Swings in NLCASH
 

Can anyone with experience comment on swings/variance in headsup cash games? I'm a sixmax player and have 5-7 buyin downswings with the occasional 10-12 buyin downer. How much 'worse' can I expect it to be in headsup? Thanks for any advice...

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Really depends on your style and your stakes.

I think if the stakes are reasonably low and your style isn't too aggressive/bluffy most of your downswings will be in the neighborhood of 5-10 BIs.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Ok, yeah, I should have given a little more info. I'm playing .50/1 and 1/2, pretty snug, not a whole lot of bluffing.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

I'm interested in this too.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

I'm not great but i'm a winner at .5/1 and have had an 18bi downswing already..it really just depends on how you control tilt and stuff and if you have and can stick to a stop/loss...also how well you game select...but i dont think 20 bi downswings are impossible for even decent players. But day to day variance, you shouldnt let losing 5 or 6 buy ins affect you cos that will become sooo standard

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

I've played around 25k hands of mostly 0.5/1 and a little of .25/.5 and 1/2 and I would say that if you play solid and table-select good swings of more than 7-8 BuyIns should be pretty uncommon

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

5/10 player here. I'm something close to 50/35. One sec, I'll grab my October graph.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

by 'swings' you mean swongs right?

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

According to my simulations even a 50 buy-in downswing is possible with a stable winrate of 8 PTBB/100 (no tilting/other psychological defects allowed) although it'll be extremely rare. That is for a player whose standard deviation per 100 hands is about 75PTBB/100. 20BI downswings seem to be quite common.

I have been researching variance in heads up poker lately and I'll probably share my simulator with you once it is easier to use.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
According to my simulations even a 50 buy-in downswing is possible with a stable winrate of 8 PTBB/100 (no tilting/other psychological defects allowed) although it'll be extremely rare. That is for a player whose standard deviation per 100 hands is about 75PTBB/100. 20BI downswings seem to be quite common.

I have been researching variance in heads up poker lately and I'll probably share my simulator with you once it is easier to use.

[/ QUOTE ]

Given my ridiculous first response, I must correct what I said. I totally agree with the quoted post (BTW, please share your simulation that would be awesome!).

20+ BI downswings will happen to a full time player probably monthly.

It really depends on game selection. If you stick with passive players I believe your downswings will be much much more manageable.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
That is for a player whose standard deviation per 100 hands is about 75PTBB/100.

[/ QUOTE ]
Where does this number come from? Is that your personal std. dev, or a guesstimate?

I would be *very* interested in seeing some real player winrates and standard deviations. The data point of exactly one that I have seen so far is 55.04BB/100, but I don't know what the associated winrate is.

[ QUOTE ]
20BI downswings seem to be quite common.

[/ QUOTE ]
And what does "quite common" mean here? Just a ballpark would be good, like an average number of 20BI downswings in 10k hands (or 100k or 500k hands or whatever if 10k isn't enough).

[ QUOTE ]
20+ BI downswings will happen to a full time player probably monthly.

[/ QUOTE ]
About how many hands does a month full-time represent? Again, ballpark figures are fine.

Inquiring minds want to know!

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

A heads up player will typically experience about 50 to 60 ptbb/100 hands or about 100-120 big blinds /100 hands .

The probability that a player with a win rate of 8ptbb/100 hands will experience a 20 buy-in downswing with s.d = 120 big blinds is :

B=-s.d^2/(2*win-rate)*lnr
Solve for r and we get the risk of ruin for this player .

e^(-B*2*win-rate/s.d^2)= r

B = 2000 big blinds
win-rate = 16 big blinds
s.d = 120 big blinds
r=1.1 %

So with that being said , there is only a 1.1% risk of ever busting from this game if we were to play indefinitely .
Contrary to some of the arguments already expressed in this thread .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Er, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've calculated a 1.1% risk of ruin when starting with 20 buyins, but said absolutely nothing about how likely a 20 buy-in downswing is over any given X number of hands.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Fyi , I think having a s.d of 150 ptbb/100 to be much higher than the norm .

In any case , I computed the ror of a player with a win-rate of 8ptbb/100 hands and a s.d of 150 ptbb/100 hands to be 5.81% .

The probability of losing 20 buy-ins in a month must be lower than this number .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
Er, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've calculated a 1.1% risk of ruin when starting with 20 buyins, but said absolutely nothing about how likely a 20 buy-in downswing is over any given X number of hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

No , this formula tells you the probability of busting if you play this game indefinitely . There is no simple formula to tell you the probability of busting in x hands .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
The probability of losing 20 buy-ins in a month must be lower than this number .

