IMNSHO You have two good choices:

Withdraw some more cash to play (I'd probably go for $2k).

Stop playing until you see if you get the job.

I here ya Davo. I'm currently on the worst downswing I've had in two years. Played yesterday feeling good like there's no way there is any more 2 outer or running straights that are still to get me. Yet it continues to happen. If there's a card in the deck to save these people's lives their hitting it. Its frustrating and makes you second guess yourself. I wish I had the magic answer for both of us.

Love the fact that Dave-O has sock drawer poker money. I have toque drawer poker money (of course).

Toque drawer always starts at $3K. When it drops below $2K (what I bring to my 1/3 NL game, even though I BI for just $200 and never get remotely close to being in for even half of what I bring), I withdraw from the bank to top back up to $3K. When it gets above $4K, I drop it back down to $3K and deposit the rest in the bank. I have an extremely low variance style, so very rarely am I withdrawing from the bank (would required a $1K "downswing" for me, which is quite rare).

In Dave-O's case, if money is no object, then top up the sock drawer appropriately from bank funds. If money for life is tight and maybe not easily replenishable right now, I wouldn't play poker again until it is. IMO.

Ggoodluck!G

Quick question, what do you think is the best indicator of your true CURRENT winrate?

A. Lets say you play 1000 hours/year

1. The past year (1000 hours)
2. Past 2 years (2000 hours)
3. Past 5 years (5k hours)
4. Your entire poker career no matter how long

B. Same question but for 500 hours/year

Overall, I think the bigger sample size is one that matters the most. Yes, some of those hours could have been put in a decade+ ago in different conditions and might not seem as applicable. But I think overall it is likely a better indicator of a realistic winrate than much smaller sample sizes (even if the smaller sample sizes are in more recent conditions), one that helps outrun (slightly?) the up/down variance in lol smaller samples.

ETA: I mean, my best yearly (lol ~500 hour) sample size is about ~5 times better than my worst. And my cherry picked best ~1000 hour stretch is about ~3 times better than my worst ~1300 hour stretch. So I'm certainly not going to make any assumptions about my "current" winrate based on the last lol 500 / 1000 hours.

G4forboth,imoG

for what purpose….financial planning or dick waving? (I don’t mean dick waving in a critical way but can’t think of a less obnoxious form of words)

Depends on the person and the stage/level your game is in.

Were you an absolute beginner 2k hrs ago and have spent the last year intensely studying and improving?

Or are you already a crusher who is making incrementally tweaks to their game?

Also the quality of games you've played over the span of hours.

So tough to say really unless you have some more info on these types of variables.

But all things being equal I'd probably lean towards the last 1k hrs being the most reflective. And that could be something as simple as the quality of your games has gotten better/worse, but it's still reflective of your current winrate.

Your self-evaluation. Ideally, you would play online where you would have a bigger sample size and have a better idea of what stakes you win and for how much.

FWIW, one way I was convinced that my expected win rate was lower than I wnated it to be was going to pokerdope and doing variance calculations.

However -and that's the interesting part- the thing is my playstyle is constantly changing and the playing conditions also change, so I split my play history in roughly 3-4 periods in which i had different win rates.

So, after I did the pokerdope calculations I went on an unbelievable heater which was followed by a soul-crashing downswing. So, If I go on pokerdope and try to do variance calculations based on the observed win rate of any period of time, there's no assumed overall win rate that can explain the swings that I 've experienced. And that's even after I widen pokerdope's assumptions about standard deviation and such.

So either even pokerdope can underrate the potential swings or alternatively, my game, and thus my expected winrate, changes depending on the approach I take over specific time frames.

I agree that pokerdope or any type of pokervariance calculator cant really account for the constant environment change in live poker, especially at 5/10+.

For example i know this decent live reg who’s been playing 5-10 for 15 years, he’s old school so doesn’t really rely on solvers and relies more on intuition which has worked for him, however in the past 2 years games have gotten much tougher and he has moved down to 2-5. So i guess he is a winner at 5/10 overall in his career but i doubt he is a winner in the current game environment.

I think at 2/5 and below like goblegreek said , your winrate can be scoped out through your entire career and will be pretty accurate since your opponents skill level stay relatively the same.

So I'm not the most objective person to give advice because your meteoric ascendancy into professional poker made me jealous. I'm pretty confident you are always the best player at the table in your cardroom. From your posts, your style works well for the player types. But playing professional in a low-stakes raked game is like having an easy low-wage job for an employer who can take everything away whenever. I have no doubts you could with time and practice really go pro. But from the line-checks by the pros on your hands, I conclude that you still lose money on the table when you don't have to. And in a low-stakes raked game, there is little margin for error.

All the people who care about you, Davo, will tell you: get a job and play poker. Unemployment is lower than anytime in fifty years. If you can play poker well, you have many options for fulfilling jobs that enable you to play poker.

Dammit! Company called me back to say I did NOT get the job. “We expect to hire more closets in the coming months and will keep you in mind” blah blah blah.

So now I’m truly boned. I have only $300 left in my sock drawer to play poker with!

Unlucky, head up!

Puppy day care still an option?

Ggoodluck!G

I still work there, but the money crunch (the pay here is bad and I only work 25 hours a week) is getting serious, we’re spending more than we bring in.

