this.

my game is a $1k max. sometimes i buy-in full. sometimes i buy in for 100bb and top off as required.

since not all games are 100bb capped, converting to overall bb is a better measure imo.

Well this is kind of my point. Last night I started out a 1/3 session down a quick $1200 (400 BB's) within the first 30 minutes. Was it running bad or playing bad or the grey area in between which makes analyzing a downswing nearly impossible when you try to parse decisions vs. a player's range vs. their actual holding.

My second hand at the table: $485 effective (1/3) - limp, super lucky guy who just hit the bad beat opens for $15 LP, LAG losing reg I have history with calls BTN, I 3! AA to $70 from the SB, limpers fold and other two call. Flop ($210) TT2, SPR is ~2x. I am pot committed. I cbet $105, fold, LAG raises to $250 and I jam knowing he likes to raise paired boards with air, and will raise over pairs and flush draws on this board and I block the two remaining ATs combos while not blocking the A flush draws. He has T9 and holds up. Stuck a quick $500 (167 BB's).

Rebuy $500. Open/call a 3! from the LAG with 99 multiway, miss my set and he shows QQ. Less than an orbit later ($475) I open KQ for $15 in EP, three calls and our LAG bumps it up to $75. BB rec cold calls and I call hoping for a caller or two behind so I can commit on any flop I connect with since the SPR will be so low. Two folds behind and the luckbox bad beat jackpot winner calls on the BTN. Flop ($325) K 8 3. SPR is 1.2x. As good a flop as I can hope for. BB jams for $250. I rejam for $400. Luckbox rejams for $800. PFR LAG folds. Turn 2 River 8. BB shows J7, BTN shows A5 and scoops a ~$1400 pot. Stuck a quick $1000 (333 BB's).

Less than an orbit later the LAG and luckbox badbeat winner GII preflop KK vs. AA, KK opens, AA 3!'s, KK 4!'s, AA shoves $1000 and LAG doesn't think long before calling it off (this is always AA, even in this game, but he's a bad LAG and couldn't resist calling). AA holds up naturally and the luckbox is sitting on a $2500+ stack.

A few hands later 3 people limp and I raise KQo (no clubs) to $25 from the BB. Two callers including our resident big stack. Flop ($75) Q 9 6, I bet $50, lucky charms calls, Turn ($175) 8, I bet $100. Villain calls. River ($375) J. Great now I lose to absolutely everything. I check and villain checks behind AQ and scoops the pot. Stuck a quick $1200 (400 BB's).

So did I play bad or run bad? Hand 1 I had reads on my villain and played against his range and he happened to have one of the nutted combos he could have. But I was pot committed so I was GII regardless.

Hand 2 I GII as a 60/40 favorite and lost.

Hand 3 I was behind the whole way but was playing my hand against the likely range that villain could have and he happened to have better hand (and limped AQ on the BTN rather than raised). I managed to grind out the rest of the night and turned it into a -$100 (33 BB's) loss which is a hell of an outcome after such a horrendous start to the night.

So if over 2000 hours you've never experienced a greater than 6-8 BI (600-800 BB's) downswing and I am already stuck 400 BB's in 30-45 minutes then we must be playing in widly different games or we have vastly different ideas of what a downswing means.

I play in 2 diff 2/5 games regularly.. one is 100bb cap, and I have never had worse then a 400bb downswing. this is only 500 hours sample size, so w/e im sure worse is easily possible but it is VERY soft.

The other is uncapped and buying in for 1.5k-2k is the normal. losing 2k in the first game is like losing 8k in this game..On the other side you have guys, getting it in for 400 bigs with 2pair so winrates can be way bigger. you still need the big bankroll/sanity to deal w it..

Its all relative to your game guys

Or we play in different games AND we vastly different styles. Without going into detail since this isnt a strat forum, I would not be playing those hands that way, even though I dont necessarily think you did much wrong depending on your style and your reads.

+1

Johnny's game looks a lot deeper BI, so swings are going to be deeper.

Add to that his playing style (I only play the AA hand the same way, the others I don't, but I'm not judging that right/wrong either, just sayin'), and yeah, you're gonna swong big (both up and down).

GcluelessdownswingnoobG

Sure Johnny, i see your point- and i am not going into detail on you hands from the session, cause i think that would potenially turn into a big strat derail. On the quick look it seems fine though, even though the KQ hand is debateable on some parts regarding what the luckbox 3 bet range is and some other issues. But i mean, nothing serious either way.

Those sessions happens now and then for me to, and its normal of course- but i always bounce back quickly. Also its a long long way from 400 BB to 2000BB + wich is the kind of downswing this discussion started off with from my part.

Regarding me and my friend managing to avoid big downswings i think we both have ran above expecations in order to not have gone through any worse downswings than 8 buyins on a more than 2000 hour sample. It would be pretty arrogant to think otherwise imo. So bigger downswings will come sooner or later, and i am fully aware of that.

I think like Mike also mentioned, its probably a mix of several reasons behind it though. Many of my hours is logged at passive loose tables, where i sort of run over the table and nobody put pressure back on me. Like steady grinding for 8-10 BB hour kind of game, with extremely small risk.One of the things maybe having a role in this is that i have stoploss of 4 buyins (400 BB), wich simply prevents me to never dig myself into a huge whole and spew off buyins on my B or C game. If i hit that stoploss limit i quit, sleep- then come back fully recharged with a fresh mindset- wich raises my chances of playing my A game agian and booking a winning session directly after.

