MODS: I wanted to get the STT input specifically, but if this is in the wrong forum, just delete...

I know that there are always posts about variance and how bad people have run. Hopefully this post will be different since I've got the volume and the math behind me to make it a little more interesting. I'd like some input as I'm totally lost on what to do.

I wrote a program that goes through every hand history and grabs all the preflop all-ins that I'm involved in. It doesn't factor in 3-way all-ins since that's too complicated and obscure for me. So if I have KK and villain has AKs, I'm a 87.86% favorite. If I win that hand, then my program says I was 12.14% lucky. Basically, I should only win 87.86% of the time, but I actually won 100% of the time, so therefore 12.14% lucky. If I had lost, I would've been 87.86% unlucky.

So anyways, after 81,000 all-in hands, I'm about -21,000% unlucky. Just to put that into layman's terms... If I win my 72o vs. villain's AKo 312 times in a row, then my luck would be back to even.

Now if you add in ICM and weight each hand to see the actual dollar amount of luck vs. unluck, it gets much worse: for my $55 tourneys, I'm +$813 lucky. $105s = -$19,148 unlucky. $210s = -$5,400 unlucky. $315s = -$6,123 unlucky. $525s = -$28,792 unlucky. $1ks = -$13,550 unlucky. $2ks = -$8,749 unlucky.

Juk wrote a program exactly like mine to measure these stats (there's a great post about it in the software forum) and I downloaded it and ran it against my program, and it produced identical results. That, plus I've tested my program for many months, makes me believe that there is not a flaw in the programs.

My problem is that I play online poker for a living. I know that variance is part of poker and I've had my upswings along with downswings, just like everyone else. My play on PokerStars is abnormally unlucky though. It is measurably unlucky. Should I put on the blinders and just keep playing and relegate myself to losing $10,000/month due to luck? This data set is about 75,000 SNG's (yes, that's not a typo). At what point do you have to admit that something is not right and you should move on? I'm a SNEx2, so I have alot invested with Stars. Should I throw that all away and start playing somewhere else?

I think there are 4 possible reasons why my numbers are so poor:
1) Mine and Juk's programs are wrong (unlikely)
2) Someone has hacked Stars and is fixing the cards/games (unlikely)
3) Stars is deliberately screwing the sharks and redistributing to the fish (unlikely)
4) I'm on the worst 75,000 game stretch of all time (unlikely)

So what would you do if you were in my shoes? Why do you think my numbers are so bad? Note that this has NOTHING to do with my playing style nor skill level (or lack thereof :-). This data is strictly preflop all-ins and simply a mathematical computation.

Any thoughts would be greatly appreciated!!!
-BK

i recall a bunch of supernova cash game players (p0kerb0y1 comes to mind) running their massive db's through a similar software and getting similarly disturbing results. it seemed to some that the regulars in the game were getting the business end of variance for huge sample sizes and the lucky recipients were the casual/recreational players. there was quite a debate about the idea of "redistributing wealth" to the fishies.

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/28...thread-264915/

A thread titled: Official Poker Site Data Analysis and Discussion Thread

in the internet gambling forum

MicroBob has a theory why your program is expected to give negative luck results for certain players.

To have played that many STT's and at those stakes I'm guessing you must still be a winning player?

I could be wrong, but if not, just look at your luck results as a compliment to your game in that despite the fact that you've had so much bad luck you're game is still good enough to grind out a profit?

Also I may be wrong here, because I don't really get Maths, but if you say you've -21000% in luck over 81000 hands doesn't that mean that you're losing 0.25% every time you go all in. So basically in 50/50's you're running at 49.875/50.125? Which isn't too bad?

If this is part of your program, please revise.

Well actually your model is wrong.

You are simplifying this little too much.

Your main profit comes form folding, not from pushing.

Here is a hand that should explain it:

You have 100t and are dealt 72o and your HU opponent has 100t and AA.
He raises(push, doesn't matter) you fold.
He should be winning 90% of your chips on average but is not.
So in your model you are gaining lot of "luck", but you are not counting this, you only count when you call.

So I believe that you folded 72o to AKs more than 312 times, so your "luck" should be ok.

GL and HF

nice first post! missing the point much? getting ****ed for 75k sngs is not something to be excited about.

it is completely valid to discuss the results vs. expectation of ONLY all-in hands and to anticipate that results will approach expectation in them as n approaches infinity. in other words, an analysis of only all-in scenarios is valid.

Bumpking,

Sorry, I forget your stars name. Are you dna?

His calculator only evaluates preflop all-in EV. In other words, although his calculator doesn't measure total luck, it does measure all-in luck, of which he seems to be running very much below expectation.

His calculator wouldn't count your example, then, of an opponent pushing AA and him "gaining a lot of luck" by folding.

If both his and Juk's program are wrong, then it is either proof that Stars is rigged or that the programs aren't correct in some way or possibly some other explanation that I haven't thought of.

Perhaps though he isn't running as bad as he thinks: if he is only running below expectation of ~4 buy-ins at the 2ks, and he somehow uses this in an overall evaluation which includes, say, only $50s, then the results will look very skewed.

75000 games total is a lot. But if you run really bad at the nosebleed buy-ins (where even the best players have minimal edges) then it can definitely skew your results in a very "Stars is rigged" way.

Ok, done a few more calculations to add to my previous post:

From your figures you say you are -$80949 in luck? Yet you've played 75,000 STT's... so you lose... just over $1 per game.

Whilst that would be pretty horrific if you were playing $11 games it's not so bad when you consider the stakes you're playing. This would be better with a more accurate estimation of the number of STT's you've played at each stake but if you take the average of the stakes you've played then it comes out at about $601 per buyin.

75,000 games at $601 a piece is around $45,000,000 in buyins that you have paid, of which luck has cost you $80,949 or around 0.18%...

Am I missing the point here or does the size of the sample in fact prove that this is not so bad?

I think your program has at least one error; it doesn't count the hands that were folded pre flop. It's just a tiny detail and I'm not saying that it totally explains your results, but when dealing with this large samples it might start to matter.

I think Juk has made a mod to his program that filters out only the HU hands. HU you have always all the cards in play so you could perhaps try to run that.

I hope I made sense, I'm in a bit hurry now.

He won't tell you.

I think the problem is that you take 20 seconds to make every decision and therefore starts purposely doomswitches you. So obviously the solution is to not timebank every time you are folding a random hand utg at 10/20.

This is wrong. You're more like 67 % IIRC, anyway much less than 87%.

Please explain exactly your method of calculation to allow math guys here to check (I guess I'm one).

Please also provide your sample sizes for each buyin. What does matter mathematically is not the absolute value of what you lost in bad luck, but the probability of that kind of losses, and we need your exact sample size for this. I mean we need to find out what is the probability of running that bad (or worse) on such a sample size.