Variance
 

A winning regular in the Stars higher stakes game claimed to have had 450bb downswings each of the past two months. Each time he was playing his A+ game throughout. He also hinted that he believes 1200bb downswings such as BK's are possible for winning players.

This is very scary for me. My biggest ever downswing is about 270bb. A decent amount of that was tilt. So it would be about 240 or so without excess tilt, at a guess. For that to happen it was insane beats, hand after hand after hand, just unreal. So a 450bb downswing would be all that insanity, followed by the same insanity over again, with baring a comeback in between. It just seems so unlikely.

Part of the reason my swings havent been so severe is because I have a big edge, my lifetime rate is more than 2bb/100. While I think that winrate might be possible at 100/200, I am not good enough right now to achieve it. So with lower edge, and more aggro games, one can expect bigger downswings. But 450bb still seems ridiculous, and if you look at the math, it should be incredibly uncommon for a winning player.

I know another player who has been playing high stakes for a couple of years now and his biggest ds is about 250bb, which seems much more reasonable.

So please either soothe my fears or let me know what I am in for, as a 450bb downswing would make me go crazy.

Re: Variance
 

Without actually doing the math behind it (I'm sure the math has been beaten to the death on this anyway) - I think the isolated cases you're bringing up is exactly that - isolated instances/statistical flukes.

There are a lot of people playing poker. Even among the high stakes regular, there is still a good # of people. For 1 or 2 or even 5 of them to have gigantic swings (especially with short handed the mainstream game now) would be the exception and not the rule - yet at the same time not surprising.

I think a lot of people also underestimate the combined negative impact of tilt AND running bad. Also - it's not too difficult to spot tilt and most of the time this also allows your opponent to adjust easier to you and oftentimes play more correctly against you. I think these three elements tend to make big bad swings worse. I also don't necessarily buy the theory that someone going through a tremendous downswing is always on their A+ game. They may think it doesn't effect them - but intrinsically it does. The level of effectness may not be visible but it's there. By the time you realize it's effecting you it's already monkey tilting.

Remember if it's probable it's possible. While I am surprised to see 450BB downswings or whatever, the fact that it happens doesn't affect my mentality on variance.

I think the majority of us fall under statistical norm, and a small subset falls under first order of standard deviation, and a further smaller subset falls under second order of standard deviation... and so on.

Sounds normal to me.

For what it's worth I'm also 2+BB/100 (mostly in 100/200 albeit most of that data is from PartyPoker) over the past two years - and I don't recall ever going through a bigger than 200ishBB downswing. I may just be the luckiest whiner alive, though.

~andy

Re: Variance
 

You are saying your winrate is why you have not had a big downswing. But it is also that your winrate is high because of not having a big downswing and the long break-even stretch that ensues.

Re: Variance
 

My biggest is 300BB (though only at mid-stakes) but I am certain bigger can happen. After my 93BB in 140 hands yesterday in which I played great, I'm open to anything!

If you can have a 300BB ds, then of course you CAN have 400, 500 etc. I remember Stox had over 400BB recently. Just hope this evil never points it's finger in your direction!

Re: Variance
 

Dean,

I think it's likely that your source of this information is having these swings for a number of reasons. These are all just from my experience in poker and these games specifically.

1. He's playing a lot of hands in a very tough game.
2. He's probably not exercising the best game selection.
3. It's possible that he's chasing losses and even staying in bad games to chase them, thus dramatically increasing his variance.
4. Obviously he's playing tons of shorthanded. I don't know if that's what you play, but it does play a big role. Is he playing HU?

I don't know really. Maybe I've run well, but I've never had the kind of variance I hear about people on here having. Then again I probably don't win quite as much as the big winners in that 2/4. I don't play as much either. It's partly because I'm lazy, but the main reason is that I refuse to play in a bad game in the Stars 2/4. On occasion I've found myself chasing losses in bad games and surprise surprise, those are the nights where I lose 20-25k 1 or 2 tabling.

Just some thoughts. Don't worry yourself so much. Just practice good game selection, get to know your players, and don't play when you're feeling like you're just playing to get the money back.

