I was thinking of this today. Sitting on 2k in a 1/3 game where the talk was mostly horses, bad jokes about frogs and **** and lots of talk about cocktail waitress "figures"... And me espousing everything I don't know about horse racing.

The strat talking dude from above sits down and starts almost immediately tacking about something being polarized. Me: (loud) "yeah it is pretty cold in here". (Whispering) "shut the **** up"

Keeping my poker roll completely separate from our "real money" is the best thing I did for my poker game since I got married. Completely eliminates any disagreements about money with my play and then it's just the occasional disagreement about time spent which is fine and fair. Roll started at $500 5 years ago and I haven't had to use "real money" to get into a game since then.

I also average much longer sessions than a lot of people. The game for me is once or twice a week at most with the occasional trip (once a month or so?) where I'll play as many hours as I physically can. I'm a regular working stiff in a location not near a casino now, so I can't just pop in for a few hours here and there.

Interestingly, I'm pretty well suited to monster length cash sessions, but I'm a horrible tournament player.

Wait, what?

Is that due to variance? But for almost half a year?

Outstanding.

Might be.

It's pretty easy to have 100 hours down. Only takes a couple of big hands to go the wrong way and you've picked up a $2000 swing. I've gone breakeven stretches of 200-300 hours that took almost 6 months to fight through.

30 hands/hr, play 15 hrs/wk, 60hrs/mo --> 1800 hands/mo.

A 11k hand sample seems like a lot, but I think that's still small enough to be difficult to assign much weight to. Don't the online guys insist on a minimum 100k hand sample size to show anything meaningful?

GG isn't playing 15 hrs a week. More like 8.

I'm guessing you're also an on-line player? I've played 0 hands of on-line poker, so I have the benefit of not being able to tell how slow the live game in comparison. Plus, sitting at a table for ~8 hours playing cards, BSing, catching the game on TV, etc. is a pretty fun (compared to some of the other things I could be doing).

As others suggest, just take some breaks if needed. I stand up and walk around the room all the time (like, all the time), although the only time I ever actually miss being dealt in a hand is during a washroom break.

GcluelessNLnoobG

Yeah, currently for 2015 I'm showing a net loss of $41 over 192.5 hours (which will probably work out to be about 1/3 - 1/2 of the hours I put in for the year). Last year during my worst downswing I put in a ~194 hour period where I won just $735. At the pace of a recreational once-a-week player (say ~8 hours a session per week), these downswings / flatlines can last for what seems forever (even though really they are just a lol drop in the bucket).

Haven't exactly concluded yet what I'm chalking this one up to. The easiest answer, and in the end I do believe the correct answer, is "variance". However, lack of table selection is also a likely culprit. Plus the fact that I don't believe the games are quite as good as they once were. And, of course, like always, there is also bad / meh play on my part mixed in. But I do believe the best answer so far (I might eventually be convinced otherwise) is "variance"; it doesn't take that many big hands going astray to lead to a decent downswing.


G****happensG

Do you track any of your HHs so you can look back at this? This seems like a lot of work, and I don't, but others, especially those doing PG&Cs, do it -- Aesah did every hand he VPIP'd once.

I've wondered about this, especially for online players. They can look at their AIEV, but I think there are a lot more stats that can be gathered from HHs and used to partially determine whether a downswing (or upswing) is due to variance or bad play. For example, how often do you flop sets when set-mining, how often do you cooler/pwn someone where you can reasonably say had the situations been reversed that you'd've made the laydown, etc. It would take a lot of work, and maybe it just isn't worth it, but I think some information could be gathered.

This is a great idea, and I've been recording everything over 20bb's. I've seen improvements as I do this more and more.

Reviewing hands is obviously a good learning tool, and I of course beat myself up over key hands (both winners and losers) after each session.

However, I'm not convinced that tracking live hands / stats / etc. is going to build enough of a sample size to have any real confidence in what is going on.

An example. Skippy mentioned something on AboveEV one time that he sometimes (in some games) open folds hands like 55- in EP (something I must admit I don't believe I've ever done). So I thought, wow, being at ~2000 hours it sure would have been nice to have collected some data on hands just to see how profitable they actually are. For example, with 22 UTG, I would have been dealt it 2000 hours * 30 hands/hour * 0.5% (frequency of being dealt 22) * 1/9 (frequency of being UTG at 10 handed table that sometimes plays less) = ~33 times. I of course would typically only continue if flopping a set, so that means I would have flopped a set with it about 4 times (and of course all this is assuming I don't get raised out preflop). So my conclusions of playing 22 UTG over 2000 hours of live play would boil down to how profitable the 4 times I flopped a set with it were. As I've learned, it's pretty damn easy to lose with a set, and we'll typically lose our whole stack. Other times, we don't get paid off at all, or make a small profit postflop. And other times we stack someone. But obviously a sample size of 4 flopped sets of 22 UTG is lol and we'd never be able to come to any conclusion whatsoever as to its profitability based on these 4 specific results.

That's just one example, but that is sorta how I feel about the idea of tracking stats like this. The live game is such a long term one that I don't believe we'll ever track enough useful data. So basing conclusions on empirical results has always seemed a little meh to me. Which is, of course, a little disturbing to conclude.

ETA: Not sure if I went off on a tangent there or not.

GnolivedatabaseG

Definitely not a tangent.

