skillful player will make more money. Places to auto lose money I would concider more to be like TdTc vs 4s4h or 5h6h on a Ts4c8h7h4h board or something like that.

Skillful players will happily lose their stack on lower set versus higher stack. Honestly, skillful players don't make more money because they avoid losing money when they are 2nd best, they make more money because they take down pots w/ air and they win tons of money when they are best.

Agreed (dpe8598). Soupie's post about laying down KK was a good example of a read-influenced monster laydown. Your read must be almost 100% foolproof to justify laying down a set on an innocent-looking flop. How can you be sure you are not laying down to top 2 or a big draw?

I often read statements like "You need a SOLID READ to lay down your set to a suspected overset". What could this "solid read" possibly be?

Don't mean to hijack the thread, but it would be interesting if people could post some hh where they laid down sets confidently.

There are a suprising number of ubertights w/ PFR %'s of 3-4. If I have at least 200 hands of history on someone and their PFR % is around 3, then I am laying down KK to a reraise unless I have implied odds for set hunting. If they are only raising w/ AA, KK, QQ, and AK, then they are probably only reraising w/ AA and KK, and since I've got KK ...

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

That is a ridiculous statement. I play about 5k hands every 2 days. I wish I never hit a 2 day downswing...

I'll quote Dev to explain what I mean:

It starts with one bad play, I beat myself up about it, then I'm gone for at least the rest of the night.

It's more often than not psychological. Ie, you'll lose MORE because the bad beat knocks you off of your game than from the bad beat itself. Like when I had 3 all-ins preflop in 5 days, each time me having KK and each time the opp having AA.. that's 3 buy-ins down. Major downswing. Important to note is however that I lost the same amount (3 buy-ins) from tilting after the last KK vs AA loss. You can't do anything about a bad beat, but if you're really better than your limit and hit long major downswings, I think it's most likely something psychological.

ive gotten so lately whenever i start off a session by dropping a few buyins ill just tighten up alot. i know most of you full-ring nits are already too tight, but this is something that helps me.

Originally Posted by Cocco_Bill

Originally Posted by jackvance

Time to play devil's advocate and piss everyone off (again).

If you hit a "downswing" over more than 5k hands.. it's most likely not the cards.

That is a ridiculous statement. I play about 5k hands every 2 days. I wish I never hit a 2 day downswing...

Jack in all fairness I think this is your lack of experience showing through. 5k hand downswings are common. You just haven't played long enough to experience a purely variance one.

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Jack in all fairness I think this is your lack of experience showing through. 5k hand downswings are common. You just haven't played long enough to experience a purely variance one.

i broke even at $200nl over 20k hands and i think i was playing pretty good

Originally Posted by gabe

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Jack in all fairness I think this is your lack of experience showing through. 5k hand downswings are common. You just haven't played long enough to experience a purely variance one.

i broke even at $200nl over 20k hands and i think i was playing pretty good

So thats why you've been all luckbox lately!?

YES

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Jack in all fairness I think this is your lack of experience showing through. 5k hand downswings are common. You just haven't played long enough to experience a purely variance one.

Ok, I'll give you that.. but 5k is a LOT in statistical terms. If you play with plenty of donks who pay you off way more than you pay them off for good hands, you would need to hit some majorly bad card variance to run bad over 5k, atleast I think so. This is ofcourse from my limited 10NL/20NL experience, so indeed might not translate to higher limits or over really long periods of time.

Originally Posted by jackvance

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Jack in all fairness I think this is your lack of experience showing through. 5k hand downswings are common. You just haven't played long enough to experience a purely variance one.

Ok, I'll give you that.. but 5k is a LOT in statistical terms. If you play with plenty of donks who pay you off way more than you pay them off for good hands, you would need to hit some majorly bad card variance to run bad over 5k, atleast I think so. This is ofcourse from my limited 10NL/20NL experience, so indeed might not translate to higher limits or over really long periods of time.

nah man, 5k is really nothing. once you play alot more you will start to realize this.

Aren't there like 1560 possible hands?

So 5k hands is a sample of how you've played each hand combination about 3 times. 50k would be a much better sample size.

Originally Posted by aleksandr

Aren't there like 1560 possible hands?

So 5k hands is a sample of how you've played each hand combination about 3 times. 50k would be a much better sample size.

im agreeing with this

Ive seen 1k swings twice so far in my 'career' One at 50 and 100nl and one at 5/10 lhe. Both sucked and both were over a substantially bigger number of hands than 5k.
I looked at my game and their was nothing wrong with it, although i have added new 'features' to it since, they would hav had no effect on what i was losing a lot of money with.
Alternativly go play another game for a while.

even at 50k hands you cant prove a definite winrate

Originally Posted by gabe

even at 50k hands you cant prove a definite winrate

i thought you couldnt prove a definite winrate full stop?

Originally Posted by gabe

even at 50k hands you cant prove a definite winrate

I think a winrate that is accurate to +/- 30% is usefull.