Re: Variance
 

Does anyone else think it highly unlikely he was playing his A+ game over the full 450bb ds? IIRC he said it happened over 4 or so days.

Reasons I'm skeptical

i) It's pretty [censored] hard to play your A+ consistently over 4 days in any circumstance

ii) Not sure I know many players who would continue to play A+ when going thru such a drop. Not sure I can name any, actually.

Re: Variance
 

Dean you basically answered you own question in your post.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
He also hinted that he believes 1200bb downswings such as BK's are possible for winning players

[/ QUOTE ]

If I lost 48K at 20-40 I'd look in the mirror and say "You're not a 20-40 player. You're an idiot." I may be one anyway, but that's besides the point.

I'd come to the same conclusion constantly playing short, like mostly 3-4 and max 5 handed, even with the sick amount of variance.

1200 BB's. Imagine starting with a BR of 600 BB's, re-loading and losing that. Or a BR of 400 BB's, re-loading twice and losing that. Think about it. That's not a downswing. It's denial.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
He also hinted that he believes 1200bb downswings such as BK's are possible for winning players

[/ QUOTE ]

If I lost 48K at 20-40 I'd look in the mirror and say "You're not a 20-40 player. You're an idiot." I may be one anyway, but that's besides the point.

I'd come to the same conclusion constantly playing short, like mostly 3-4 and max 5 handed, even with the sick amount of variance.

1200 BB's. Imagine starting with a BR of 600 BB's, re-loading and losing that. Or a BR of 400 BB's, re-loading twice and losing that. Think about it. That's not a downswing. It's denial.

[/ QUOTE ]

What if your name is BicycleKick and you've got over a million hands and dollars that say you're a great player?

Re: Variance
 

Im sure bk used to play great, but Im skeptical he has done so over the past few months. I believe Josh_W never posted his online screennames despite my urging -- I dont see why he would need to keep his party name secret anymore -- Id love to hear what people thought of his play, Im guessing not much.

Re: Variance
 

In the span of a year i had 2 600bb downswings. The first downswing didnt really affect me as I was still a money winner from running well when playing high and running poorly playing low. At the time of, and immedately following the second downswing I would have told you I was playing my A game. This was certainly not the case. My game suffered tremendously from those downers and it took a long time to restore/improve my game.

Im not saying this happens to every one but it certainly was my experience.

-Brad

Re: Variance
 

Has anyone done any work on determine how normally distributed winrates are? I'm wondering if the fat-tail phenomenon applies here. Sure seems like a plausible explanation.

Re: Variance
 

Dean, what do you play? 30-60?

I'm not a well known high limit regular, but i've been playing 30-60 to 100-200 for 2 years now, and yes 300+ BB downswings are indeed common. I've had them maybe 5 or 6 times in 2 years. I've even had a 600BB downswing at 10-20 6max once. Although I prolly coulda shaved off maybe 150BB off that with better play, but obv I wasn't playing my best running like that.

Re: Variance
 

I play a variety of games and limits. Id play 100/200 right now if a good spot became available, but I'm still not comfortable with the swings at that limit, i.e. losing 10K in an hour upsets me, whereas to play those limits regularly you shouldnt really bat an eyelid at dropping 10k. Im hoping to play that high more regularly in a couple of months time, and hopefully by the middle of the year I will be comfortable with 1/2.

I like that I've never had a losing month in terms of bbs. Playing games you crush makes things so much easier.

Re: Variance
 

Dean, is your stars SN public info? If so, post it or pm?

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
Playing games you crush makes things so much easier.

[/ QUOTE ]

Yeah, i definitely don't crush 10/20. *rolls eyes*

Play enough hands and bad [censored] will happen.

I think you have it a little backwards regaurding your winrate and why you haven't had the runs. The reason it's so high is you haven't had a run yet.

If you're playing only like 2 tables with the best game selection I'd believe you'd be a lot less likely to have horrible runs, but you wouldn't win as much $ either. How many hands is your lhe career?

I don't say any of this in a mean spirited/arrogant way at all. I know it comes across that way but just trying to be straight.

