i don´t understand your resembling this remark sentence (GbeingidiotfromeuropeG), but your second sentence seems to me that either you are on a sick heater and therefore are the perfect example for my statement or are playing extremely tight to not let bigger swings happen.

but 500bb, i thought most of the over 1000hr guys blew that in one session at least once...

in 500 hrs the the biggest downswing i've had is 500bb.

I also have a stop loss and change my playing style while on a downswing to a much tighter/low variant one which probably helps in limiting the extremity of the downswing

Such a great post. IME, #1 accounts for 5% and #2 for 95% of losses. It's simple human nature to want to blame bad circumstance rather instead of taking responsibility for bad decisions.

But to our own advantage, exploiting this tendency is where solid players make their money. One of the best situations I can think of if when someone gets felted on a cooler/suck out, but instead of reaching into their pocket to reload from their bankroll (since they don't have one), or just quitting for the night, they tell the dealer to hold their seat while they go to the ATM. They're back in 20 minutes with $120 and start chasing losses. Rinse and repeat 3-4x, and I've just had a really good session.

5% for bad luck and 95% you have to blame yourself? i don´t know where you get these numbers from, sir, but that´s crap, with all respect.

surely it is true that, when being on a downswing you probably play worse and therefore extend your downswing, but if you really believe the luck factor is only 5% in poker, you are either a supergenius or just disillusional.

Maybe it was PLOL?

I've put in just over 400 hours since the pretty sick downswing I posted ITT (and my PGC) and I'll probably post another giraffe like Feb on next year but I went on a 440 hour break even stretch after running at 50 $/hr for like 400 hours, over my last 400 I had one stretch of 150 hours where I was > 90 $/hr and I'm > 50 $/hr for the last 400 hrs. These are just me eye balling the graph and doing some quick napkin calculations so actual numbers will be +/-.

Total downswing was like -7.5k over 280 hours.

Game is sick.

We're talking about negative variance and it's affect on overall losses. I made no mention of luck whatsoever, as it will even out over time. The point is that variance plays a much smaller role in results that people like to admit. The 5/95 statement isn't based on a mathematical model...it's exaggerated to make my point. But I don't think I'm far off....just a small amount of run bad spew has a HUGE impact on results.

Hand example from last night - I have KQ, and the guy to my left has TT. I bet, he calls with $100 behind. I c-bet on a Q high flop, he tank shoves, I call and hold. He leaves the table muttering about how bad he runs and how his hands never hold. But there was no bad luck in that hand...he didn't run bad or get coolered. He played bad, but blamed variance. That's where the bulk of my profit comes from, and that's all I was saying.

You sound ridiculous dude

Help me with my thinking then.

5% negative variance....lol

you can consistently make the right play versus somebody's range and "run bad" by always running into the top of their range and lose a large amount of $ in the short to medium term.

If you think "running bad" is shipping TT on a Qxx flop and getting snapped by KQ then we have a communication problem. Obviously people make mistakes but that is a bit more than a mistake.

Completely agree. I just don't think that this is the biggest part of losses over a long period.

Did you even read my post?

i know it´s online, it´s different than live, blablabla, but if we assume neither one is rigged, the game should stay the same.

http://imageshack.us/f/703/lzs.png/

imagine how long a live player takes to get that many hands (although these aren´t many hands really), and look at the graph and tell me variance is 5%.

also, running bad isn´t EV line alone, as 11t said, there are cooler situations etc...
variance is huge in poker, i thought someone with 5k posts would agree with me here...

I can't tell if you guys are just completely missing my point here, or if I'm just that bad at communicating what I mean.

I'm not denying the huge impact of variance in the game, but the +/- aspects are essentially 0EV over the long haul. Bad play is a much bigger factor in long term losses than variance.

