I'm wondering if it's even worth it to continue in poker. I had better results when I bearly knew the game. Ever since i learned the game fairly well and for the last many months I haven't had a more then a day when I ran pretty well. And even when I do start to run well, it'll all be negated very soon when my cold deck comes back to haunt me.

Literaly 90 percent of people make their flushes or river their 3-6 outers against me. I didn't want to make my thread but this is really getting ridiculous.

My question is that is it possible that some people, statisticly, within math, will always run bad and cannot profit from poker? Polarised from the same way that some people run really really good? Cause if this is possible then I have to conclude that I'm one of those people who just doesn't run good for whatever reason.

When I say that 90 percent of people make their flush draws against me, I mean it. I've been counting.

The only way I seem to win is when I have the stone cold nuts. Okay, clearly a little exagerated. Sometimes I suckout myself, and win pots with lesser hands. But for the most part I'm in as a solid favroite and someones ALWAYS getting the suckout.

I know I'm not the best player, and I'm always reading books/2+2 forum and thinking about ways to improve my game... but I mostly get my money in as a solid favroite. But I bearly ever come out the winner.

At this point I gotta wonder if it's better to cut my losses.

I really love poker, I want to continue playing and become steady winner.

This has even got me questioning the integrity of online poker dealers. Which I realise is ridiculous. But I've seen the cards fall in favor of the suckout so many times (in runner runner fashion) I can't help but question it.

I know there's lots of you guys on this site are really great players and maybe you can offer me some advice or talk about your experience.. anyway,

Thanks

Short answer: forever.

Despite being a steady winning online player, in the live games (which are like 10x softer) I've been a hopeless loser over the last year or so, for the reasons very similar to yours.

Longer answer: anything less than 20,000 hands is pure variance. High-volume players like leatherass sometimes have stretches of 70,000-100,000 hands where they are running bad. This is like a lifetime of playing live, btw.

So play some more, get Holdem Manager, then if your graph shows like 30 buyins below expectation you're entitled to post a whine into BBV forum.

Hmm well, I have poker tracker. I've played about 300k hands. Although, I don't know how to use the software too well, I don't know how to make the graphs and whatnot. 300k hands, most of which running completely bad.

I used to run well when I was a rookie player, it's crazy. I started out playing mostly tournys and sit and go's and did okay. My first day playing cash games I made about 300 dollars playing 6max 25/50 cent nl holdem. Playing rather wrecklessly too, bluffing at pots and making moves like it was a highlight reel of high stakes poker. Just a style that is doomed to fail, but it worked out for me that day because I was running good (and because, for some reason most of my bluff attempt were successful).

Well now I have alot of experience and usually know exactly what people are up to and where I'm at in a hand. My reading abilities have gone up leaps and bounds due to my experience, and I am pretty good with laying down big hands when I'm beat. But it's not paying off.

Anyway, this thread isn't supposed to be about me whining. I just really wanna know if this nightmare will ever end, and if it's possible for me to become a winning player.

You probably aren't going to believe me, but your losses have nothing to do with luck. You are playing negative expected value poker. You will not become a positive expected value player until you accept this, identify the problems with your game, and fix them.

While it is theoretically possible for people to make 90% of their flush draws against you, whether due to extreme coincidence or cheating, I don't believe this is the case here. One reason, of course, is that so many people make these claims falsely. But another is your attitude. A good poker player knows the odds of each bet, and keeps track of the outcomes. She is constantly adjusting her play. She wouldn't complain about a run of cold decks, she would know her losses were due to specific unlikely events. If they got so unlikely that she suspected cheating, she would find another game.

You claim to have witnessed extreme unlikely events, without adjusting your play or investigating the possibility of cheating. No winning poker player can afford to act that way.

You're right lol, I don't believe you. But I'm open to your suggestion.

Some people are lucky enough to run good all the time, and variance is less of a factor for them for that reason. So that means that there has to be an equal number of people who run bad all time.

I'd like to clarify this thread has nothing to do with complaining.