[/ QUOTE ]
Why?

You could lose 20 buyins after winning 1, and that situation would still not be part of the "ruin" percentage. In fact, I would think the chance of having a 20BI downswing over X hands (for a sufficiently large X) would have to be *higher* than the risk of ruin percentage, and pretty significantly so.

[ QUOTE ]
No , this formula tells you the probability of busting if you play this game indefinitely . There is no simple formula to tell you the probability of busting in x hands .

[/ QUOTE ]
We don't care about the probability of busting in X hands. The question is the probability of losing 20 buyins in X hands.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

It should be obvious that it has to be lower .

P(bust in one month) + P(bust after first month ) = P( busting out)

Notice that the two probabilities in the lhs are mutually exclusive . So the probability you bust in one month has to be lower than the probability you bust out if you play forever .

The formula I gave above is more useful for knowing your risk of busting out .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

You keep talking about busting out, but we don't care about that.

Risk of ruin calculations include the fact that you're gaining over time, which reduces your risk of ruin as you get deeper.

If after the first month, you've gained X buyins, then you're less likely to bust out entirely (which is certainly a factor in the RoR calculation), but your chances of having a 20BI downswing are exactly the same as they were for the previous month.

[ QUOTE ]
The formula I gave above is more useful for knowing your risk of busting out .

[/ QUOTE ]
And not at all useful for answering the question that's actually being asked, which is why I'm confused.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

In fact, given this:

[ QUOTE ]
P(bust in one month) + P(bust after first month ) = P( busting out)

[/ QUOTE ]

For some number of hands, P(having a 20BI drop) is certainly going to be greater than P(bust in one month). That number might be 10k, it might be 40 million, I don't know.

Whatever that number is is irrelevant, because it is quite obvious that the probability of dropping 20 buyins *can* be greater than the probability of going broke in the first month.

And if P(Drop 20BI) is greater than P(bust first month), then it follows that the chance of dropping 20BI over an infinite number of hands *has* to be greater than the chance of going broke when starting with 20BI. Because the chance of going broke per month has to decrease on average, but the chance of dropping 20 buyins per month can remain the same.

In fact, I'll go even a little further with this.

If our RoR is 1%, there is unquestionably *some* number X, where the chance of having a single 20BI downswing is greater than 1%. That 20BI downswing might happen after we've already won a thousand buyins, but if we play enough hands, there will eventually be a point where we're down 20 buyins from a previous point.

But since the chance of being down 20 buyins in a single month can possibly be higher than the chance of going broke sometime between now and the end of time (if we can just play enough hands in that first month), then this:

[ QUOTE ]
It should be obvious that it has to be lower .

[/ QUOTE ]

Is not "obvious" at all, since it's quite clear that it *can* be higher, for a sufficiently large number of hands.

The real question is how large "sufficiently large" is.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

You need to focus on a reference point . The formula tells you the probability of dropping 20 buy-ins if you start off with 20 buy-ins . So this means that if you win 10 in a row and drop 20 in a row , then you're down only 10 buy-ins from 20 as your initial starting point (excluding rake) .

So if you're a losing player , there is a 100% chance you will go bust at some point . However , it's not true that there is a 100% chance you will go bust after one month of playing .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
You need to focus on a reference point . The formula tells you the probability of dropping 20 buy-ins if you start off with 20 buy-ins .

[/ QUOTE ]

You need to STOP focusing on the reference point. The reference point is moving, and the effects are cumulative per hand.

I start with 20 buyins and a winrate/std dev sufficient for a 1% RoR. From the first hand on, my chances of ever going broke are 1%. If I win the first hand, then my chance of going broke from that point on is smaller than 1%, but my chance of losing 20 buyins at some point is still 1%. If I win the second hand, my total RoR drops, but my chance of losing 20 buyins from that point is still 1%. RoR drops over time, but the chance of dropping 20 buyins remains the same.

You're trying to compare two values that have absolutely no relationship whatsoever, and say that one "has" to be lower than the other. It doesn't have to be lower at all.

If you were able to play an infinite number of hands in one month, there is a 100% chance that at some point, you would have a 20BI downswing that would not bust you. For *some* number of hands less than infinite, there's a 50% chance that you will have a 20BI downswing that doesn't bust you in a single month.

A 50% chance of having a 20BI downswing in a single month is clearly a whole lot bigger than our entire 1% probability of going broke from now until the end of time.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

This is exactly the same as a losing streak problem in HUSNGs. If I have a 60% winrate, then the probability of losing 4 games in a row is 2.56%.

