43% winners is impossible

Break even generally, but slowly, I'm starting to gain a little here and there. But not today. Today I've played about nine hours, and I'm right back where I started. Which is better than minus, so oh well.

I make a steady profit.

This does not mean 43% of all players are winners. It doesn't even mean those 43% you have recorded as winners are actually winning players.

Just because someone wins when they are at the table with you, does not make them an overall winner.

show me some math so I can believe you...

intuitively, I'm pretty sure that a bankroll management scheme that includes moving up to continuously risk a large fraction of the player's bankroll, but never moving down, will result in a busto player more often than not, even if the player has a positive expectation.

ok, the occasional player will have a long stretch without a downswing, and might cross some finish line (like busting the bank in my example), but these will be the exception.

Isn't that effectively reverse martingale's?

That's the problem with Ed Miller's Short Stack article. He says something about playing with 10 bb (with 10 buyins) vs 100 bb (with 1 buyin) and both players of same skill, the former will win with short stack advantage. Well... NO, unless you go south everytime you double, because you need to win 4 all-ins in a row without losing any money in order to do that.

So I thought that was a bit stupid.

Yeah, OK. This is PT2 data base-I changed to HEM a few months OK so this is old data and combining my data bases is too much trouble so anyway this is about 122k hands and just under 18k players. Totals are at the bottom. Anybody else, go ahead and post yours. I am not invested in being right on this but any of you guys who think ~43% is BS. Put up or shut up. Plz TY

Nobody denied your datbase looked like that. Nearly everyone's database showsabout 60/40. The point was that is not correct. The samples in each individual's database is biased and shows a lot more winners than there truely are.

So some believe that about 40+% of internet poker players are winners and the rest are losing. The only evidence we have for that is that nearly everyone who has checked their data base has found a number like that.

And some believe this number is impossible. The only evidence they have shown for that is well...... it just doesn't fit our perceptions.

Sounds to me like we are clinging to a preperceived and unsupported notion even in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

What makes the data bases biased? They are recorded fact and the more of them that agree the better supported the 40+ assertion is imo.

Every database has the same winners generally (multi-tabling regs). Every database has a number of different losers in them (single tabling fish some of whom bust and don't redposit). Combine a good number of large databases and the %'s will change dramatically.

Also some of the winning regs in your database lose more $ at the next highest level.

There were a lot of other things brought up in older threads. I'm not going to go through everything.



Seriously search for some old threads about this. People didn't just say this isn't what we thought so we're gonna say it's wrong. There are reasons why the databases do not show an accurate picture.

OK- I buy it. Partially from your memory of previous discussions and largely because a mathematician whose expertise I totally respect just wrote me this in response to my query on the subject:

"Bona, the 43% is the number of winners over the average # of hands you have per player in your database. This # will probably be very small and will depend on how long your sessions usually are, but I would think that 50 hands is a good average. So over 50 hands average the entire poker population will display 43% winners and 57% losers.

Were the hand sample larger the standard deviation would become narrower, hence the distribution would become narrower and the number of winners would decrease.

This, of course, is under the assumption that all players keep playing and that players don't improve their skill, which is flawed. However, winning players tend to move up until they reach a ceiling, so I guess that evens it out.

I don't know how narrow the distribution becomes after a significant sample, but I presume with LHE (15BB/100 SD) after 20k hands average for ALL players you will most likely only 15% (about 1sigma) winners."


Frankly I can't get my head around this but as far as I am concerned if Bella says it. It is so. imo

North, I wrote a real long reply, but system screwed up so heres a coles notes version.

What you(the gambler) is essentially doing is an ati-martingale, trading small loses for a big win. Assume an even more degenerate case(simplified fyp). Same game 1-4 wins 5-6 lose, hero starts with 2$ and doubles if he wins. Hero has a goal of winning 65000$ and thus will stop at 15 in a row 2^16. this will happen .15% of the time or 1.5/1000. thus in one 1000 rolls hero theoritically wins 95000$.

Morale of the stroy -->just like martingale where you can't beat a -ev situation by being cute with your money, a +ev situation won't cause you to lose money no matter the system of your betting (although he is not maximizing his winnings/roll).

yeah, I looked up reverse-martingale. interesting stuff (in the goofball math theory sense), I've never heard this name before. I'll revise my stance somewhat.

Of a large number of players trying this strategy, the vast majority are going to lose. A few will do great. So your population of double-to-65k contestants will be .15% winners and 99.85% losers. (I don't follow most of your math, but (2/3)^16 = .15%)

average them all together, and their expectation is positive, yes. But I'd still say that this strategy is making them mostly losers.

My theory is that bad bankroll management can make a +EV player more likely to lose money than to win it. Is that more defensible?

I only meant this to be partly abstract, because I think a lot of donks manage their roll along these lines. They move up WAY too fast, don't move back down, and go bust in the first minor downswing they encounter. I certainly don't subscribe to the notion that you can beat a -EV situation by rube-goldbergian betsizing antics.

Is that correct?


So in 2000 average trials, hero wins $196,608 and loses only $1997. Not too shabby.

Yep (and I think you unintentionally fixed a flaw in my math=). Now as to why I used 2$.......

This seems intuitively wrong to me, but Im tired and will try to defend that position tommorrow.

I've cashed out the amount already that would put me ahead so even if I lose my entire bankroll, then I'll still profit.

We'll have to see if I lose my bankroll and have to refill a couple times, how that'd go.

PROFIT!!

i must be one of those top 30% players i feel like im "freerollin" lol.


I think so because if a player has bad bankroll management they will lose more...

simple put: hero has 100 dollars.. wants to play $20sngs and ends up losing all 5 sessions instead of playing the $5 sngs and can lose 20 times in a row before he goes bust...


people who play $20 or $10 dollar sngs with 100 dollars have bad bankroll management... variance nuff said.