heads up/bankroll question

[volumebikes917]

I was down to my last 15 dollars on fulltilt, and i decided to focus exclusively on 4 person, 2 table, winner-take-all heads up sit n gos. I've been practicing perfect bankroll management, only buying in with 5% of my bankroll, and moving up and down stakes when appropriate.

you can just look me up on sharkscope. (i cant post the actual link cause i don't have ten posts, but its "sharkscope" with a "www" before it and a "com" after it) search my username in the "search databases" part in the upper left corner (username is "valleygirl24")to see the graph that tracks my profits. click on the graph to enlarge it. if you click the star next to my name it tells you i was ranked #1 on the leaderboards for 2$stakes heads up total profit and 2$ stakes heasds up average profit. i searched the other people at the top of this list, they do extremely well in the thousands of games theyve played.

if you don't feel like going to sharkscope, this is what happened. i turned my 15 into 100 really quickly, and struggled there for a while, a few times having enough to drop back down to 2 dollar stakes. then i struggled at the 5 dollar stakes for a while, then won about 250 in one night, leaving me at the 10 dollar stakes. struggled there for barely any time at all, and had another big day and shot up to the 20$ stakes. then last night i was up to 780, almost enough to do 40 dollar buyins, and i'm on a 16 game losing streak, 320 dollar losing streak. the 3rd 16 game losing streak i've had in my 800 games.

so my question is, is there any chance that luck/variation is the only reason i made $15 into the $780 with perfect bankrolling? it doesn't seem like that's possible for the 800+ games i've played. that seems too large a sample to be attributed to luck

- sorry if this is in the wrong forum, seems like it applies to the variation specific to heads up play.

[pocketfours]

I think it's great that a newbie asks if he was winning only because of luck/variation. Not many players would ever think it was luck.

And the answer, of course, is that it absolutely could have been luck. Even the very best on the Internet have had 2000 tourney downswings and the very worst have had 500 tourney huge upswings. You are probably somewhere in between so a 200 tourney upswing is nothing very remarkable. Don't move up just because you can.

[IowaSkinsFan]

If this is any encouragement, this sounds like my BR story, and I now have made over 100k.

[volumebikes917]

I think it's great that a newbie asks if he was winning only because of luck/variation. Not many players would ever think it was luck.

And the answer, of course, is that it absolutely could have been luck. Even the very best on the Internet have had 2000 tourney downswings and the very worst have had 500 tourney huge upswings. You are probably somewhere in between so a 200 tourney upswing is nothing very remarkable. Don't move up just because you can.

don't move up just because i can? what exactly do you mean? it seems like if i'm on a good luck streak, i should move up when appropriate, which allows me to maximize the profits of my good luck streaks... and as long as i'm moving down each time it's appropriate, it will minimize my losses when i'm running bad. I don't mean this in a defensive way at all, just wondering what you think i should be doing differently.
i'm not really a newbie, i used to play a lot of ring games. i'm just relatively new to heads up, and i don't quite know the variations and fluctuations to expect.

[pocketfours]

I think it's great that a newbie asks if he was winning only because of luck/variation. Not many players would ever think it was luck.

And the answer, of course, is that it absolutely could have been luck. Even the very best on the Internet have had 2000 tourney downswings and the very worst have had 500 tourney huge upswings. You are probably somewhere in between so a 200 tourney upswing is nothing very remarkable. Don't move up just because you can.

don't move up just because i can? what exactly do you mean? it seems like if i'm on a good luck streak, i should move up when appropriate, which allows me to maximize the profits of my good luck streaks... and as long as i'm moving down each time it's appropriate, it will minimize my losses when i'm running bad. I don't mean this in a defensive way at all, just wondering what you think i should be doing differently.
i'm not really a newbie, i used to play a lot of ring games. i'm just relatively new to heads up, and i don't quite know the variations and fluctuations to expect.

Welcome to the forum. You're a newbie here no matter how long you have played. Also trust me when I tell you that no really experienced player would ask the question you just asked.

Streaks only exist in your head. Poker is not about luck, unless you want it to be. What I'm saying is basically that you should be more conservative with your bankroll management.

You should stay at every level long enough to be convinced that you can beat it in the long run. Since you don't know if you were beating the games or just being lucky it tells me that you shouldn't move up so fast. But don't take my advice for it, just gamboooool if that's what you want, but poker at its finest isn't about gambling at all.

Please introduce yourself in the Beginners Circle.

[IowaSkinsFan]

I agree with p4's. I know you're new to this forum. I have been playing for 4 years and I assume p4's has been playing for pretty long as well. Every day, a month after i started playing, I thought I was "good." The truth is that not until 3 years ago was I remotely decent (I played 200 nl) and not until about 4 months ago would i consider myself good. Try to keep a humble demeanor about yourself, always try to learn, and set some structure to your stakes played and BR management.

I'd probably go ahead and start playing $25 nl cash games.

[grinderjr]

One factor to consider whenever you think you are gambling, is the opp's chipstack size. When I started out playing I would gamble with AJ, A10, sometimes if the opp is pushing then his chipstack should be the ultimate factor, not the hand strength itself. This should make luck even less of a factor.

[sauce123]

i still play so bad so often

[riverturnflop]

Everyone plays bad at times. You gotta remain humble if you want to be the best.

[Jamjoe]

I dont know what your %ITM is lets assume its TRUE value is 57% giving you a ROI of 8.57% (5% vig on SNGs)

Over 800 games:
0.2% Chance you'll end up down over 800 games
38.2% Chance you're biggest drop is 16BuyIns or more
10% Chance of a 24 BuyIns or more drop
9% Chance of 9 OTMs in a row or more

Interestingly if your TRUELY a break-even player theres a 12.8% Chance you finish 800 games with a ROI of 5% or more

Mess around with a ROI simulator and have a look

- EDIT this is for straight up 2players SNGs

[loktakwah]

I'm pretty sure luck is more of a factor at the 4 man HUSNG tourneys than the 2 man, since the money is spread out over 4 people rather than 2. Just picture an extreme example, imagine the variance in a 128 man husng tourney.

So I think your results would more likely be skill if you were playing the 2 man's. You could also play them on a smaller bankroll.