I've been playing professionally for nearly a decade now, and over the last four years have been on such a disgusting stretch of cards I am struggling to fathom it. I play almost exclusively PLO cash with the occasional NL tournaments. These results are from stakes ranging from mainly 2/5 to 10/20 with a small sample at 15/30, 25/50, and 50/100. The earlier years were mainly 10/20 and higher, but after running over 100 BI below EV I moved down in stakes because I couldn't stomach simply how badly it was going. Last year, I finally ran above EV and had a win rate of 10.92. I didn't put in as much volume as normal as I took a month off for my wedding and to go on my honeymoon, but it was a good year. This year, I am running over 80 BI below EV in a 54k hand sample, and am getting smoked. Seems borderline impossible. Almost all hands played over this year and last year are 2/5 with a couple 5/10 and 10/20 sessions sprinkled in. Running this bad has made me punt a bunch of money at the sportsbook (not proud of it) and this recent stretch has actually made me start feeling insane and unhappy outside of poker, which is why I decided to post here. My wife has had to deal with me constantly baffled and frustrated with these results, and I don't have many poker friends who can fully understand. I'd guess that I am running another 100k+ below EV untracked on my laptop over the last 4 years, but that isn't really worth going into because I have no proof and am just estimating the number. I just know it's very bad. Wondering if anyone has ever experienced or seen anything like this, or if I truly am the unluckiest poker player alive. Happy to post other graphs/results and answer questions.

Thanks for reading.

Please print these photos out and then take photos of them so we can analyse them properly.

Has the player pool improved at all in their play?

Maybe slightly better than average but still plenty of fun players. Doesn't really justify running over 80 buy ins below EV in a relatively small sample.

My best guess would be your opponents are card sharing

Even if you play this sample 100 times there is less than 2% to encounter a downswing like this

You are in fact the unluckiest poker player alive. Here's how to get back to even. You find a crazy under valued stock and just hammer it.

Instead of punting in sports betting, try punting in the market - at least a lot of stocks are at their 52 week lows, and could go lower.

Maybe try TDOC or CLOV or some other insane asset that could 20x your money if you get lucky. You can't possibly run bad in the stock market and poker at the same time right?

I considered that I am being cheating... probably will never know.

I'd be fine with losing over this recent sample, it is just how much I am losing and the fact that I cannot seem to win a pot when we are all in with cards to come. Has been going on for 4 years now and it is beyond exhausting. It is not like I am some fish complaining about variance, this is not even close to normal variance.

Looks like variance to me.

What swingy games did you play during first couple of thousands hands? Looks like you won a flip or two during last year, and this year you started terrible. Do you play PLO5? That game isn't tracked properly, am I right?

Hi there, I also play plo cash, ive played around 2 millions hands and am only down 8k in ev over that span. I wouldnt be worried about card sharing much as I would think I would be down in ev a lot more than 8k. You definitely seem to be very unlucky, keep your head up Im sure your luck will turn around.

card sharing wouldn't explain the all-in-ev gap anyway.. ouch OP

I wouldn't try to compare and go as far as saying worse graph, but this is my graph for cash since 2009 - essentially 14 Years of running below EV in cash on every stake all the way to $25/$50.

No, it would definitely explain the all-in ev gap. If you are constantly getting it in when your opponents outs are super live then the all-in ev metrics will all get screwed up.

Another thing OP, running below ev doesn't "make" you dump money on sports betting. You are just a gambling addict.

ACR?

oh great point actually

Guessing Bovada based on OPs post history.

I recall reading somewhere recently a lot of pros think something shady is going on there. Pretty sure it was another 2p2 thread.

Edi: It’s the official ignition thread … last 3-4 pages everyone saying they’re on big downswings and under EV.

I have only seen a worse EV graph than this once. It was a Tuesday.

Damn yeah, great insight. Here I was thinking that someone had a gun to my head forcing me to punt on sports. Thank you for enlightening me that I am in fact responsible for my decisions, had no idea.

Just checked out those posts, really interesting timing for them, doesn't seem like a coincidence as I am experiencing the same thing (to a worse degree) over the exact same time frame. Guess we will never know.

I don’t play Bovada, but based on the conversation definitely sounds like something is up. People mentioned getting refunds for collusion over the past few months.

Maybe time for Bovada to get rid of anonymous games …

I play on BOVADA and I 100% think there is something going on. I think mostly collusion. I had a long period of winning until collusion rings started hitting me hard. So much could be going on there especially if some of the staff is in on it. I have seen the shadiest **** in cash games. I think MTT is your best bet of playing fair. Imagine that. I said fair like we have to wish for it.


CAN WE REALLY DO ANYTHING ABOUT THIS? I can articulate myself better when I'm not so mad. Right now, it angers me that I can't play on a licensed regulated site. BOVADA will only get worse.

Have you thought of winning your all ins? I think that would solve your problem.

I came yesterday and there was two pages and some other graphs that you shown us. Did you delete them? I liked this post and the update you did.

<2% events happen all the time. If there are 200 players on this forums, the chance that at least one of them will encounter a downswing at the bottom 2% of a binomial distribution is 98%.

You can either believe that you play 300k hands with less than 0.02% propability and even if you play 30m hands has less than 2% or something shady going on with app and save yourself the headache by playing somewhere else. I guess the choice is down to op

I have switched sites. Ignition/Bovada is dead to me. Probably their biggest rakeback grinder last 5 years, good riddance.