I did figure it was directed at me because of the quote but I certainly didn't take offense or anything, and I agree with everything you wrote. And thanks as far as plugging mental leaks etc.

That's pretty nasty. Being at those great tables and running bad is the worst. It's interesting I've always run the worst at very good tables. I had very good tables in all my recent losing sessions. I mean any table where someone calls a 4x x/r OTT with a non-nutted gutshot is pretty good, right? He just happened to get there. Or where a guy consistently calls my turn overbets with a naked flush draw? He just happened to get there 6/6 times, which he showed me every time after I folded so could have been a lot worse if he mixed in some bluffs. I imagine this is a pretty common pattern of running the worst at good tables. At nitty tables it's hard to win much but hard to lose much either because they just won't give you much action, but I've been consistently at action tables recently where people are stacking off with TPNK, some players playing literally ATC, but when I'm in a pot against those guys suddenly they've got a set. During my most recent and worst session, one of the other recs after he saw me lose a massive pot after showing first where it looked like I was probably good (got slowrolled incidentally), he says "Son, did you run over somebody's dog or something?" I just laughed and shook my head.

Yeah I know it'll turn around. This just came at a frustrating time for me as I was less than 2k short of my BR goal for moving up to 2/5, and now I'm more like 6k short. I've decided for the time being I'm going to make the somewhat longer drive over to Derby Lane (home of the nearest 1/3) in St. Petersburgh, a game for which I'm amply rolled, and see if I can grind up my BR any quicker.

I try to stay positive but at the same time I try not to have expectations from a game where the short term results are pretty freaking random. In one 12 hour session of 1/3 500 cap I could win 5k or drop 3k and anywhere in between. So I'd love to go on an upswing or even have one nice winning session (it's been a while since I had a 4BI+ win), but que sera sera.

Anyway thanks for the words of encouragement.

Pettrucci - A+ poasts there my man!

I am convinced that my 21 background has helped my w/r an absolute ton. Every decision in blackjack is binary. If the count is good I raise my bet. The amt I bet is dictated by how big my true count is. There is no deviation. Same holds true for my decisions as to hit/stand etc. Getting absolutely nuked and losing bet after bet and staying robotic is something that I have honed after thousands upon thousands of hours of advantage blackjack play

The point of that is. With all of this experience being a robot I have reasonable insight to my mental state while playing a game for a living. I can feel small changes in my thought process. AND these small changes make for massive changes in my decisions. When I start to feel these - bang, Im either taking a break or I am done for the day.

These small changes (tilt) do not happen often. But they happen often enough that if I did not address them in a timely fashion my w/r would be significantly lower and my down swings would obviously be significantly larger. The more I play the more I realize how important this aspect of my game is

I have stated this numerous times in this thread but it was asked recently so

My largest DS in 2/5 is approx 7.5k It is larger than robfarha, SPC, Goose, Cushlash, and several other pros with high w/rs.

I've spent some time in the Tampa area a few months ago. Maybe take a road trip to Sarasota and play at one eye jacks just to get a change of scenery. A lot of times when I'm in a down swing I'm also playing bad (my tilt is passive, I stop 3 -betting with JJ and AK out of the small blind and just try to hit hands) and by switching locations it allows me to hit the reset button a little easier.

GL man, I've played some 1/3 at Derby, those games can be really good.

Let's actually look up what Ed Miller said about this as I have the feeling it's been grossly misinterpreted:

"I wouldn't even think of playing 2-5 on a regular basis with less than a $20,000 bankroll. Pros can and do have downswings of $15,000 or more at this level. And these are professional-level players with relatively high, well-established win rates. If there's a decent chance you don't play the game as well as these players, your win rate will be lower, and you'll be exposed to potentially bigger downswings. It would not shock me to hear of a winning (but not elite) 2-5 player suffering a $30,000 or bigger downswing." - Ed Miller, "The Course" p. 215

Okay so it looks like this statement has butchered pretty badly if people are interpreting it as Ed Miller saying a 30k downswing at 2/5 is probable. All he says is two things:

A) Pros can and do have downswings of 15k+ (note "pro" does not mean super mega crusher)

B) A marginally winning player could possibly go on a 30k downswing

Neither of these statements seem unreasonable.