I used to be in the same camp as many people, saying stuff like you just must play bad etc if you have huge losing streaks...so I understand. I'd be extremely suprised if anyone showed me an 800k hand set that didn't have a 500 bet downer in it.

Maybe I just suck. I really doubt it though. Either way limit holdem is kind of a crappy lifestyle. Maybe I'm just bitter from my run, who knows. I can't hate it too much as it's made me lots of money, but for now it gets the back seat. I've been having success with NL. It's been nice.

I really hope you don't hit the runs as you're a nice guy and I wouldn't hope it on anyone, but I'd imagine you'll be in for a really frustrating point in your career at some point. You'll keep saying it can't go on forever, i'll just grind out of it. Oh it can. It doesn't ever have to stop. Why would it? Your next hand is your next hand. Yeah yeah math standard deviation etc etc etc glhf.

Re: Variance
 

Dean,

I am literally chuckling as i read this post. Don't take offense to this, but it's incredibly obvious that you are VEEERRRRYY biased in your assessments. I have so much that i would like to cover here. First of all, mathamatically, these downswings are nowhere NEAR as unlikely as you make them sound. If you have an earn of 1 BB/100 and a standard deviation of 20 BB/100, you have a 1% ROR with a 920 BB bankroll. If you play HU and 3 handed a lot as I do , having a standard deviation of 30 BB/100 is not at all uncommon. If you change the SD to 30 BB/100 with a 1 BB/100 expection, you would have a 1% ROR with with a 2000 BIG BET BANKROLL! So 1 out of every 100 people who is playing 100/200 will have a 400k downer BY PURE CHANCE ASSUMING THAT THEY DO NOT TILT AT ALL! Within those same data parameters, you would have a 5% ROR with a 1300+ BB bankroll. Even if you up your WR to 1.5 BB/100 you would have a 5% ROR with 900 BB and 1% with 1300 BB. So in all honesty, i have no idea how you think mathamatics supports you here, on the contrary math asserts that a few select people will be cursed and be able to do nothing about losing more bets than you can wrap your mind around because you are more lucky then they are.

Also, for someone who is intelligent obviously, some of your logic is so painful. What would having Josh W. post his SN accomplish. The dude had a 2000 BB downer or whatever it was. No matter how well he was playing, people would say he sucked because they trounced him. I mean surely you don't think most poker players would objectivley admit that their winnings against a player were because of rivering 5 outers in 6 straight pots? [censored] happens to some people, and having people critique the play what they recall of someone who dropped that many bets is worthless. Selection bias alone of hands where he might have made a marginal play would render the results of that analysis close to useless unless he was going on monkey tilt.

Another thing which you have neglected to consider is that the math i provided assumed NO TILTING and even more importantly lack of adjustment in overall play. What i mean by this is that as poker players, much of our sucess is contigent upon contiously making adjustments. We should be able to do it after a few dozen hands based on out compeition. Try to imagine how for some people who have run worse than you could fathom for 50,000 hands, the results of individual situations would [censored] their minds. We teach ourselfs to adjust, and not making adjustments based on 50,000 hands would be impossible. But what if you were one of the people running several standard deviations worse than normal. Your perspective on these situations would be sooo skewed that it would be impossible to play optimally, it would even even be recognizable as tilit, but rather proper adjustments based on the last 50,000 hands. Now imagine how much 100,000 hands would [censored] with yout head. 150k? A quarted million? You should see what i am saying by now.

FWIW, i could provide you with all sorts of examples of variance muuuuch sicker than having a 450 BB downer in consecutive months. That is nothing. NOTHING. Where would you like me to start? I had something like a 150,000 hand breakeven strethch in the party 10-20 NL games. For 100k hands i was a top 10 player in terms of WR, prolly more like top 6 or 7. I had a 50k stretch at like 10 PT BB/100 which was probably the highest earn in the game. In limit this year, i had a 35 day stretch where i didn't lose for a single day and won something like 250k. I then had a 2 day stretch where i lost 120,000 playing 150-300, 100-200, and 10-25 NL. How much of that do you think could have possibly been tilt given that i had probably been playing the best poker of my life and never losing prior?

