I quit my job to play after a like 500 hour sample thinking I was good and I was actually terrible but just getting lucky lol.

I ended up getting decent eventually and it worked out haha, but yea don’t quit your job after 111 hours. I’ve made 20k in a month and lost 8k in a month. I wasn’t playing really well when I made a ton nor was I playing poorly when I got crushed, luck just plays a huge role over small samples.

Everyone underestimates the pressure of playing to win money vs playing to kick ass.

Playing to kick ass is much easier because you can focus on kicking ass and even pretend that you kicked ass.

It really depends on your situation. What is your life roll? Your poker bankroll? How old are you? Do you have a family? A mortgage? Will you be able to reenter into the same career if things don't go well?

Just winning $12k is not enough info to go on here. Not saying it isn't possible. But you really have to be honest with yourself before making a life-changing decision like this. Fwiw I wouldn't try it unless I had a $100k life roll / $50k bankroll. There are going to be months when you just don't win.

Yeah, short-term variance in live poker is just beyond insane. I'm down 8 buyins all-in EV in the last two weeks live. It really puts things into perspective. And especially annoying when you have to listen to nits and run-good specialists that this never happens to. Those type of people actually exist. There are a lot of people who just think they're good from their meaningless sample or they run hot for life. I've seen it all.

so question about my results so far....i can see why they are hard to interpret.

Im at 104 hours. 20 sessions. i have only had 2 losing sessions. and am up over 10k (this is at 2/5 700max)..am I just sun running? idk hard to tell let me explain


at least 4-5 sessions in a row I was stuck about 2+buyins and grinded it back to at least even but more often than not a $400+ win. now in the past i would have ended my session after losing buyin #2...thus I would have had a losing downswing (as far as sessions go) of 4 sessions. so my question is how do you know if your sun running or not?

Each of those wins were STRUGGLES I mean no real great run of cards. no coolers in my favor. a few coolers AGAINST me. i feel i just i overcame the bad swings in the sessions. when i think of sun run I think of people punting off stacks to you while your holding the nuts, I had to make moves with hands to get the better hands to fold and rarley had a slam dunk value bet w the nuts

so what is it? should i not even bother looking at my results. Now don't worry....I'm not asking if I should go pro. I play once a week for rec and side income. but am just curious what the true meaning of this is

Definitely sun running, the -2 buy-in swings are standard. Good job not letting it effect your play though. Don’t think about when you choose to end your session, think of every hand you play as one big game of 100 hours. 100 hours is about 2500 hands give or take. That’s a tiny sample and luck will have a lot to do with the amount you win.

You won’t be able to make any real deductions from the numbers on this sample besides being reasonably confident you’re a winner in the game. Even then, slight losers have gone on similar runs many many times I’m sure and that’s why live poker will never die.

TL;DR sample too small but GG keep it up

Sounds to me like you are trying hard to generate session wins. A dangerous game. Remember, it is all one session. Don't "STRUGGLE" to get a positive number to put in your spreadsheet, play longer when the game conditions are best and/or when you are on your A game.

I totally get the psych issue of not wanting to put a loss in your records, but when you get try-hard when you are stuck you may get unstuck... or you may turn a regular loss into a catastrophic one.

i appreciate this.

I never felt like i was "chasing losses to book a win" and i def have always been in good games or at least change tables to good games, and if i felt tilted or in a rush to get the money back, i would def leave (how the 2 losses were). I just felt if i put in the hours at the table despite being stuck I would find spots to win most if not all the losses back. Since I'm pretty good at knowing when I am the best or near the best at the table. and if I'm not which spots to try to avoid...

I know the downswing, where this isn't possible is going to come, and I'm ok with it. this poker money is 100% extra money in my life and in no way NEED it.

My main reason for the initial question is I don't want to over estimate my winning...even plenty in the room have talked to/or about me that I am one of the better players there. (don't know how much to read into that). And trying to learn how to annalyze the results.