How much savings do you have and what are your monthly expenses? Unfortunately the sad truth is that you probably were not rolled to be playing poker. Honestly with the spread limit structure, I don't think playing poker to make a decent living is likely to be a very viable option for you. I don't know what your hourly winnings were over six months, but winning 13k over 6 months when you have a part time job where you are working 25 hrs per week and also managing to deplete your bankroll after a 2 month downswing doesn't seem sound to me like this is viable for your personal financial situation.

How many buy-ins did you lose during your downswing?

The other thing to consider is that maybe your play has gotten worse over the last 2 months. Maybe the games have gotten harder.

Depending on how much you have saved up, probably the best thing you can do is try to find another job and not play poker again until you have 6 months worth of expenses totally separate from your poker bankroll. And don't think of playing poker professionally if you can't continue to play professionally after a 20 buy in downswing.

My results since playing poker full time at the end of last August:



In total I am now up $74,365 over 517 hours since playing full time for an hourly of $144. For 2024 so far, up $13,555 over 87 hours for an hourly of $155.

A little more detail here:

https://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/1.../#post58424720

This is kind of an interesting stats question. I think there are two possible explanations if the variance calculator can't explain your results

1 - your SD is consistent, but bigger than you realize
2 - your SD is variable over time (ie the games or your play style are becoming higher variance)

2 would likely violate the assumptions of the variance calculator, but from your observations, sounds like 2

You have to stop the bleeding ASAP. The longer anything goes on, the longer it will likely continue. Whatever you have to do to get back to covering your basic needs and expenses without losing net total is what you have to do. If that means taking a break from poker, well then that's what it means. I see players on this forum and others take breaks to go back to grinding money elsewhere constantly. It's just part of poker and life. You have to survive first.

It is pretty much a given that game conditions change dramatically. The Saturday night game is going to be different from the Tuesday afternoon. Sometimes the game will be filled with the usual faces (not necessarily "regs"), and sometimes a whale might show up to splash around.

Anyone who thinks that they have a single, well-defined win rate at a particular stake is delusional.

And…..my poker career is over. Lost the last $300 from my bankroll today.

Finish with 559 hours, $21,926 profit at $2-$100 Hold’em (with $1-$2 blinds).

That is an incredible run, the stuff of legends. All legends end in tragedy: the collective biography of poker legends is paved with bankruptcies. Even though you went broke, we all cheer you at the finish line.

Why do you think you ran so bad at the end? The feedback on the forum to your hand histories suggests your style is exploitable. Could it possibly be that your opponents got to know your style? I would have a hard time suggesting you return to poker until you have the humility to at least consider the possibility. Focus instead now on finding a job. Think about gratitude to your family for supporting you as you tried to go pro. Any financially dependent family who tolerates professional poker's variance is truly a saint.

He ran bad? He has a winrate of like 18bb/hr. That's is pretty much the definition of a sun run in my book. What he did wrong was deciding to play poker for a living at 1/2 with high live expenses and no other form of income.

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Yeah the end was just a pretty generic downswing, imo. Some bad beats, some coolers, and some bad play.

I really think my only mistake was just not having a big enough bankroll to ride it out.

Like this is all it took to wipe out my $2,000. It just requires SO LITTLE to go wrong—a few hands turn out differently and I’m still playing. Or even up! Just digging through my notes for the AIEV hands I lost in that stretch:

1-11: Raise JJ to 16 pre in BB 5 callers! Flop T84r. X I check checks to Button who bets 30, SB calls, I make it 130, Button goes all-in for 220, SB all-in for 150. Button has JT. Turn Ten, I lose

1-3: Limp, I raise AK to 12. UTG2 3-bets to 36. SB and UTG cold call. I 4-bet to 136, UTG2 all-in for 157, folds, I call, he has JJ, I don’t hit

1-3: Button opens I 3-bet A2dd to 35 Button calls. Flop Q74dd. I bet 25 he raises to 80 I go to 180 he calls (all-in). He has A7, I don’t hit.

12-15: I Raise KcKh to 10, a 3-bet to 35, a cold call, I 4-bet to 120, a fold, cold-caller calls. Flop Q52dds. He bets 100 I put him all-in for 180 he calls. Turn 6d River Jd. He has Kd8s I lose

12-13: Raise A5ss to 20 3 callers. Flop AJ3. Xxx I bet 20 two calls. Turn 4. Xx I bet 100 fold, all-in for 120, I call, he has A3, I don’t hit.


Like sometimes I’m making mistakes, sometimes I’m playing well, sometimes I’m ahead, sometimes I’m behind, but just with some better run-good I still have a bankroll, I’m still playing.

I just had 6.5 buy-ins. It wasn’t enough.

I don't want to be an ******* to you, but this is just normal variance. You still won at 18,5bb/hr for 500+ hours. That's pretty much the definition on sunrunning, more so in a high raked spread game like yours. If you think your dream was annihilated from bad variance you are dead wrong my guy. You sunrunned and still went broke cause:
1) too high life expenses
2) 1/2 is not a stake where you can live from poker (even if you sunrun like you did)
3) no other form of income.

The lesson you have to learn here is that poker on these stakes can't be a profession. Even if you play higher poker is a very difficult and bad profession that doesn't pay enough to live a good life in a first world country.
Get a good job and just play poker as an hobby for some side income on the side, that's the best way to approach poker nowdays. It's a dying industry, and the good times are pretty much gone and will never come back.
I wish you all the best!

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