But the odds of having a 4 game losing streak in a series of 100 games is *clearly* much higher than 2.56%, because the chance of having a 4 game losing streak *just in the first 4 games* is exactly 2.56%.

In fact, the odds of having a 4 game losing streak in even just 5 games is obviously higher than 2.56%, because you have two chances to lose 4 in a row, the first four, and the last four.

Replace "4 game losing streak" with "drop 20 buyins", and we have a direct correlation.

***EDIT***

The chance of having a 4 game losing streak in 5 games, losing the first 4 or the last 4, is exactly 4.09%, which is *significantly* higher than our original 2.56%, and I've only added 1 game here, to show the cumulative effect of adding to the string.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

TNixon, you are correct by saying that ROR is a decent way to calculate the probability of a 20 BI downer... but the truth is that the math does not work in practice. When I was going through my bad downswing I was consoled by quite a few other players who showed me 15+ BI downswings at HU. It's quite normal and most of us have experienced it more than once.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
TNixon, you are correct by saying that ROR is a decent way to calculate the probability of a 20 BI downer

[/ QUOTE ]
Umm...PLEASE don't get us mixed up. Once I'll forgive. Do it again and I start throwing [censored].

jay_shark is saying it's a decent way. In fact, what he's been saying is that for any fixed number of hands, the probability of having a 20BI downer has to be *less* than the probability of your RoR for 20 buyins. Which is obviously false.

I'm saying it's NOT a decent way. In fact, it's an completely horrible, thoroughly useless way of even trying to *approximate* the risk of having a 20BI downer over X hands, and has absolutely no bearing whatsoever on reality.

Which jives quite perfectly with your real-life experience, thank you very much.

[img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Tnixon , I won't even comment on your posts anymore .

This has been discussed a million times in this forum and in others . There is no need arguing with you over this because the risk of ruin calculations are accurate .

Fyi , I never experienced a 20 + buy-in downswing and I've played for quite some time . Part of this reason is my willingness to move up or down in limits when necessary .

One other comment I'd like to make . If you win 3 buy-ins , your risk of ruin is reduced by a factor of about 1/2 .

So given the numbers in my original post , your risk of busting with 23 buy-ins becomes 0.006029 or about .6029%

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
This is exactly the same as a losing streak problem in HUSNGs. If I have a 60% winrate, then the probability of losing 4 games in a row is 2.56%.

But the odds of having a 4 game losing streak in a series of 100 games is *clearly* much higher than 2.56%, because the chance of having a 4 game losing streak *just in the first 4 games* is exactly 2.56%.



[/ QUOTE ]

Yes , I know all that .

I hope you realize that you're answering a completely different question than your risk of ruin of busting with 20 buy-ins .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
I hope you realize that you're answering a completely different question than your risk of ruin of busting with 20 buy-ins .

[/ QUOTE ]
LOL

Excuse me, but do you know what the original question was?

What was being discussed in the first place?

Here's a hint:

It had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the risk of ruin with 20 buyins.

You're the one that brought risk of busting into this, and I've said 3 or 4 times now that busting has absolutely nothing to do with the topic at hand.

Try re-reading the thread again.

Here's some help:

[ QUOTE ]
I'm a sixmax player and have 5-7 buyin downswings with the occasional 10-12 buyin downer. How much 'worse' can I expect it to be in headsup?

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
also how well you game select...but i dont think 20 bi downswings are impossible for even decent players

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
play solid and table-select good swings of more than 7-8 BuyIns should be pretty uncommon

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
20BI downswings seem to be quite common.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
20+ BI downswings will happen to a full time player probably monthly.

[/ QUOTE ]

And if you're talking about *MY* question, here's what I *actually* asked, in *MY* words, as opposed to what you are now claiming I've been asking all along:

[ QUOTE ]
Just a ballpark would be good, like an average number of 20BI downswings in 10k hands (or 100k or 500k hands or whatever if 10k isn't enough).

[/ QUOTE ]

And some further responses from me:

[ QUOTE ]
Er, correct me if I'm wrong, but it looks like you've calculated a 1.1% risk of ruin when starting with 20 buyins, but said absolutely nothing about how likely a 20 buy-in downswing is over any given X number of hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

[ QUOTE ]
We don't care about the probability of busting in X hands. The question is the probability of losing 20 buyins in X hands.