How could I be playing negative expected value poker, when my money almost always goes in as a favroite? I know the math, I know pot odds, I know implied odds. I know position poker. I know at any given time the number of outs I have and the chances of making my hand. I know the hands my my opponents are likely to hold, I always put my opponent on a hand and I'm getting very good at guesing what they have.

On top of all this, I am constantly looking for holes in my game and ways to improve. But it's not paying off, because everyone and their mothers hit their 3-6 outers, or their flush draws on me.

I know that's hard to believe, and you probably won't believe me, and clearly you don't. But I really have no reason to lie about it. Cause I'm not here for sympathy.

I know how to calculate +EV moves, and I make them. That's the entire reason I made this thread. I'm not here to complain about bad beats. I'm here to ask someone who knows math if it's possible for some to run bad all the time.

I am infact a poker player who is always looking for a way to win, that's the reason I made this thread in the first place.

//

And ya, I understand that people falsely make claims of running this bad. And really they are playing negative expected value poker. I totally understand why it's hard to believe 90 percent of people make their flush draws against me. But like you said, it is statisticly possible. So why is it so hard to believe that it happens to me? It has to be happening to someone, given the fact that it is statisticly possible. Well for now, I'm that someone.

First, you can download a trial version of Holdem Manager and re-import your hand histories. Then look at your graph, with "Display All-in EV" option enabled. Thin line will show what your expected results would be if you were running completely "normal". There's a similar option in PT as well, I believe.

Second, I think that you probably have some gaping leaks in your game. This is somewhat more likely than playing perfect but running bad for 300,000 hands straight.

Well 300k is a bit of a roundoff. I have 150k hands recorded in poker tracker, but I never got that until about halfway thru my "career", so I'm really just estimating the rest because I don't have the hand history from before hand. So let's say maybe 250k hand, the majority of which I'm running bad. I'm not saying I play perfect or anything. Obviously I don't. I'm always learning.

For example, I have a friend who is not as experienced as me, not as good in general. But he runs good, and has had much better results then me. I've helped him win over 3000 dollars in tournaments by basically playing for him. He needed my help so I watched him play, he would tell me his cards, and I would tell him what he should do and he would do it. And over the course of maybe 7-10 tournaments of us doing this he won 3k, one of them being a final table cashing for 1500 in fourth place. I was playing for him, telling him what to do, and he was running good so he earned all this money with my advice. But I cannot reproduce these results for myself. But while "ghost playing" for someone else who was running good, they win over 3k. If I really had gaping holes in my game would I really have been able to help him reach these results? Probably not, right? Maybe so.. but I doubt it.

I realise its hard to believe someone like me, claiming to run so bad for so long, yet claiming to play pretty well. Doesn't seem likely. That's why my real question is if it's possible that statisticly some people will just never profit from poker no matter how well they play. Within the law of large numbers.

I understand that it's more likely that I have gaping holes in my game then it is to be running poorly for the majority for 250k hands. But I really don't think that I do. I understand the theory of poker, and gambling in general. Like many of you, I have spent a large amount of time studying and practicing.

Thanks for the advice on the holdem manager, I'm going to download it right now.

edited: deleted - I wrote about considering luck analyzer, but it seems holdem manager has one...

Interesting, seems like something thats right up my alley. Thank for suggesting it.

No.

In fact it's a mathematical GUARANTEE that everyone will eventually get the same run of cards.

And if you believe so strongly in luck and have this kind of logic I doubt that you will ever become a consistent, winning poker player.

Hmm well, I have poker tracker. I've played about 300k hands. Although, I don't know how to use the software too well, I don't know how to make the graphs and whatnot. 300k hands, most of which running completely bad.

I think this is telling. You claim you know theory and you apply the math to your play - pot odds, implied odds, etc. Yet, after some 300k hands you do not know how to use one of the most basic Poker Tracker tools -- performance graphs and other parts of the software. Maybe, you really don't know as much as you think and perhaps some coaching might be a good investment.

And what is the exact number of hands you have to play for that to become true? 1 million? 10 million? 1 Billion? 1 Trillion? Infinite?