Look dude, here's the thing. Most people doubt people when they say they are playing well and losing. It's natrual. And most people think players who are running well are better than they ar. Also, most players who are very good but have been FORTUNATE enough not to encounter that kind of variance take offense to others pointing out that they are lucky. Me telling you that every post you have made in this thread is laughable to anyone who understands variance to any degree isn't meant to take away from your accomplishments as a poker player or be mean. Not having had that kind of stretch doesn't make you "guilty" of anything, and it shouldn't make anyone put an asterisk by your results. But you saying that you don't know if BK is a big winner at 10-[censored]-20 right now illustrates why people who haven't had these stretches need to do some more research before chmining in in these threads. I'll make you a deal. At the end of the year, i'll post my results from this year. We can compare them to every aspect of my results from last year. You will very likely see a difference you will not be able to believe. Variance is much much sicker than you think.

[/rant]

Re: Variance
 

dean, how many hands have you played lifetime and at what stakes?

fwiw, ive had so many 300bb downswings that at least one of them i was playing my A++ game. i had a 750bb downswing once. over a stretch of 100k hands i had 4 separate 300bb downswings and my winrate over that time was still 1/100 over that time. i have bunch more little runs of terrible results that i dont remember and, thankfully, dont care about anymore.

ive played about a million hands. my winrate has proly crept back up to 1 after 200k hands of hell. eventually you become numb.

Re: Variance
 

You really do come up with some super standout posts more often than almost any other poster.

Great post.

Re: Variance
 

Dean,

I am literally chuckling as i read this post. Don't take offense to this, but it's incredibly obvious that you are VEEERRRRYY biased in your assessments. I have so much that i would like to cover here.

Not sure how many 'assessments' I've made. This thread was created to try and find out the truth behind these massive swings I hear of, but haven't experienced. I said I was skeptical these players were playing well, but never said it was impossible.

First of all, mathamatically, these downswings are nowhere NEAR as unlikely as you make them sound. If you have an earn of 1 BB/100 and a standard deviation of 20 BB/100, you have a 1% ROR with a 920 BB bankroll.

Where do you get these figures from?

If you play HU and 3 handed a lot as I do , having a standard deviation of 30 BB/100 is not at all uncommon.

A If you change the SD to 30 BB/100 with a 1 BB/100 expection, you would have a 1% ROR with with a 2000 BIG BET BANKROLL! B So 1 out of every 100 people who is playing 100/200 will have a 400k downer.

B does not naturally follow from A. In fact, if A held true, the figure for B would be way more than 1%.
BY PURE CHANCE ASSUMING THAT THEY DO NOT TILT AT ALL! Within those same data parameters, you would have a 5% ROR with a 1300+ BB bankroll. Even if you up your WR to 1.5 BB/100 you would have a 5% ROR with 900 BB and 1% with 1300 BB. So in all honesty, i have no idea how you think mathamatics supports you here, on the contrary math asserts that a few select people will be cursed and be able to do nothing about losing more bets than you can wrap your mind around because you are more lucky then they are.

Again, Id like to know the source of your figures cos they contradict what I have read before.

Also, for someone who is intelligent obviously, some of your logic is so painful. What would having Josh W. post his SN accomplish. The dude had a 2000 BB downer or whatever it was. No matter how well he was playing, people would say he sucked because they trounced him. I mean surely you don't think most poker players would objectivley admit that their winnings against a player were because of rivering 5 outers in 6 straight pots?

My belief is that if he posted his screenname, people would post hands where he played badly, period.

[censored] happens to some people, and having people critique the play what they recall of someone who dropped that many bets is worthless. Selection bias alone of hands where he might have made a marginal play would render the results of that analysis close to useless unless he was going on monkey tilt.

Another thing which you have neglected to consider is that the math i provided assumed NO TILTING and even more importantly lack of adjustment in overall play. What i mean by this is that as poker players, much of our sucess is contigent upon contiously making adjustments. We should be able to do it after a few dozen hands based on out compeition. Try to imagine how for some people who have run worse than you could fathom for 50,000 hands, the results of individual situations would [censored] their minds. We teach ourselfs to adjust, and not making adjustments based on 50,000 hands would be impossible. But what if you were one of the people running several standard deviations worse than normal. Your perspective on these situations would be sooo skewed that it would be impossible to play optimally, it would even even be recognizable as tilit, but rather proper adjustments based on the last 50,000 hands. Now imagine how much 100,000 hands would [censored] with yout head. 150k? A quarted million? You should see what i am saying by now.