If you're going on 25BI downswings at a 100bb cap game, I agree you're probably not very good at all. If you have a 300bb cap and the game plays deep, well obv variance will occasionally do its thing and you'll lose 25*100bb buyins occasionally. But I'd look at that as more of an 8BI DS.

I can definitely wrap my head around big downswings. When I played online pre-Black Friday, I experienced a nearly 200 BI downswing playing MTTs. One day, I was 24-tabling turbo SNGs and my internet went out. Insta-24 BI downer. Playing live PLO I went on a 30+ BI downer which I considered to be not a big deal at all.

The thing is, playing live NL I was rarely in a position to get in 100bbs in a situation where I was flipping, and I would consider getting into those positions in most games to be less than ideal because of the amount of money you can make from other spots as well as the mental stress of losing a few flips can put on a player. From the hands you posted, I only play the AA hand the same. I don't think you necessarily played them poorly, but for the games I played in, I would consider them sub-optimal. You're buying in deep already and playing a super high variance style, on top of the fact you you're opening to 25 and 3b to 70+ which is more like a 2/5 game in the first place.

ugh, don't remind me

Related to above.

Second hand today: AKs <AA for 80bb

Fourth hand today: A9s<AJo for 30bb all in on A94 flop.

7th hand my J4s>AA for 70bb.

Variance has no role in my winrate.

This is not a hand specific strategy thread. Please start a new thread if you wish to talk about them.

Lol, we might need a HH for this one.

Gyou're25.5BRmightnotbeenough,lolzG

Well, it does...

For many people that's not true and the main concern is life roll money moving to poker roll money.

I've never had to separate them, but I've also been very fortunate to be in a position with minimal expenses so my circumstances differ from most.

I think it makes a lot of sense to keep it separate for most people's circumstances -- having a 100k net worth means nothing wrt poker you can actually only afford to lose 20k

Some former grinder I met at a bar said that my win rate is gonna SKYROCKET when the WSOP comes around. I'm assuming he's exaggerating a little but if I'm a $15/hr winner at 1/2 or a $20/hr winner at 1/3 how much can I expect my win rate to go up realistically?

Pretty subtle troll job. I'll give it a 6.5/10.

I would say something like 2-3 times your normal winrate.

I guess if I'm able to beat 2/5 for anything less than 10bb/hr during WSOP I shouldn't count on being more than a marginal winner at 2/5 outside of WSOP.

Thinking of testing the waters during the WSOP and potentially staying in Vegas. What kind of bankroll do you guys recommend for Vegas to grind low-limit live no limit hold'em? Also, feel free to hit me up with a PM.

Its a boring answer, but it all depends Last WSOP i was there couple of weeks, grinding mostly cash but fired some tourney shots also in the 200$-300$ area. Had like a 3000$ roll with me on that trip. I just grinded cash primarily, then fired tourney shots with my winnings to absorb tourney swings.

This year both me and my bankroll have evolved alot, so gonna be bigger roll dedicated to this years WSOP.

What stakes do you play and how experienced are you in the live games environment?

I am an experienced mid-stakes LIMIT player from the MW. I play 20/40. I have a sizeable roll, and have played in Vegas before though I quit after about a month after realizing I was just meeting expenses. I figure years later I am more able to adjust to no limit, and it being the WSOP, it's a good time to spend a hunk on hotel money (<$50 per night + $20 on uber), grind, and see how well I do. I would post in the limit-->no limit thread except it's basically dead. I'm thinking there's going to be lots of action at the Rio, Bellagio, and Venetian. And if I do well, I could potentially play $2/$5 and gamboool during the WSOP without risking too much of my roll.

Yeah for sure good action, and alot of juicy games all over the strip. Planet Hollywood and Harrahs had some insane fishy games last summer, 1-2 games but they played vey deep with some big whales dusting off money.

Bellagio is also packed during series, Venetian was little bit up and down actually regarding amount of tables/action. Aria is packed- many nights last year the waitlist for 1-3 was like 40 players, 2-5 also big waitlists in prime time. RIO games can be very good, especially during the nigthtime with drinking,straddling and people looking to gambool it up.

A 2/5 player that I play with a lot (and I consider him to be very very good) told me he made $30K last year playing 2/5 for about a month during the WSOP. I dont know how many hours he played but even if he somehow played 200 hours in that month, that's still $150/hr.

I expect that like most people he probably exaggerated the total so lets say he really made $26000. That's still $130/hr.

Ive played with him enough to estimate that hes a $45/hr winner under normal conditions, so clearly there's a lot of money to be won during WSOP. I'll be going next year. I have some conflicts and cant make it this year.

Games are good and plentiful during WSOP, though no softer than MW NL games, IME. Midwest is still more loose/passive than anywhere else I've played. Florida and Cali are looser, but more aggro, and Vegas and the NE (except the new casinos) are more nitty, in my limited experience.

Unless you live in Colorado or Minnesota (where the local laws make NL impossible and the SL is weird), I'd make the switch to NL locally. It takes a while to get used to being able to manipulate pot-odds, and your Vs being able to manipulate yours (though many Vs are very bad at this). Implied odds go way up, so you can play a lot of more speculative hands, but with the big bets, you have to fold more post-flop. Position is even more important, imo.