And i guess define sun run...cause like i said before I think the definition of sun run , is the deck hitting you in the face.

thank you! thats what i figured. just didnt know how to REALLY interpret any of the results so far.

also for the record, although i dont have stats (just recently started tracking.) in the past 15 years, there have been 3 times i've run my bankroll up over 10k playing 2/5, but life expenses took priority and I used it to pay off construction project/loans etc...so I DO feel I am a long term winner in the game

.also in reguards to " Don't "STRUGGLE" to get a positive number to put in your spreadsheet" i meant the SESSION was a struggle. no premium hands, no flopped monsters. all just getting thin value, and or picking the correct times to bluff/turn hand into a bluff...nothing super easy if that makes sense

Sure, but sun-running doesn't just mean getting smacked in the face by the deck. It also means your correct decisions working out above expectation. For example, if you make a good bluff in a position where you estimate that it will get folds 80% of the time, and it does, that's not running at EV, it's running 20% over EV. If you get four of those through in a row, each of them seems exactly like the most likely outcome, so you think you are just playing well, not running well. The math tells you, though that you only had a 41% chance to get all four through, so you actually are running hot.

thank you again. THIS is the answer i think i was searching for

Bolded isn’t correct. Each trial is independent of one another so the chances of getting each through is 80% regardless of prior outcomes (assuming the players are acting rationally and not getting tilted and calling lighter, which would actually change the % the bluff got through and make it much more complicated to calculate)

It’s similar to if you look at the previous hit board at roulette and see the last 5 numbers were black numbers. The chance a black number comes next is still roughly 50%, not 3.125% (0.5^5)


The numbers compound if you were to say something like “I’m betting on black 5 times in a row, what are my chances I win them all”, then the result is 3.125% because it ties all the outcomes of each trial to the others.


Though I agree with the general sentiment that running hot isn’t always just cooler people or continually making hands, getting folds in spots where we want folds is just as important, maybe more important, than coolering people. Never let a winning image go to waste.

More like a parlay, which is a bet on outcomes of future events.

Reviewing the past should not be compounded, given that each decision point at the time had its own unique probability. It is a common gambler’s fallacy.

FWIW, it is why it makes so little sense that people cash out to preserve big wins. But then again, it’s the another gambler’s fallacy: leave when you are ahead.

You're sitting on about 20 bb/hr (nice start!). But doubt too many people are going to say that is sustainable in a typical LLSNL game. But you'll eventually figure out for yourself how close / not close that rate is to your expected one after you put in some more hours at your game.

Kinda expanding on some of the variance stuff G touched on, here's a fun example to consider.

Let's say we get our money in as a 4:1 fave 5 times in a row. And lets say we even run at EV and win 4 of those 5 times (totally ignoring how easy it is over this lol short sample size to run above EV and win all 5 versus run below EV and win just 2). The 4 we win, we win at a $100 effective stack. But the one we lose is at a $1000 effective stack. We're running at "EV" in regards to winning versus losing, and yet are still a massive loser in terms of $$$. And vice versa.

Eventually all of the numbers will start converging to their expected value. But it takes a heckuva long time to even start getting there and there will be lots of bumps along the way.

GgoodstartandgoodluckG

thank you! thanks for the long explanation i appreciate it. def makes sense. so what is considered a sample size to finally realize what is true and more accurate? I mean what if over my lifetime I am always on the hot variance..or the cold? and never realize the other (i know this is an extreme ask, but i guess its mathematically possible)

Honestly, it's probably really hard to know, especially since our game / our method / our opponents / our conditions / etc. won't remain the same over our lifetime.

For myself, all I can do is pick out some interesting facts from my own experience. In my 1/3 NL game, to date I've played 5120 hours @ $20.41/hr; not exactly crushing but not completely sucking either. This includes a 1014 hour stretch @ $38.37 versus a 1307 hour stretch @ $11.90, so a massive ~3x difference in winrate over two separate 1000+ hour sample sizes. Meanwhile all playing a very low variance style (where my graph viewed from space hardly has a blip on it).

And really, lol @ us live players and our sample size compared to on-line players. But all we can do is the best we can and hope our method will be proven to be a winning one in our game as we start collecting the hours and working towards some ballpark of expectation.