This I agree with.

FWIW, i could provide you with all sorts of examples of variance muuuuch sicker than having a 450 BB downer in consecutive months. That is nothing. NOTHING. Where would you like me to start? I had something like a 150,000 hand breakeven strethch in the party 10-20 NL games. For 100k hands i was a top 10 player in terms of WR, prolly more like top 6 or 7. I had a 50k stretch at like 10 PT BB/100 which was probably the highest earn in the game.

Again, my guess is that you were playing significantly differently over these stretches

In limit this year, i had a 35 day stretch where i didn't lose for a single day and won something like 250k.

Well, if you we are talking about a world where you can have a 35 day stretch in a year by January 12th, 1200 bb downswings might well be possible

I then had a 2 day stretch where i lost 120,000 playing 150-300, 100-200, and 10-25 NL. How much of that do you think could have possibly been tilt given that i had probably been playing the best poker of my life and never losing prior?

You were never losing, then you lost a lot. Seems pretty [censored] likely that a lot of it could have been tilt

Look dude, here's the thing. Most people doubt people when they say they are playing well and losing. It's natrual. And most people think players who are running well are better than they ar. Also, most players who are very good but have been FORTUNATE enough not to encounter that kind of variance take offense to others pointing out that they are lucky. Me telling you that every post you have made in this thread is laughable to anyone who understands variance to any degree isn't meant to take away from your accomplishments as a poker player or be mean. Not having had that kind of stretch doesn't make you "guilty" of anything, and it shouldn't make anyone put an asterisk by your results.

I dont take any offence, I honestly made this thread not to lecture, but because these massive breakeven periods I hear of scare the hell out of me and I want to mentally prepare myself for the likelihood of them happening. But I dont want to get scared of a non-existent threat

But you saying that you don't know if BK is a big winner at 10-[censored]-20 right now illustrates why people who haven't had these stretches need to do some more research before chmining in in these threads.

wtf? why would you say this? I havent played with him. It's fully possible that he isnt a winner in those games. There is one player on absolute, who may read here so I will exclude his name cos Im in a good mood, but you can pm/im me for details as you have surely played with him. He is a provider in the 75 and 150 games. He has been so for a full year now. He is pretty bad. When I first played on absolute 18 months ago, he was perhaps my toughest opponent. He had great hand selection, could hand read well, mixed his play up nicely etc. Then for some reason (I heard Jakz destroyed him HU), he just lost his game, and never recovered it. Neverlose is considered a provider by all, but back in the day he was a winner. BBuddy was considered very very very good, but FUnpoker2222 was considered a donk - guess what? Same player! So it's fully possible that bk is not currently a winning 10/20 player, and to say that because I suggest this I dont understand variance is ridiculous.

I'll make you a deal. At the end of the year, i'll post my results from this year. We can compare them to every aspect of my results from last year. You will very likely see a difference you will not be able to believe.

This proves nothing.

Variance is much much sicker than you think. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Variance
 

ggbman,

Utterly fantastic post. It should be stickied on every poker forum. It's really true that you can't wrap your mind around what happens during one of these ridiculous downswings unless you've been through it. Believe me, I wish I was still naive...

___1___

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
So it's fully possible that bk is not currently a winning 10/20 player, and to say that because I suggest this I dont understand variance is ridiculous. [/b]

[/ QUOTE ]

You could say I'm not a winning 100/200 online player would be reasonable at least and possibly true.

But 10/20? Get a grip on reality.

You don't understand [censored] if you think that, not just variance.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So it's fully possible that bk is not currently a winning 10/20 player, and to say that because I suggest this I dont understand variance is ridiculous. [/b]

[/ QUOTE ]

You could say I'm not a winning 100/200 online player would be reasonable at least and possibly true.