[/ QUOTE ]

I guess it really was silly of me to assume that after ALL THAT, you might actually know what the question really was, and that it had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with the risk of busting when starting with 20 buyins. I mean, gee, if every person in the thread is talking about drops during play, and not one single person so much as mentions risk of ruin but you, and it's specifically pointed out multiple times that the question has nothing to do with risk of ruin, then...gee...uh, I dunno...

Maybe it really doesn't have anything to do with risk of ruin?

And somehow you manage to pull this off while acting indignant, like I'm the one being a complete moron here.

You truly are a work of genius, you know.

I tried really nice the first time to point out that you weren't actually answering the question being asked. The second time I was a little bit ruder.

Now I'm done being nice. You, sir, are a monkey, perfectly capable of looking up a formula on the internet, or from a book, and plugging numbers into it. Which is good. I'm generally too lazy to even go out and look. Especially with the resident trained monkey. But realistically, any monkey can do that.

But what you have showed, repeatedly, is that while you are perfectly capable of plugging numbers into a formula you pulled from a book, you have absolutely zero capacity for any sort of logical thinking whatsoever. You know, the sort of thinking that lets you apply the basic concepts behind your formulas to slightly different situations? Or even to understand how the formulas are derived, and what all the elements actually mean in contexts outside of variables that you plug in numbers for?

Furthermore, you have shown a complete unwillingness to make even the slightest attempt, even the most *basic* of efforts, to understand what is actually being discussed, or what question is being asked, before flexing your massive "I r gut at teh maths, unt her iz ur ansver" formula-plugging muscles.

If I'm specifically asking for an average number of 20 BI drops over X hands, you spout off a risk of ruin formula, and I try to clarify your obvious confusion by explaining what I'm actually asking for, and you get indignant because suddenly I've somehow changed my question, and I'm now

[ QUOTE ]
answering a completely different question than your risk of ruin of busting with 20 buy-ins

[/ QUOTE ]

Then guess who the true moron here is.

Need another hint?

It's not me.

But now I'm done being mean. From now on, if you answer any questions with as much "understanding" as you've shown in this thread and every other one you've been a complete idiot in, you'll get one polite correction to the best of my ability, and I won't bother trying to clarify any further for you past that original question. You'll either get it --unlikely-- or your overconfident arrogance will get in the way YET AGAIN, and you won't --almost certain--.

Followed by a "shush, monkey".

But please don't answer any more of *my* questions, monkey. I don't need your kind of help. I can figure out how to come up with useless answers that have nothing whatsoever to do with the question all on my own. And probably do a much better job of it. Because if I were handing out useless answers to questions that nobody asked, I would at least try to add some entertainment value.

Oh, wow. Mind-blowing possibility. Maybe that's what you're doing after all, knowing how easy it is to set me off on idiocy.

That would be sort of clever, in a sick way.

Nah. I'm going with you're a monkey, completely incapable of such cleverness.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

I find it amusing that you're trying to give me a probability lesson .

You obviously have a different definition than every 2+2'er on what it means to drop x buy-ins .

I will not waste my time on you anymore .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

My winrate for 31k(25 days) hands is 8.19. My S.D. is 99.62 big bets/100 hands. Usually I'm in good vs villains' hands. but lots of suck outs. I play mostly agro's(wannabee's and total fish). The biggest downswing I've had was about 9-12 buy-ins(btu there were 2-3 mistakes for stacks), also I could've had S.D. 150bb/100, if played more agro. So I feel that 20 buy-in swings is possible once a month (considering how bad I was running sometime, and it COULD'VE BEEN even worse), and 30 buy-ins downswings once in a quarter(playing 30K hands a month). But if to play agro-fish and maniacs more nitty, then it's very possible to not go trough such swings at all with WR of 8ptbb/100.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
You obviously have a different definition than every 2+2'er on what it means to drop x buy-ins .

[/ QUOTE ]
No, actually, you are the one using an incorrect definition here, because you keep trying to equate "a 20 buy-in drop" with "going bust when starting with 20 buyins".

Again, I think I've given you far too much credit, after swearing the last time that I would never overestimate you again.

Because I assumed that *you* knew what everybody was talking about when discussing a 20 buyin drop, and that you were just being stubborn about trying to relate risk of ruin calculations to the odds of having a 20BI drop over X hands.

I'm talking about a 20 buyin drop, which is obvious to everybody else here, except you (since you keep giving answers that have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with the question), and you keep coming in with crap like this:

[ QUOTE ]
So given the numbers in my original post , your risk of busting with 23 buy-ins becomes 0.006029 or about .6029%

[/ QUOTE ]

As if the chance of busting with 23 buyins is in any way relevant to what's being asked whatsoever.

