Well yeah, if you have a stop loss then you won't see those big losing sessions.

Go to your notes, find the worst 4 consecutive losses, imagine you played them as one long session, and presto!, you now have a -100BB session.

On the topic of the extent of a bad session, does drop vs rake have any impact upon the variance one might see in a session?

In a dropped game, there is a lot marginal stuff -- especially the laggier end of late position -- that is just too prohibitive. So does the tightening of one's positional ranges, necessitated by the drop, mitigate of the variance one would otherwise see with wider ranges in a raked game? Thoughts?

In a dropped game, I really want big multi-way pots because the drop just cripples HU and 3-way pots, where the drop will minimize how much I win with raw agressions but I'm more likely to get punished if the hand goes to showdown. If I lose a BB to drop/tip, I want at least 40% equity PF before raising the blinds on the button, since my raise is only going to net 3 SBs if both blinds fold the flop, where it will cost me a third SB to force that fold.

Keep in mind that if the blinds fold you win .75BB right away. In any case, a game with 1BB drop is completely unbeatable so the swings should be the least of your concerns.

Both drop and rake only affect the pots you win and have no effect on the puts you lose. This trends to narrow the spread of your results meaning lower variance.

Drop lowers variance more than rake does because it takes money out of more pots.

Thanks for all of the info on GVR everyone. Looks like I'll have my pick of 1/2 NL games! They also have a $40 tourney if I feel like high rolling. Meh - I'll probably have one night where I can make it to the strip.

If anyone is going to be there in early August shoot me a PM.

-hf

Finally a session where things work out like they should. Played less than three hours and won ~30 BBs. Big hands held up, draws came in and everything was right with the world. After 2 big losing sessions and two long breakeven sessions, I must say it felt good.

I was there early in the morning and the biggest game was 8/16. When they opened the 20/40, it was hilarious to see the two biggest fish at the table and two meh regs join. That game must have been great - too bad I couldn't stay.

-hf

In other news, Bubblemint's first big tournament, a $10k guaranteed on Monday, appears to have been a big success. They got more than enough entries to negate the guarantee, and people have asked about the next one.

We were there just at start time. 120 were registered then, with a line. I hear they had nearly 150. nh mint. If you don't know him, stop by the Riv and say hey -- he's a really nice guy.

Why dintcha play it?

Nothing tilts me more than waiting to buy into a tournament. Other than maybe tournaments.

My buddy wanted to get money back from a tournament more than anything. i.e. He didn't care about profit as long as he got something back. The tournament only paid 3 places, like $5k, $3.5k, $2k. He had been playing 25-40 player tournaments that paid like 3-5 spots, so playing a 120+ man MTT paying 3 wasn't what he was looking for. Me, I think playing a donkament like that is only slightly preferable to (insert horrible happening here).

I was going to catch the bus to Bellagio as soon as cards were in the air. The 20/40 was the only game where I had won any money, so I was going back to it. Instead, we went back to Golden Nugget and I got to play live PLO/8, which was good. If you want to see how bad I play (thus me in them made the games good), hit up the mid-stakes LC thread. Being pretty bad at PLO/8 is way more fun than being slightly bad at NL, imho.

Bubblemint's tournament? I think it ended up paying 17 or 18.

We Must! we must! Dance dance in the hot summer nights rains of LV!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BdY60y_RZpw

I assumed the steep bubble would lead to a big chop. Hard to promise your buddy that. Posted on the board was only paying 3 places. If he thought it would pay 17, my buddy would have stayed and I'd have gone back to the Bellagio 20/40.

So today during prosecutor training, we watch the opening clip from Rounders where Matt Damon goes busto against Teddy KGB with the second nuts. It's supposed to be some ridiculous allegory for how we're not supposed to go all in on a case or something, but that's not really the point.

Anyway, this sparks a conversation between three coworkers about poker, and their bad beat stories playing games like 40NL and 100NL at Commerce. One of them mentions PLO, and sort of without thinking I mention it's a crazy game and I have no idea how to play it. So of course one of them starts asking me what I play.

"Uh... I play limit."
"Oh yeah? At Commerce?"
"Yeah."
"What... 4/8? 3/6? 2/4?" (Clearly they think so much of me that they start at 4/8 and move down from there)
"Uh..."
"What? What do you play, SadDonkey?"
"I don't want to sound like a degen gambler..."
"Just tell us!"
"I play 20/40 at the Commerce, mostly."
Silence for a few beats.
"Wow, you are a degenerate gambler."

Conversation promptly ends.

Anyone else have this problem? When someone is a serious basketball player, you can talk to them about basketball, how to improve, etc. When someone is a serious photographer, you can always ask them about cameras, technique, photos, etc. But when you're a serious poker player (and serious is stretching things since I play once a week max), the highly recreational players never want to talk to you and just sort of let things drop.