GgoodluckG

Most of our sessions can be attributed to 1 or 2 hands. If we win those hands, we could be up 100bb, or down 100bb, etc.

When positive variance runs out and you lose those key hands, your result will go from crushing to mediocre pretty quickly.

Fact is, crushing players already know they’re crushers.

this is so true.

as far as the crushing players. I kinda already know im the best player at the table 95% of the time. its not even close most times. and if im not i move to the table i am, or just avoid any close spots vs those players. but i didnt know if I was just over estimating my play and being egotistical .... but if that were the case I would never stack off (punt) which i have...so im def mortal lol. guess im looking for a way to validate my self awareness....

**** i could be completely wrong and be a fish on heater. if so, so be it lmao ill just enjoy the ride

I started the year with an 11 session winstreak and a $186/hr win rate. I did that because I'm an excellent player who knows what he is doing. I honestly had seen some leaks in my game and fixed them. I was quite proud of myself.

So my win streak was all skill. What else could it be?

And then for the first time in my life, I lost 5 sessions in a row...you know, because of bad luck. What else could it be? My last hand played was AI pre, me with KK vs AA

{sigh}

You're right, it puts it in perspective. Now I'm at $8 / hr YTD. I prefer oblivious over confidence to perspective, but perspective probably has a higher EV over the long run.

Um. Yes, the chance of each one (independently) is 80%, but, as I said in the post you quoted, the chance of all four getting through is .80*.80*.80*.80, or .4096. This has nothing to do with any one of the iterations individual outcome likelihood changing, and everything to do with the fact that all four 80% chances would have to come in.

Yeah, that's exactly what I said, except that I used 80% 4 times instead of 48.65% 5 times (which is actually 2.725%, because you forgot about the two green numbers.) I'm really not sure what you thought you were correcting here.

There is a double edged sword to trying to dig yourself out of a whole. In these sessions you booked small wins, but if you had a couple bad hands you could have easily lost $2k or $3k in a single session. Then there is a question of whether you are still playing your best poker being when you are down money and trying to get to even.

agreed. I did feel like i was still playing well and not tilted and teh game was favorable. same with one of the loss sessions. the other i was playing terribly and the results showed it.

im generaly pretty good at leaving if not playing well....but if its just bad variance Ill stay

Ive been on a 600hr downswing -11 buyins where more than 75% of my sessions were less than 4.5 hours due to getting there after dinner (which is fine) often having to wait 1hr to get on a game because of long lists, picking so much as I can the softest game available, that, or those particular games breaking, being down a few hundred many nights so not even a full buyin and being forced to leave due to not willing to sit in bad games just to put in the hours. It's been quite grueling and aggravating as it seems I expect it to occur almost every time I've gone out the last half year. Just have to try and remind myself that 600 hrs of live is like 18k hands which is like 2 weeks worth online, just crushing to have it feel like it's going to continue to drag on and l never get out of this hole. FWIW home casino has plenty of games every night however not as many per night are as good as they were pre covid.

I've lost at least 1 buyin only 5 times through this stretch. Just an excruciatingly slow bleed every night of being card dead, making or losing the minimum, not coolering anybody for large amounts and then a random hand I'll loose a couple hundo. Not even playing close to as tight as I used to pre covid when I was easily making 6 bb with hardly any varience, and I haven't turned into some splashy hyper lag.


I've had only 6 double ups over this bad run also. Last night had a lovely hand where I lost 1500 pot w/ 66 vs J46ccc flop against J5hh. (5 way limped button straddled pot) Turn J, riv 5. Even worse cuz there was an extra $360 dead money in there due to another player calling my c/r to $300 ott. Rec fish had 165 remaining on river. Largest pot I was involved in last 40 hours, not really by choice either.... It's been Worst stretch of my life

(This is 2/5 btw)

You're already a step ahead of me in this regard, I have trouble leaving bad/tight games because I want to log as many hours to get a better understanding of my win rate.


Do any of you guys log home games separately? The home game I frequent copied the blind/rake structure of the 5/5 game I play and it's much softer. I find myself winning amounts I wouldn't normally win grinding at the casino so I know it doesn't dictate my true win rate at these stakes.