But 10/20? Get a grip on reality.

You don't understand [censored] if you think that, not just variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

I cant speak for your particular case as I havent seen you play.

The guy I talk of on absolute would have been a winning player at 100/200 when I first played with him, and now is a solid donater in the 75 and 150 games. So it's possible.

Re: Variance
 

Dean,

After reviewing my post, i think some of it may of come off as a bit belittling, which i apologize for. I do however, stand behind the content. You can toys with some numbers here
to get a better grasp of ROR with various WR's and standard deviations.

IMO, and i don't mean this to be offensive, but you are being too stubborn with arguing that people lose due to exclusivley bad play or w/e. Toy around with numbers in that link and see how much variance can account for with some people. It's a ton. If you talk to most anyone who knows me at all, they will affirm that i am more critical of my own game than my opponents by a factor of 10. I think the gap between the way i play most of the time and what i am capable of is certainly not minute. But at the same time, i don't throw around the term "A game" as lightley as most either. My B+ is good enough to beat mid limits for 1.5 BB/100 and be a smallish winner in decent high limit games. I would guess that my A game would be good for 2.5 in mid limits and 1-1.5 in good high limit games. There is no way to prove that, that is just my intuition. During certain stretched over the course of the year did i play worse? Of course! But you need to understand i evaluate on my own play very critically and nowhere near as much of those 150k hand stretched or 500 BB downers in 2 days were tilt as people would like them to be so that they can sleep better at night.

Look dude, you are obviously a very good player. A very good player. So why would you worry so much about this stuff? Eventually you will encounter running
much worse than you have so far in your career. At the same time, I am VERY confident that you will make it through that stretch when it happens. You get more used to it, more seasoned, and it affects you less and less. eventually you see it all. Play with confidence, remain critical of your own play in a productive manner, and strive to improve. That's all that can be done. The reason i made that post wasn't so ppl could point out "Oh, GGBMAN said a 1000 BB downswing could be pure variance, it's not my play!" It's so that thinking players like yourself can actually have a valid reference point and stay sane during those stretches, improve their play, and not get overly down on themselves.

Gabe

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So it's fully possible that bk is not currently a winning 10/20 player, and to say that because I suggest this I dont understand variance is ridiculous. [/b]

[/ QUOTE ]

You could say I'm not a winning 100/200 online player would be reasonable at least and possibly true.

But 10/20? Get a grip on reality.

You don't understand [censored] if you think that, not just variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

I cant speak for your particular case as I havent seen you play.

The guy I talk of on absolute would have been a winning player at 100/200 when I first played with him, and now is a solid donater in the 75 and 150 games. So it's possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

75/150 and 10/20 are worlds apart.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So it's fully possible that bk is not currently a winning 10/20 player, and to say that because I suggest this I dont understand variance is ridiculous. [/b]

[/ QUOTE ]

You could say I'm not a winning 100/200 online player would be reasonable at least and possibly true.

But 10/20? Get a grip on reality.

You don't understand [censored] if you think that, not just variance.

[/ QUOTE ]

I cant speak for your particular case as I havent seen you play.

The guy I talk of on absolute would have been a winning player at 100/200 when I first played with him, and now is a solid donater in the 75 and 150 games. So it's possible.

[/ QUOTE ]

75/150 and 10/20 are worlds apart.

[/ QUOTE ]

I should have clarified. I dont think he would beat 10/20 right now.

Re: Variance
 

Oh I dont know how many hands of lhe I have btw, but its less than half a mill.

Re: Variance
 

Right... i mean FWIW i think _1_ had something like 500k+ hands at 10-20 at 2-3 BB/100 before breaking even for something like 150k hands. He can clarifying if that's of, but you see what i mean about how it just happens eventually.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
What if your name is BicycleKick and you've got over a million hands and dollars that say you're a great player?

[/ QUOTE ]

He was used as OP's example. I know nothing about BK's situation. I was talking about 1200 BB slides for the masses, as I think OP's point was about.

In general, they say two things. You are what your record says you are and you're never as good or bad as you think.

If I won a million I'd feel like a great player. If I then lost 1200 BB's, I think I'd feel a lot differently and I think rightfully so.