If it is infact an unatainable number like I suspect, then it is infact true that humans simply can't play enough hands to experience all of this variance. So then really, it's not a guarantee that everyone will reach the same run of cards. Unless we could all play infinite hands.

Am I wrong here? It's a legitimate question. You claim it's a guarantee that mathematically we will all get the same run of cards. So tell me the magic bingo number that will certainly acheive this.

If it is an unacheivable number, perhaps infinite. Like I suspect, then is it not true that you will have a group of players over the course of their lifetimes will

for the most part, run great

and equal amount of players that will

for the most part, will run bad

and the rest of everybody in the middle?

While it's true that all I know how to do with my poker tracker is record my hands, review them and use the HUD. I don't see how that correlates with my knoweledge on how to calculate pot odds, implied odds, and calculate +EV moves etc..

I do infact know how look at the graphs, it's tab on the software, how could I not? I just don't know how it can help me. I know I'm losing, the graph isn't telling me anything I don't know.

I certainly am not a master of the poker tracker software, however.

Well if you're talking about hole cards then given the amount of cards in a deck I'd say that after 5-10k hands you would have a pretty damn even draw of cards value wise. Obviously to get exactly the same cards would realistically be non-obtainable but that's irrelevant anyway.. I guess you're probably talking about people beating you in unlucky scenarios.

Let me put it this way. Poker sites have complex algorithms which generate (almost) completely random numbers indicating which card is going to appear next... If you and a 'lucky' player were placed in same scenario where there is a small chance of the opponent winning from the river card (1/100 for example) and that scenario was ran through 5000 times both you and the lucky player would get sucked out on about 50 times, simple as that. It would be very, very unlikely that any huge/significant variance would occur.

Explain to me how it is more likely for a bad card to appear for you than him? Does your bad luck hack into PokerStars and change the algorithm to work against you? No, the bad luck is in your head.

I have a friend who was just like you, I played with him a lot and was always saying that I got better cards than him. The reason is when he got bad cards he made a big deal about it, when I get bad cards I just ignore it and patiently wait for the good cards.. Thinking negatively and constantly telling yourself that you're running bad is going to make unlucky situations and bad runs stand out more in your head.

Ya, this is wrong. Central limit theorem, etc. Everyone has the same expectation in terms of "runs of cards", but even over very large samples "runs of cards" will be normally distributed.

This is actually very wrong. There's 1326 possible starting hands (169 if you don't mind suits), so let's say after 30k hands or so you should get about the expected # of each combo. BUT this is far from running EV-neutral, as what counts it the COMBINATION of your cards vs. opponents in a given situation, and even more so in the tournament play.

Let's say during a 20,000 hand period (roughly a month) Player 1 gets his AAs and KKs mostly on the 10/20 blinds level, where he wins maybe 60 chips or everyone folds to his BB. OTOH Player 2 gets the same number of AA and KK, but on the bubble or at the final table, where each pot won makes a huge difference $$$-wise. In a vacuum, they both get expected # of good hands, but one of them runs like Ussain Bolt while the other wants to kill himself.

So long run is long, especially in tournaments, as it matters most in critical moments where this long run is hard to achieve.

If it makes you feel any better (it shoudn't!!!!), I think I remember reading in one of Sklansky's books that some truly unlucky players could be running bad for their entire lifetime. However, it was before people started playing 100.000 hands a month.

Guess there r much more luck involve in online than live.

U can win without luck but u cannot win if u get unlucky !!!

Actually, it is far more likely that you and your friends were on a huge rush when you cashed in that tournament. Rush's over, you're back to normal.

Even if you're running generally bad, over the course of let's say 50,000 hands you'll always have very noticeable ups and downs, with stretches of few winning days in a row. If you're going steadily down for this long, you most likely play not very good.

Post some graphs and stats in relevant forums, seek advice.

You have no reason to expect to run better or worse than anyone from here on out. You have no reason to expect to run below EV the next 10k hands, and you have no reason to expect to run above EV. Nothing from the past, and nothing you can do, will change your luck in the future. It's undiscriminating randomness.