Eh... Demi...?

you can prove whether you are beating the game or not but not a winrate

jack wtf are you talking about, saying you can't have a 5k hand downswing???? Are you kidding me?? Thats like one day to some people. You are saying it is impossible to lose in any given day if you are playing good poker. You are making an obsurd statement here.

I've seen charts of very good players have 50k hand break even periods. This is not because they are not winning players, it is due to variance and bad luck, combined with how the hands were played out. After the 50k hands they would continue on at a steady, good win rate. Poker is more luck and variance than you think jack, especially at the higher limits.

Originally Posted by bigboy5540

jack wtf are you talking about, saying you can't have a 5k hand downswing????

The smaller your edge (i.e. true winrate) the easier it will be to have a downswing like this.

I think if you took some of you guys and sat you at a 10NL table where you could sustain a 20BB/100 winrate then a downswing where you actually lost money over 5k hands would be extremely rare. If your winrate is only 10BB/100 then it will be more common.
5BB/100 is proably fairly common.

You could probably get one of the limit folds to tell you the exact probability of one of these downswings given your winrate and sd. They seem pretty brainy.

Originally Posted by bigboy5540

I've seen charts of very good players have 50k hand break even periods. This is not because they are not winning players, it is due to variance and bad luck, combined with how the hands were played out. After the 50k hands they would continue on at a steady, good win rate.

Yeah but not like a recurring pattern where they run -20ptBB instead of a usual 20ptBB or whatever they have.

Poker is more luck and variance than you think jack, especially at the higher limits.

Yeah but I was talking about the lower limits, where plenty of fish/donks pay you off for the few good hands you get even if you are hitting a relative dry of cards.

The situation I'm talking about is if you, say, always hit a "downswing" after 4 hours of play.. and you keep telling yourself "goddamn I hate these downswings!".. well probably it's not the cards here but you just lose focus if you don't take breaks. If you always keep telling yourself "pf, it's a downswing", imo you blindsight yourself for real problems. Especially if your downswings have a recurring pattern, then it's probably not the cards.

If you have the capacity, I think multi-tabling helps a lot of this...you get to see a bunch more hands. Two days ago I had about a 400 hand spell with one AA and zero of the rest of the broadway pairs...but with 6 tables 400 hands goes by in about an hour, then the luckbox turned on and things went fine.

By the way, you don't *have* to have cards to win.

Originally Posted by Setzy

By the way, you don't *have* to have cards to win.

Sure you do. This is a fallacy which makes loads of players at the < 400NL tables lose loads of money. Usually to TAGs like me who have better cards then they do.

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Originally Posted by Setzy

By the way, you don't *have* to have cards to win.

Sure you do. This is a fallacy which makes loads of players at the < 400NL tables lose loads of money. Usually to TAGs like me who have better cards then they do.

Got proof?

JACK LISTEN TOT HE GOOD, EXPERIENCED PLAYERS FOR ONCE DUDE

Originally Posted by Setzy

Originally Posted by Irisheyes

Originally Posted by Setzy

By the way, you don't *have* to have cards to win.

Sure you do. This is a fallacy which makes loads of players at the < 400NL tables lose loads of money. Usually to TAGs like me who have better cards then they do.

Got proof?

Yeah, my good winrates at these tables playing ABC poker for ~80k hands.

Don't get all imaginative against players who don't realise wtf is going on. I know it feels cool but thats about all it does.

By the way, you don't *have* to have cards to win

true at times

Sure you do. This is a fallacy which makes loads of players at the < 400NL tables lose loads of money. Usually to TAGs like me who have better cards then they do.

Not quite. Only the players 'who suck worse than you do' believe this, thats why you are sat there after all isnt it?

Don't get all imaginative against players who don't realise wtf is going on

erm why are we bluffing donks/calling stations?

Yeah but not like a recurring pattern where they run -20ptBB instead of a usual 20ptBB or whatever they have

i have a graph of 30k hands at pokerroom that did nothing but go up 20bbs/100 then down 20/bbs 100 and finished at +40bbs total. Good job the $600 bonus was cleared by then.
5k swings happen all the time, do not be surprised to get one EVEN at 10nl.

Yeah so in the last week I've had nuts (top set aces, aces full) cracked by 1 outters in pots that totaled about 6 buyins@NL200.

Just wanted to get that out there.

oh yeah, and LOL @ 5K hands.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Sure you do. This is a fallacy which makes loads of players at the < 400NL tables lose loads of money. Usually to TAGs like me who have better cards then they do.

Not quite. Only the players 'who suck worse than you do' believe this.

I'm not sure if I understand this but surely the reason they 'suck worse than I do' is because they do believe this? So don't believe it.

Originally Posted by Miffed22001

Don't get all imaginative against players who don't realise wtf is going on

erm why are we bluffing donks/calling stations?

We aren't, hopefully. Thats what I'm trying to convey.


The reason I posted was because there seemed to be a slight suggestion that a person could battle their downswing by playing without *having* the cards.

I think too many people lose too much money by making wild moves without cards in an effort to "play poker" like the big boys. It doesn't work and I don't think suggestions like this help people.