Once again, not a single person in this thread is asking about the chance of busting. That is a bankroll question. The odds of an X buyin drop over Y hands is a variance question. You're giving a bankroll answer to a variance question.

And the amusing part is that you don't even seem to understand the difference. You're so stuck in this "oh, that freak doesn't know what he's talking about" mindset, that you aren't even willing to explore the possibility that you might not understand what's being asked. (and clearly you don't, because the answers you're giving have nothing to do with the question at all)

I'm not trying to give you a probability lesson. I'm trying to make you see that you're being an ignorant jackass, answering a question that's not even being asked, and then acting indignant about it, like I'm the one being an idiot here.

I'm asking a question, you're giving an answer to a question that I'm not asking. Who's wasting who's time here?

The question is:

Given a specific winrate and std deviation, what are the odds of having a 20 buyin drop over X hands.

This question is exactly the same as:

Given a specific winrate at HUSNGs, what are the odds of having a 4 buyin drop over X games.

So far, you have avoided the actual question entirely, and have only said that the chance of dropping 20 buyins *has* to be lower than the risk of ruin. I have already proved, both mathematically and logically, that your statement is absolutely false, but here's yet another attempt to help you see the light.

The 20 buyin drop question over X hands is exactly the same as asking the odds of dropping 4 buyins over X games at HUSNGs. Both situations have the same variables, winrate, std deviation, buyins, and time constraints. Whatever math you use to solve for one would be appropriate to solve the other.

As a refresher, you have said that the chance of a 20 buyin drop over X hands *HAS* to be less than the total risk of ruin.

This is equivalent to saying that the chance of a 4 buyin drop over X HUSNGs *HAS* to be less than the total risk of ruin for when starting with 4 buyins.

So, what is the risk of ruin if you start with 4 buyins, and have a 60% win rate? You determined in another thread that the SD of a 60% win rate is very close to 1, so the risk of ruin is .00823, or 0.823%.

For your statement to be true, I should not be able to find any number of games where the chance of dropping 4 buyins at any point during that number of games is greater than .823%.

But you know, I just don't have to look very far at all to find a number of games where the chance of losing 4 buyins is greater than .823%.

Because the chance of losing 4 games in a row *at any point* is 2.56%, which is over 3 times the odds of your total risk of ruin.

And if X only has to be 4 to prove your statement false, then clearly you have a HUGE logic flaw somewhere. Since you don't seem to be capable of figuring it out on your own, here it is again:

The risk of ruin has absolutely zero bearing whatsoever on figuring out the odds of a 20BI drop over X hands. At least, certainly not in the way you're trying to apply it, as an upper bound to the odds of a 20BI drop.

Which would be painfully obvious to you if you had actually comprehended anything I've said up to this point (which you've made absolutely no attempt whatsoever to do, or you're completely incapable of understanding in the first place), or if you actually understood what was going on underneath the sheets in your precious formulas, or if you even recognized that you were giving an answer to a completely different question than the one being asked.

You know what? If you don't know how to answer the question being asked, that's perfectly fine. If it weren't a hard question, I would have just figured it out myself.

What's pissing me off is that not only are you not answering the question, but that you're either pretending I'm the idiot here because you don't actually know how to answer the question, and you need to save face for whatever twisted reason you might have in your thick skull, or that you really are being a complete moron in not realizing that you're not actually even attempting to answer the question being asked, and that your "answers" have no bearing whatsoever on the problem.

So which is it? Ego or ignorance? Because I've just given incontrovertible proof that your most basic statement in this thread is completely false, and that all of your RoR calculations are completely irrelevant, because your basic assumption (that the chance of having a 20BI drop over X hands has to be lower than the RoR) is quite flawed.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

all these numbers make my head hurt

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Tnixon , please post in the probability forum .

I have no more patience with you .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Already did. They can't *all* be like you over there.

Maybe you'd like to spout your "the probability can't possibly be higher than the risk of ruin" crap over there too, so somebody who you might actually think about listening to can rip it apart just as thoroughly as I have.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

jay_shark, TNixon,

You both have it wrong.

The correct definition is: Swongs, they are one thing.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
all these numbers make my head hurt

[/ QUOTE ]

If you don't pay attention to the numbers, skim a few lines, and marvel at the size of the posts, the arguments are very entertaining. Even more so because I never know who to root for.