Re: Variance
 

great post. I've had one losing month in 3 yrs. and that included an 1100 BB ds. I was 8 tabling party 50 hrs/week for 8 weeks earning their stupid bonus promotion in March, '06. My game was A+ (ya right) Beat: my bonus covered 250 BB.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
My biggest is 300BB (though only at mid-stakes) but I am certain bigger can happen. After my 93BB in 140 hands yesterday in which I played great, I'm open to anything!

If you can have a 300BB ds, then of course you CAN have 400, 500 etc. I remember Stox had over 400BB recently. Just hope this evil never points it's finger in your direction!

[/ QUOTE ]

I think you are confusing me with someone else.

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
but the main reason is that I refuse to play in a bad game in the Stars 2/4

[/ QUOTE ]

So i guess you admit to playing in a bad 1/2 game against me hu? [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img]

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]
Has anyone done any work on determine how normally distributed winrates are? I'm wondering if the fat-tail phenomenon applies here. Sure seems like a plausible explanation.

[/ QUOTE ]

I thought i would provide a link from the archives that is in my bookmarks that addresses this issue...

variance winrates and expectation

beachbum's post towards the end of the thread is quite relevant...

Also ggbman, there are several ways of calculating risk of ruin; do you know which method that calculator site uses ? this calculation varies alot depending on what variables you focus on and the one you link to may be very different to the one dean uses...

Re: Variance
 

I honestly do not know what this site uses...

Re: Variance
 

Thanks for the link Gabe. Putting in my live poker estimates it appears I'll never go broke!!

Re: Variance
 

[ QUOTE ]

So please either soothe my fears or let me know what I am in for, as a 450bb downswing would make me go crazy.

[/ QUOTE ]

Dean,

I hereby benevolently attempt to scare the sh!t out of you so that you don't go busto at some point. Almost literally every player I know that has logged a lot of hands has had at least one downswing in the 500BB area. The games steadily get tougher and this effect is amplified when players move to higher limits where the competition is stronger. We have only heard of a handful of established winners going backward 1000BB+ so far, but I suspect that is sheerly a function of the number of hands we have collectively played and how many people we consider established winners. I suspect that a year from now we will have heard of 10 or 20 more cases of 1000BB downswings from people we "know" have have a decent or better edge.

I also strongly suspect that a number players who were in EV terms winners have hit these dreadful stretches early in their careers and gone busto or just decided that they must not be winners at all. I remember posting questions about downswings almost two years ago and essentially the consensus was that 300BB was HUGE and that if you had one that size there was almost certainly something wrong. Anyone with a 500BB downswing back then would have been immediately written off as a certain loser.

We need to look to the guys who have the track records prior to their downswings for the evidence that it can happen. They don't all of the sudden forget how to play. They don't all of the sudden develop a prohibitive tilt problem after posting solid results for 500K or a million hands. They aren't just breakeven players who were lucky their entire careers. Variance simply caught up to them and dealt them a brutal blow.

My table selection criteria is virtually unparalleled and I literally never ever ever tilt and yet I am quite confident that I will have a 1000BB downswing in the next million hands (if I live long!).

Playing with less than 1000BB worth of bankroll is criminal in my opinion. Playing with less than 500BB is suicidal.

Cartman

Re: Variance
 

I guess I'll chime in.

Variance follows some statistical patterns, but no laws. The worst feeling in the world is when you just can't win a hand. There is no guarantee that a downswing is going to change at somepoint, just a likelihood.

But if you play long enough, everything is likely to happen.

See, Dean, I don't know if you play live at all or not, but there are certain things that are guaranteed live. For example, when the local donator loses KK to AA, he'll say "I finally pick up kings, and I have to run into Aces, what are the chances of that?"

Well, on this very next hand, the chance is very small. In your next session, it's also unlikely. In the next year? It's almost guaranteed to happen.

What are the chances of a winning player having a 1000BB downswing? Well, starting your very next hand, it's very small. Starting your next session? It's still very small. 8 tabling for 8 hours a day for two years? It's likely.