Yeah I read your post, like if you mean that 5% of people bitching about running bad is actual running bad and the other 95% is bad play then I agree but you worded it so poorly that nobody inferred that.

and if you are winning player you don't have long term losses. losses can only occur in the short term if you are a winning player, just that most players have no real conception of what long/short term actually is.

I always thought this was a high estimate as well, but then I did a quick count for a few hours at my table and turns out 30+ is quite reasonable.

GIknow,lolsamplesize,butstillG

Pretty pointless to debate exactly how much variance or bad play affects our bottom line results.

I would personally assume that my own skills have a 75% effect on my results versus luck having a 25% effect on my results just because I like to "train" myself into taking personal responsibility for my results.

I really have no idea what effect variance really had, but I do know that there is no downside to taking personal responsibility for my own results. By assuming that I control at least 75% of my own results with my own play, I set myself up for success by focusing on playing my A+ game without worrying about how good/bad I am running luck-wise.

Straight out of my "A Clueless Noob Reaches 1000 Hours of Live 1/3 NL" thread (and these remain my worst "downswings" at the 1,217 hour mark):

Biggest Downswing: 1-2 streak for -$1,372 (-457bb) over 20.58 hours and 0-4 streak for -$1,367 (-456bb) over 25.83 hours

It is what it is. I know I've run extremely well so far and no doubt will experience a true downswing eventually.

GanydaynowG

yeah there is no point to worry about variance and people should just focus on their A game but if you blame every downswing on poor play you are being results oriented which is why accepting variance is important.

To blame variance is not the same as to accept it, by accepting it you can learn to overcome it whereas blame turns it into a scape goat.

yeah, i agree with that statement.
i think i actually misunderstood you, didnt want to sound like a dick. i just feel that really a lot of players underestimate short-term variance, and especially long term/short term differentiation. 20 sessions of live poker is not long term by any means imo.

you referred to dgi, who came up with some pretty weird numbers imo and said smth about his downswings due to variance are over after 2 or 3 sessions at most if i recall it correctly. i just want to state that, in my and maths opinion, it is pretty easily possible to have a much bigger downswing due to variance.

This is exactly what i meant.


We're on the same page.

Group hug guys.

This right here is why you are one of my most respected posters in the forums

Just to chime in, the whole online vs live lol sample size variance etc etc debate has some flaws.

Yes online you experience hundreds of thousands of hands and thus your play approaches a "normal" distribution (this includes your variance over said six figure hand sample size).

But online you are playing against sophisticated players who understand poker theory and strategy, you are 6betting pf when you are 51/49 vs an opponents range. Because you are working with razor thin edges, you need a vast sample to negate variance and understand your true wr.

But in live you play most poker post flop against total droolers. An intelligent player's wr should be mainly determined in turn and river play imo, I know mine is. So while in live we have a much smaller sample to work with, we have much larger edges. Alot of my opponents are willing to put their stack in ott with a non nut bare flush draw. It's hard, even for variance, to keep us in downswing if we are maximizing 80/20 edges all the time. Obviously be stretches are possible over a few hundred hours bc yes a few bad sessions at a great table can dent your wr, but I think a lot of downswing is human error, not variance.

The idea that "you never really will know if you're truly a live winning player bc sample will never be large enough" is flawed for this reason. In live play we are maximizing substantial edges.

Amen to all of that. Especially the quoted.

If you can point to 5 hands where you lost 200bb+ getting it in good ... Ok, that's variance.

Most live downswings don't seem to run that way though, it's the "damnit they always have the goods" type hands that kill you, and it's because you screwed up somewhere in the hand. Either by poor ranging, or poor bet sizing, or *something* that put you in spot where you're way behind and don't realize it.

I don't know why but **** like what has been posted seems so delusional to me, it is like Phil Hellmuth saying "if it wasn't for luck I'd win every hand!"

I'm all for damn the torpedos and focusing on playing your best but we are human, we will make mistakes (which is built into our winrate) but you will run worse than you ever thought was possible while playing as good as you can.