However, you very clearly need better tools to analyse your play and your luck, and finding out your bb/100 vs your ev bb/100 should have been your first step. After that maybe post in BBV or psychology if you're feeling sorry for yourself, or find yourself a coach if it turns out the problem is you. And judging from your OP I'll join AaronBrown and say it really, really looks like the problem is you.

I agree with kronologikal to this extent, luck plays a significant role even over large numbers of hands of no-limit poker.

Say you play 100,000 hands of poker. Say you fold 70,000 immediately, play 20,000 with a standard deviation per hand of $100, 8,000 with a standard deviation of $1,000, 2,000 with a standard deviation of $10,000. Obviously I'm making those numbers up, but they reflect a reasonable range assuming you're playing at different limits and sometimes have some large stacks.

Your standard deviation is $456,289, or 1.5% of the sum of your standard deviations. That's a significant swing, especially if your edge is 1% of standard deviation or so.

I don't play as much poker as I used to, but I still get in over 10,000 hands per year. My largest pot represents a significant chunk of my annual profits, and seldom do I have 100% chance of winning. When I was playing more like 100,000 hands per year that wasn't true (the significant chunk part, the 100% chance part was true), but the random swings from my 100 largest hands made a real difference at the end of the year.

However, what's not realistically possible is to have people make 90 of 100 flush draws, with a 35% chance of each one. If you tried this once per second, every second for 24 hours per day, 365.25 days per year, it would happen about once every 7.3 million years. And in 300,000 hands, you'll get a lot more than 100 flush draws.

Graph, or it didn't happen. I've seen some sick, sick, sick graphs today over huge samples. So, there are definitely people that run lousy over 100k+ samples; although, I have to confess, I'm not a huge fan of allin-EV graphs because they vastly oversimplify whether you're running good or not. But OP hasn't figured out how to post an EV graph, so, in my mind, it didn't happen.

The human brain is programmed to give heavier weight to negative, painful memories. This has been demonstrated several times in psychological studies; in fact, scientists hypothesize it to be a hereditary trait. Our ancestors that didn't have a good memory for things that could hurt them died. The ones that remembered not to eat the red berries that made their tummy hurt or to not pet the sabertooth tiger cubs passed their negativity genes on to us.

So, whenever I hear a claim from memory, without clearly demonstrable evidence, I assume it's false at worst, inaccurate at best. I know I'm contradicting myself, but if OP can't produce a graph demonstrating that he in fact is vastly below EV then:

/thread imho

Lol.. I'm not here to prove to anyone that I am running bad. I don't care what anyone actually thinks in that regard. What would that accomplish for me? I have my hands recorded in poker tracker. The only graph that appears in the pull down menu is a graph for money earned in tournaments. If you can tell me how to generate a graph that will show you that I am losing far more often then expected value suggests I should, then I would be happy to.

I am here to discuss the mathematical probablities and possibilities. We could say its a hypothetical for all I care. I'm simply interested in what is possible and impossible, and how likely or unlikely these scenarios are.

I do not care to prove to anyone that I am running horribly, that accomplishes nothing for me. I know for a fact how bad I am running, and I'm not here to convince anyone that I am.

You said yourself you've seen sick 100k+ samples of running bad. Well I'm not claming much more then this am I? So for sake of discussion I am asking people just how long this can realisticly last.

The short answer seems to be forever.

I know I play well, and even if I didn't. Let's say I'm delusional, and I don't play well at all. Well then regardless of my play, I should still reach an upswing from my normal results occasionaly? Should I not? Especially over the large number of hands I've played. Well I haven't actually hit that, there hasn't been a lucky day or two for me. With the exception of when I was at the start of my "career". I ran well enough to acheive a few positive results. Even tho I bearly knew the game at all. Well 200k+ hands later and I haven't acheived a revolution of any sort to return to some of the luck I experienced when I was a brand new player.

Also, I know psychology. I understand perfectly well that humans remember bad beats way more often then their sucesses and suckouts.

But now that I think of it, Acesfullmoon. I really have had my questions answered in this thread. Thanks to all who replied to it.

For people saying I'm wrong, I'm not really paying attention to the figures I'm stating I'm just trying to get a point across.