So I put 20 dollars on Pokerstars today

[Bluegrassplayer]

Got it up to 100 then lost it.

Is this just expected to happen online? Should I cash out of my table whenever I get up to a certain amount to stop the suck outs from ruining my "bankroll"?

I don't really see a point of pointing in the recommended 20 buy ins seeing as how my debit card and poker stash are essentially the same thing.

[NFuego20]

Has nothing to do with online. If you're not properly rolled odds are the swings are going to take you above and below your starting point a certain amount before you stabilize in the positive direction, assuming you're even a winning player. Unless you're playing at $1 buy in tables, I wouldn't expect $20 to be sufficient to build a roll.

[Bluegrassplayer]

As I said my bankroll is much more than 20 buy ins

I'm just wondering if I need to prepare myself for huge variances online, the beats I took that took me down seem pretty unbelievable to me, atleast from how I'm used to playing live.

[NFuego20]

The online game is about 3-4 times faster than playing live first of all, so yeah this variance is normal. And if you're multitabling it's even faster. You could expect to see within one hour what you might see in 3 or 4 hours live. Perhaps in your one particular session the beats you took might be unusual, but over time after tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of hands, it all works out. You definitely need to be prepared to use more of your roll however. This month for me has involved getting up 12 buy ins and then dropping 5 buy ins over about 12k hands. It runs both ways.

[Bluegrassplayer]

Hmmm thats interesting, thanks for the response. I was playing one table at first, then got up to 50 dollars, then played two. I got both stacks up to about 50 dollars again then managed to lose them all to 4 horrible suck outs. So yeah with 2 tables I was seeing a lot more hands, which I guess means more suck outs, I just don't know how I'll deal with the variance if online play is really like this.

[NFuego20]

Over maybe 200,000 hands this past year, I've profited about 150 buy ins. Over that stretch, at least 10 times I have fallen in a hole of 10 buy ins, with the worst dropoff being 15 buy ins. So I lost $3,000 in one month and had to dig out of that hole. Yet if you can keep your head on straight you can still be plenty profitable in the longrun. That's the challenge though, not getting frustrated, tilting badly and chasing losses.

[Bluegrassplayer]

Awesome thanks for the info. From what I played today it seemed like it was practically free money. People bluffing on blank rivers, and donking off with bottom pair, it's just that I've received some of the sickest beats I've ever seen too. I'm just not sure if this is how it's always going to be, if it evens out, or what.

[Artsemis]

[ QUOTE ]
Awesome thanks for the info. From what I played today it seemed like it was practically free money. People bluffing on blank rivers, and donking off with bottom pair, it's just that I've received some of the sickest beats I've ever seen too. I'm just not sure if this is how it's always going to be, if it evens out, or what.

[/ QUOTE ]

Its still just as random as live play, youre just seeing more hands so theres more to notice in a single session.

That and you really could have just been unlucky, which happens in short sessions -- live or online.

[Bluegrassplayer]

I've been very unlucky in live too obviously, it's just that I feel that a lot of people online see a lot more hands and donk off chips a lot more. So while overall the game will be easier, the variance is huge. Also what Nfuego about seeing more hands is very true and not something which I had considered.

[Artsemis]

In general, on a hand for hand basis, live is much easier than online for the same stakes. The comparison is whether or not this increase in profit per hand outweighs the hands per hour of online.