To be fair, you're more in super mega crusher territory than your average 2/5 pro, correct? And if you've had a 7.5k downswing being a super mega crusher, it's very believable a worse but winning player might go 15k+, or even that a similarly skilled player might just run worse. It stands to reason pros with exceptionally high winrates are less likely to go on large downswings.

I mean if these downswings are so unlikely why do I even need 20k to play 2/5?

I've thought about coming down to OEJ and it's actually not that far from where I live. I'll probably do it eventually. Yeah I'm looking for a temporary change of scenery. I recognize like half the 1/2 player pool at SHRT and all the dealers.

Clearly the higher your win rate, the less downswings and shallower downswings you will have. My worst downswing in about 3500 hours of 2/5 is also about $7500. It felt like my guts were being ripped out.

Shai - every one that i listed as a game that I really respect. They are or have been top tier pros. I think you are a very smart dude and I actually think that we have in fact played together. I am not sure how much you "need" I have not played to a roll in so long I can not remember what it is like to be short rolled.

The main reason why you need a 20k roll imo things can and do happen. Also as you have found out - life happens. Cars break down. Roofs leak. SPC broke her leg kiteboarding and she has a 5k deductible. Kids get sick, need braces, diapers, new clothes, etc, etc.

I honestly could not imagine the stress of trying to build a roll in this day and age - with the current landscape of poker. I am not saying that the sky is falling BUT - earnings are capped much lower than they were 15 years ago.

Another thing about blackjack is if you play perfect you know exactly how much you need to be 1/2 Kelly. Poker is beautiful b/c most players delude themselves to believe they are better than they actually are - which obv keeps the game going. Maybe me and my poker pals are massive outliers in the luck department. I personally do not think so but its def possible. Point being every one needs different size rolls based on an absolute ton of factors. Dude with a wife, mortgage, and a kid is going to need an absolute ton more than a single dude with no debt sharing an apartment

it’s not the waves if you can’t paddle out afterwards. This point has been made ITT often but if you have 10k it’s not a 7k downswing to worry about but what you’re gonna do with the remaining 3k.

here’s my experience with that

[spoiler]


focus on the last 23 months:





[spoiler]
f poker
[/spoiler]

[/spoiler]

Yeah these are the worst. When every thin value bet or close call you make goes the wrong way for a month you question everything you thought you ever knew about poker.

Yesterday in the first hour or so I raised 7 times and didnt flop a single pair or single draw. A few of those I Cbet and lost more. When that stuff happens and then you finally flop the nuts and get busted, there's not much you can do no matter how good you are. Whats worse is at the same time someone hits quads twice in 4 hands. Someone else wins $2000 in like 20 mins hitting everything and youre just sitting there thinking youll never win another pot in your whole life.

Thanks for the A+ verdict on my poasts Squid, appreciate that.

And had to highlight this: because that is something that i also talk alot with my poker grinding friends about. The beauty of poker is that anybody can delude themself for x amount of time, in x amount of ways no matter how bad they are. The slow nature of livepoker makes people forget about results, selective memory(remember 1 win but not 5 losses) and people basically can lie to themself how much they want in infinite time stretches.

In the homegame scene in Norway where i have logged the most hours, i regurarly play with bad regs/fish who have played poker for 20-25 years losing steadily: and still they manage to lie to themself thinking seriously they are good winning players,when anybody remotely good can rip them apart due to all their glaring leaks. Its just mindboogling to see it unfold in real time, then i started to understand just how huge this deluding thing is for poker and how it keeps losing players coming back over and over and over again. Its like their brain/ego cant handle the reality about they are NOT as good as they think, so therefor the defense mechanism is to literally fool themself and creating another reality that fits their narrative about them being good players.

Shades of FGators ITT

QFMFT!

I gotta say that this seems like a major leak. I haven't even been on any kind of a downswing in the past few months, but I honestly rarely play a session without making a mistake. Like probably at least 75% of my sessions have mistakes in them that I recognize afterwards, and there have to be more that I don't even recognize.

