^ 10 BI losses def happen. not catastrophic.

As for you shot taking.... if you go to a 5/10 with 500 bucks you might as well play table games to run it up. You'll essentially be playing short-stack poker. Which is going to be a lot of folding, squeezing to steal dead money, and getting it in flipping. Essentially you'll be playing tournament poker while the rest deep players play cash. The great thing is that if you run well and the players give you lots of action with junky hands you can win a nice bit and then play deep (and evaluate how the game plays).

I think buying in short when shot taking is a great strategy because it allows you to observe the game and play with a smaller amount of money which is good for your comfort level.

stop blabbering without giving ANY concrete evidence. did you write a book about variance in poker...? thought so.

I have seen a winning player lose 12k in a 400-2k 5/10 game over the course of 8 hours. he ran real bad.... like unbelievable, but i witnessed it.

It doesn't even take running real bad, a few coolers (in an aggro game QQ v KK is a definite cooler) and a few lost flips and its gone.

When you first move up I'd always suggest short stacking the game and nitting it up until you get the feel for it.

Doubt it. My WR will make some of you puke.

Let me give you an example of what I went through yesterday.

I was up a BI right off the bat, got money in against an overpair with pair + 1 over + flush draw AI on the flop (49.8 vs 50.2), if won, 3BI up, but instead I lost. That's 4 BI swings right there.

Yes, it's not quite the same as losing 10BI's in 4 sessions, but the point is that if you can't win those flips and your over's are constantly cracked by draws, 10 or even 16BI's are not that hard to lose.

Shortstacks usually suck because no one actually knows how to shortstack properly, but that doesn't mean you can't win. Obviously my win rate would be less than if I full stacked, but it shouldn't be zero.

I played 1.5-2 million shortstack hands on Stars back in the day which I think should help me shortstack, especially if guys are buying in 200bb deep.

Wow that is such a cooler... can't believe you lost when you were .4% favorite!

How many hours have you played at your current stake (what stake btw) and what is your win rate?

You're missing the point that it is quite easy to lose several BI's, especially if your game builds around scaring people with stacks.

But you're not taking into consideration the flip side of things- when you do win those flips.

It sounds like when you are winning hands like that, you'll just say "oh I made a good play, I deserved to win that hand, this isn't a 4BI upswing" but when you do lose, you're saying . "it's just part of variance, this is a 4BI downswing".

What are you talking about? That's exactly the point. We are not talking about upswings and the fact that I come out way ahead obviously, but rather down swings and that they could happen very easily.

You're EV in those hands are breakeven.. which means that if you keep making those moves you shouldn't be winning large sums of money. Of course with fold equity you'll gain some additional equity, but when you do cause the other person to fold, those pots tend to much smaller.

By your logic, since you're saying it is so easy for you to have 10-16 buyin downswings, then you also should be able to win 10-16 buyins in very short periods of time

Uhhh yes.

Winning 10 - 16 BIs in 4 sessions is not hard at all.

Except the difference is that I only need to win 1 out of 4 such pots to break even. Combining fold equity and other factors, I don't see how it isn't way +EV.

Plus what are we talking about anyway? Are you derailing your own point by discussing whether my plays are +EV?

lol I don't see how you're calculating your math

Sequence:
1) You lose 1 buy in
2) You lose 1 buy in
3) You lose 1 buy in
4) You win 1 buy in
Net you have lost 2 buy ins..... As implied by the fact "breakeven" you would need 2 out 4 to break even. hahaha.

Again I ask how big is your sample size because winning 10-16 buyins over 4 sessions multiple times is tough. lol.

Umm...

Anyway, what's your point in this whole thing anyway? Losing 10 - 16BI's in a streak means I am a horrible player with big leaks?

Lol @ you trying to argue that when you get all your money in 50-50 situation you only to need to win 1-4 times to breakeven.

I'll give you a chance to realize what you're doing wrong if you want.

No the point was that 10-16 BI losing streaks are fairly rare, so you might want to look at your game if they keep happening.

Read it in context...I give up.

I really hope you figured out the mathematics behind 50-50 situations.

I agree, if you lose 16 buy ins at low stakes live poker, something is wrong. I've only APPROACHED this once in my entire life. If someone is down $3000+ over a period of reasonable time in 1/2 NL, there's a problem.

I really hope you figured out how to read.

Wow I guess I'm going to have to write this out for you.


You're not taking into account that you will need to control the variables every time you're calculating a break even strategy.


If you think you only need to win 1-4 of time to break even, then in one of trials you must be winning 3 times the amount you lose in every other trial. THIS IS SIMPLE MATH.

Thus if in the first 3 trial you lost 1 Buy-in each, then in the fourth trial you would need to win 3 buy ins. However since you only have 1 BI in front of you (due to you rebuying) you can only win 1 buy in in that fourth trial.

And I asked you to read it in context of the entire discussion, and I even quoted it.

I didn't think you were that thick, but I guess I will have to break it down for you with maybe smaller words:

Here, so I started with 1 BI, and I was up 1, 1 + 1 = 2.

Using your breakdown, which I never disputed:

Sequence:
1) You lose 1 buy in
2) You lose 1 buy in
3) You lose 1 buy in
4) You win 3 buy ins.

Get what I meant by reading in context?

So anything else you would like to discuss, or get back to the main point that 4BI swing is quite easy and if that happens few times in short time span = 16 BIs swing.

Dude, you're not getting it. You're talking about one specific situation. i was referring to your general strategy which you implied was always pushing draws aggresively so that you end up in a coin flip, and you're not always going to be already up one BI (which means oyu're not controlling for the variables). And even if we did use your example, ok let's say you stack V for a 4BI pot. Since you were both all in, your stack is now 4 BIs. the V rebuys, you do this again, you lose the pot. Now you have 3 BIs. You do this again to another V who has 1 BI stack, you lose. Now you have 2 BIs. You do this again with a third V who has a 1 BI stack, you lose. Now you have 1 BI left. Thus, if you only won 1 out of the 4 hands, then you would be down 1 BI since you got into these 4 flips. But this isn't applicable because you gave you and the V an extra buyin that's irrelevant to figuring out the break even strategy of a long term move.


Second, that 4BI swing is different than a 4 BI downswing. We're talking about 16BI downswings, i.e. you're roll has 16 less BIs than it did before the session(s) began.

.

No shiet about the coin flip situation with 1 BI. You must think I am an idiot, and I guess it's the norm for some posters to think others are idiots until proven otherwise.

As for the swing and downswing, I have already said that it isn't quite the same, but there's an implication that players play differently when up and when down. I won't dispute such implication because I am a believer of difference in winning and losing psyche, but for the sake of the argument, assuming I play perfectly winning and losing, getting in those spots and lose could easily result in 4 BI downswings.

Example: I lost 1 BI, re-bought another and has just broken even. 2 BI's in front of me, get in a situation with a loose whale who I happened to run into top of his range and lost a 50/50 situation (but I was probably way higher against his range), and now I am down 2 BI's instead of up 2.

Yet another example: I am sitting on 4 BI's (lost 3 and rebuilt it back up to even), and same situation, and now instead of even, I am down 4 again (8 BI swing).

I could go on and on, but assuming I play perfectly, I will not hesitate in getting in such situation and be affected by whether I am up or down, as in not getting in possible flip situation with bunch of dead money in the middle when I am down.

Then it goes into difference in approach. Should I play tighter and forgo coin flip situation when I am running bad?

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my combined $1/2 & $1/3 play from Jan2012 through mid July2012 screnshots from pokerjournal

Uncapped game? $962 average BI and almost 0 rebuy?