In your OP, you said you wanted your fears to be calmed (I think you said that anyways...and I **know** I'm too lazy to check). Well, your fears can't be put away entirely. If you want to guarantee that you never have a 1kBB downswing, quit poker forever when you hit your first ever 900BB downswing.

As for my screenname...it was pretty public knowledge. But I don't see what good it would do. Of my first 2000BB downswing (which has kept increasing online, I still can't win...I don't have a going problem, I have a growing problem), I fully admit that I lost 250ish BB to tilt. Of the next 500BB, I lost probably 250BB to tilt.

Then, I basically stopped playing online. I went back to playing live, and I win consistently up to 100-200. I tinker around online still, and I'm still losing. I'M TINKERING AROUND....I'M A LOSING PLAYER AT 3-6. And, so of my last 200 or 300BB, none of it is tilt.

Towards the end of the first 2000BB (when I for the most part played well), I got staked for many tens of thousands of dollars. These people staking me are also very successful online players, and they oftened watch me play. One of them lives in Vegas (well, 2, actually, but 1 is part of this story), and I went out to visit him for a week or 10 days. During this time, he'd sit behind me and watch me play online. This lasted for maybe 2 days and 3000 hands. Then he got up, punched a wall, and said "forget it,I can't stand to watch anymore, this is worse than I've ever seen anybody run, ever". He's been a pro for 9 years.

[as an aside, i lost all of this staking money. i, however, cannot lose my friends' money, so i have paid them all back in their entirety except for one last guy i owe $3000 to. i still continue to crush live games. and i can't beat 3-6 online]

I have people ask me, about every 2 or 3 weeks via PM, "hey, aren't you the guy who ran really bad? I'm running bad now, what advice do you have?". I tell them "I can't give you any advice. variance is worse than anything else in the world, except stale donuts. I still lose". And, with all this losing, I have friends telling me I should coach players. I have one friend who does coach for big bucks ask me for lessons.

So, you can speculate all that you want that I'm a losing player. And you can certainly go hire a team of players to go digging through their hand histories to find hands where I was (admittedly) on tilt. My screenname was pretty common knowledge. For most of the party skins, it was either JoshyPooh or GummywormAA. Go have a blast.

And, after having that blast, you can come back here and report your findings. But if you think that will make it so that you know more about variance than people who have played a lot more than you, people who have lived through it, and people who still have a better winrate at 30-60 than you (even after going through my downswing) over a larger sample of hands, then why are you even here?

It seems that you've already ignored the sage advice of many in this thread. You seem to want to hold on to the notion that BK can't beat 10-20 and Josh W can't beat 3-6 and any downswing more than a couple hundred BB must be tilt induced and and and.

I could literally rattle off 10 names in 10 seconds of people I know who have had a 1000BB downswing in the last 12 months who play higher than 30-60 on a regular basis and make a ton of money doing so. I mean, these are fulltime players with no other source of income who lose 1000BB and don't even think of dropping down. Many of them are 2+2ers, but not all.

What were you hoping for when you started this thread? That's a serious question. Many of the best and most respected posters are telling you "hey, it can happen", and you still don't believe it. Were you just hoping that there were going to be enough novices to come on here and say "no, it's impossible" for you to hang your hat on?

And if you never want a 900BB downswing, quit poker forever when you hit 800.

Josh

edit to add: I forgot about one guy who staked me in tournaments and I lost about $5000 of his money that I haven't paid back yet, either. It's a long process. To those who I haven't paid back, I'm still very sorry.

Also to add...this probably makes me sound upset, which I am not.

Re: Variance
 

dean, how many hands of limit texas hold'em poker have you played?

Re: Variance
 

dean,
just from talking some NL with you on aim, i got the impression that you were likely running pretty well. you said things like u thought everyone sucks and that its an easy game and that you 'should be at 10-20NL very soon'. at the time, i was thinking that u are most likely running well, and that you dont have a realistic view bc of it. james282 and moreso, ggbman did the same thing when they switched to limit.

poker is an easy game and its hard to see why people struggle when you are on a nice heater.

Re: Variance
 

Dean,

This is one of the more awesome "levelings" ive ever seen.

Very nice!!!