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Thanks to people in the probability forum who are actually capable of understanding what is being asked, and providing answers...

According to a formula generated in this thread:

http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/sh...age=0&vc=1

If I managed to get the formula typed in right into excel (I'm fairly confident, since my output matched his numbers for the few examples he did run, but anything's possible, and I've screwed up far simpler things than transitioning a formula into excel)...

With a winrate of 8PTBB/100, and a std dev of 50PTBB/100, the chance of having a 20 buyin downswing in 50k hands is about 4.2%. Over 100k hands, it's 8.25%. Which (assuming the math is even close) basically means that one in twelve people will have a downswing that big in their first 100K hands. So yeah, that seems fairly common-ish. Of course, 100k hands is a *lot* of hands, so this probably shouldn't be a monthly occurence, but if you play enough, you could very easily see a swing that big multiple times.

And btw, this does depend HEAVILY on your actual variance. If the std. dev is increased to 75PTBB/100, the odds shoot through the roof, with an 57.3% chance of having a 20BI downswing over just 50k hands, and a 15.6% chance over just 10k hands. 75 does seem pretty high though, just based on the very few real std. devs I have heard.

Oh yeah, and just because I'm a bitter bastard, I'll say that I'm not at all surprised that these numbers are higher than the risk of ruin with 20 buyins. Which should leave jay_shark thinking something along the lines of...

"What? How is that possible? It can't be higher than the risk of ruin. I "proved" it. I am a probability god, and cannot possibly be wrong? Mortal fool, you dare try to give me lessons in probability?"

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

[ QUOTE ]
My winrate for 31k(25 days) hands is 8.19. My S.D. is 99.62 big bets/100 hands. Usually I'm in good vs villains' hands. but lots of suck outs. I play mostly agro's(wannabee's and total fish). The biggest downswing I've had was about 9-12 buy-ins(btu there were 2-3 mistakes for stacks), also I could've had S.D. 150bb/100, if played more agro. So I feel that 20 buy-in swings is possible once a month (considering how bad I was running sometime, and it COULD'VE BEEN even worse), and 30 buy-ins downswings once in a quarter(playing 30K hands a month). But if to play agro-fish and maniacs more nitty, then it's very possible to not go trough such swings at all with WR of 8ptbb/100.

[/ QUOTE ]

With the statistics you gave for winrate and std dev, it would seem you are quite correct in figuring on at *least* one of these a month. Extrapolating your hand count to 40k for a month gives an 88% chance of having at least one.

Bumping the std. dev to 150 makes it a near-certainty. (99.9%)

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Tnixon , I'm embarrassed for you .
Have you ever thought about getting into law ?

You may need to read Pzhon's post and RE-READ Jason1990's thread again because his "approximation" formula is a function of time t for when the downswing occurs . Jason's solution computes the probability of a downswing of size b given time t which is not necessarily 0 .

What I've learned after all this is that you're one of the biggest idiot I know .

Re: Swings in NLCASH
 

Are you a COMPLETE goddamned idiot jay_shark? Or just pretending?

Because this:

[ QUOTE ]
Jason's solution computes the probability of a downswing of size b given time t which is not necessarily 0 .

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Is exactly what we want here, where t is equal to a number of hands (or, more specifically, 100s of hands, since winrates and std devs are measured per 100 hands).

I mimicked this section of jason's post:

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where M = E[T]. You have played 163,293 hands, so you would like to know p = P(T < 1632.93), the probability that you would have a 360BB downswing in your first 163,293 hands. Using the above estimate for this probability, here are some numbers.

m = 1.95 and s = 16 ==> p = 0.187
m = 1.95 and s = 18 ==> p = 0.418
m = 1.50 and s = 18 ==> p = 0.616

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Exactly, and verified that I got the formula into excel correctly by plugging those numbers in (along with 1632 as t, and 360BB as b) and getting those exact same probabilities.

The numbers I've given here were from the same damn formula, and mean the same damn thing, and you absolutely have to be a complete retard to STILL be confused about what is going on here. If you disagree with the formula's applicability for the question at hand, feel free to say so. (If you do, you'll only further prove that you have absolutely no clue about what's actually being discussed here, but please, be my guest). If you feel I've misapplied the formula, then feel free to say so as well. But you better be prepared to defend that statement with a "correct" application, and numbers different from what I just gave.

For hell's sake.

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What I've learned after all this is that you're one of the biggest idiot I know .

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What I have learned from this is that you are a far bigger idiot than I ever even imagined was POSSIBLE.

STFU monkey.