I fold 55- unless I am in late position.

If we make a set roughly one time in seven, we are going to be involved in set over set some fraction of those times (over and beyond losing to a straight or a flush), not often, but enough so that getting stacked set over set really drags down our results when it does happen.

The question is, rather than RESULTS, is it -EV to participate with 55-? And does it really change the EV to be doing it in late position, since whether early or late we are probably going to get it in either way?

I really don't know.

What do others think?

But I DO know the occasional times the board runs out after I have folded, and I see a 55- set would have lost had I played it, my sense of self-righteousness outweighs my natural mathematical inclination, so I keep folding 55- unless I am in late position.

Ya, and I don't either. But, for example, I still open limp 55-. The only thing that comforts me is that I've convinced myself that even if I tracked all my open limping of 55- in EP over my 2000 hours that I probably wouldn't have any useable sample size big enough to conclude anything useful. So, instead, I simply ask myself, "Do I think it is profitable to open limp 55- in EP?". I've looked around the table at my opponents far often enough to simply conclude, "With these jokers? C'mon, it has to be, right?!?!".

GbutIreallydon'tknowforsureG

There is another thread that discusses the folly of speaking in absolutes in poker.

Never playing 55 unless in late position is one of those examples. In tough games, you should consider folding 55 in EP. In soft, passive game where your opponents are fit-or-fold, you should consider raising pre and barreling favorable flops.

In fact, you should consider opening even wider from all positions in those games where you've got a good handle on your opponents and you've got a good image. These games are great because your opponents' biggest mistake is folding too often. You may not win lots of big pots but you'll pick up the lion's share of small and medium pots. If you get played back at, you fold unless you're nutted. EZ game

I agree. I think for GG's games, they're more often calling stations, though. This can still work out in hero's favor if they are often calling down with as worse as middle pair and lose to his set. But if it's often 6 to a flop and they're chasing their draws, hero has to be aggressive to give them incorrect odds to call.

I mostly agree, but what about if we consider all the situations in which we call with 55- UTG and UTG+1? Those are slightly different situations, but not by that much. That would give us 4*2*4 = 32 samples of when you flopped a set. I suppose when you're UTG+1, you can get raised, but that doesn't happen often enough to change the number of samples that much.

I think 32 samples is not very representative but it's not totally lol either. I think if 28/32 of those times showed a large profit, and you assumed that the tables you played at the whole time were the same, that would give us a little bit of confidence that calling at the tables you play at is profitable. If only 3/32 showed a large profit and a significant were unprofitable, then you could get a little bit of confidence that calling at the tables you play at is unprofitable.

The most obvious problem is that your opponents and your opponents' cards and the board vary so much. Still, I don't think it's totally hopeless. With online data (of which I have none myself), I think you could gain just a bit more confidence with larger assessments.

In this Wikipedia article, the "Statistics based on real online play" has some data. Obviously that's for a lot more than one player, which is good, but also bad because we don't know the quality of play of the average player in the sample (though I'm guessing terrible). Following the citation there, I found this, which lists starting cards by position. Unfortunately, the # of hands is still too small to conclude anything! I'd love to see a Pokerstars database with this information, though.

Piss funny

Nice threat, keep up the good work!

So after reading this, i tried applying it to my 1-2 nl games.

150hrs and im $15hr.

I need to reread it. I think i misapplied the check the turn.
I flopped set kings, cbet, and checked a safe turn card.
Also, ive flopped tptk then turned nut flush draw, and i checked.

Basically im checking every turn.
Yeah, need to reread this

Lol, nice bump.

Obviously checking the turn depends on a lot of factors.

Do we feel committed for stacks on a drawy flop? Are we bluffing and is the turn card a good card to continue our story? Is our opponent ABC non-bluffy and can we release TP type hands easy against them on the river if bet into even with not much left? If so, we probably shouldn't be checking the turn.

Without knowing all the facts, I doubt checking the turn is the play I would lean to with a set when a non-scare card comes. Checking back TPTK + nut flush draw really depends on a lot of stuff and could go either way.

GcluelessNLnoobG

So I finally checked out the GG sound cloud.

cAletthatmother****erburnAm

Good thread GG... read most of the first page, and will go back to cover the rest. (Most have been a really slow week at the office... lol)

Lol, my poker strategy is on par with how well I play music.

GapologizesinadvancetoanyonewholistenstoeitherG

Stick around for my 3000 hour update where I go busto.

GnosedivingtoOMCwinrateG

You either die a hero or live long enough to become an OMC...

Going to play a 1/1 homegame tonight that is kinda very passive. I have been struggeling in this game and i think i know why now I play alot of online poker (6 max) and i am appplying to much concept from these tables th the live 9 max passive tables.

Opening to loose UTG seems to be a big problems and not having a limprange seems to be somewhat bad in these games aswell because you can see cheap flops with low PP IP or suitedd aces/connectors. Gonna apply some of your advice tonight and let you know how it went

Could also be that i ran somewhat horrible in that game aswell. Got it in one time with a flopped spade flush vs another lower flopped spade flush vs QQ with Qs that could make a higher flush than me. Turn was another spade ofcourse Also got it in with A7 vs 76 i had nutflushdraw he had open ender and he rivers it Variance can be brutal sometimes in live poker compared to online poker were i can grind it out pretty easy

Very nice thread