Recognizing mistakes is pretty key to not going on prolonged downswings. A good player recently told me that honesty is the key to poker and it is very true.

Anyone who loses $30k in a 2/5 is just plain bad. Someone convince me I'm wrong.

Up until the ~1,800 hour mark of 1/3 NL, I had never gone on a $1500+ downswing. I then went on a ~$2865 one. And now closing in on 4K hours of 1/3 NL, I've since experienced another ~$2865 one.

Overall, I think it just shows how meaningless / few hands 1000 hours is. Play enough hands, it will definitely happen, it's just really a matter of time.

GcluelessdownswingnoobG

3k isn't even that bad just 10 BIs. 4k at 1/2 on the other hand sounds way worse.

Even if a person reviews their hands and thinks they played every hand well, there would be other people who thought some of the hands were misplayed. For one, there is more than one way to play most hands and for two, unless you are one of the best players in the world you dont know what you dont know and think you are playing well when you may be playing sub optimally.

Thats a big factor in the difference between a 5BB winner and a 10+BB winner. A 5 BB winner may win $100 on a hand that the better player would've won $150. Get enough hands like that and the good players 10 buy in downswing may have only been a 5 buy in downswing for the excellent player but the good player thinks he played the hands correctly because he believes the way he played them IS correct. He doesnt know what he doesnt know.

Comparing win rates of 1/3 vs. 3/5

If you're averaging $30/hr in both 1/3 and 3/5 games, you're crushing 1/3 at 10BB/hr and right in the zone for expectation in 3/5 at 6 BB/hr. And, if my BR is $15k, then I'm 50 BIs for 1/3 and 30 BI for 3/5 meaning adjusting play and risk (of ruin) formulas for the 'bigger' game.

Now, I realize part of the answer is based on which game/table has the larger number of weaker players and/or which game appears most profitable. Also, I understand that sustaining 10BB/hr in 1/3 is statistically unlikely just due to the increase in variance (partially based on stakes level), but 3/5 is that much different, albeit there IS A difference.

I'm inclined to believe that at 3/5, BRM discipline is gonna force you to reign in some areas that you might let loose occasionally in 1/3 because of overall BR, i.e. I can try a light/lihgter 3B! because my overall investment is smaller, say $60-120 vs. $150+

The $30 spends the same away from the table, so are you better off in one game or the other?

I'm not saying I played perfectly but I take copious notes and guarantee you I analyze my hands more thoroughly than 90% of the people on this forum. And no i didn't see any mistakes. It's alarming you would say it's a major leak for me not to notice mistakes in a set of hands you have not seen. You're just assuming the only way to go on a downswing is to make many mistakes and that I'm too daft or dishonest to notice.

I have had many previous losing sessions where I made many mistakes, but that is just not the case here. Again not saying I played perfectly, but I could find nothing significant, any mistakes that cumulatively would account for even a small percentage of the losses.

Agreed but I don't appreciate the implication I'm not being honest, which is evidently based on nothing.

Ed Miller never said anything approaching that 30k downswings are normal and you guys are just running wild with the idea that he did. I have the relevant quote in my last post, and what was said was that pros can and do experience 15k downswings. Also keep in mind this is in Vegas where 15k might be just 10BI at some places.

There's an easy way to address all this using mathematics. I could calculate the probabiity of hitting any arbitrary downswing over a certain period given a winrate mu, if I only knew what are reasonable values to use for the standard deviation sigma for say a TAG and a LAG.

I play more aggressively than most at 1/2 so I expect my variance is higher but I don't know how to track this without writing down the results of every hand or at minimum every hour over many hours.

properly applied aggression should lower your variance, not increase it. perhaps you're being overly aggro in the wrong spots.

Perhaps I am, but I question the premise that properly applied aggression lowers variance. Sorry but that makes no sense.

It makes perfect sense. You aren't reliant on showdown winnings. If your hand MUST hold to yield positive results, it will be high variance. If you're constantly taking down small pots, your WR is less reliant on "big" pots.

If you call, you can only win 1 way
If you bet/raise, you can win 2 ways

back into this debate again :')

yup. you sort of just have to assume that you'll have some ungodly stretch of runbad breakeven play every few thousand hours or so.