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Old 11-08-2007, 11:21 PM
Cry Me A River Cry Me A River is offline
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Join Date: Jun 2004
Posts: 4,866
Default Re: This is how you burninate a level:

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It can get much worse.

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Yeah, many players vastly underestimate the effects of variance and the potential to run bad.

Just a simple example. Let's say you normally run 2ptbb/100.

You have an 8 buy-in downswing.

Given your 2ptbb/100 rate, it will take you on average 20K hands to get back to zero. So your break-even stretch is going to be 20K plus the length of the downswing. So depending on the abruptness of the downswing, you're probably looking at something between a 25K to 40K break-even stretch.

And what if your recovery is slow? Say you only run 1ptbb/100 while recovering? Then you're looking at 40K hands to get back to break even. So now suddenly were talking about a 45K to 60K break even stretch.

And that's for just an 8 buy-in downswing. 8 buy-ins is harsh, but I don't think particularly spectacular or unusual at all. So up to a 60K break even stretch is not going to be all that rare.

Everybody thinks, "It can't happen to me" but it can get much worse than even that.