MONSTER variance (w/ graphs)

[Flintoff]

Posts like this give me some comfort. After running at 1.5 for 140K hands at 5/10 to 15/30 then go on a 600BB downswing....not nice. I packed in and took up NL!

Ok - wrong forum but in principal it's the same. I too felt there was little tilt. Maybe between 200-300BB. Then an eerie sense of calm set in where the beats just had no affect.

I apologise if I shouldn't be posting in here. I've had afew drinks!

[emerson]

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So the question has often been asked: How big a downswing can a solid, winning player expect to experience playing high stakes LHE? [500BBs? hahahaha]

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You should experience downswings of every size, 500BB, 1000BB, etc. If you have an edge, the bigger they are the less frequently they should occur. You just need to know if this is a once in a lifetime thing, a once in a year thing, once every ten year thing, etc.

If it is online play then the best explanation is that it is probably not bad luck or poor play, but cheating. Too many colluders, not enough fish. Player after player who was a long term winner is suddenly complaining that they don't win any more.

[AlexSem]

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Yeah, yeah, I know you think I'm a fish, Alex. Which is fine, I'm sure you're not alone.

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I think you're definitely a winner. Calling you a fish is just something I do out of frustration at the tables [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] Don't be fooled.

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But I think you missed the point of my post. I'm not looking for answers. I've managed to win 1+BB/100 over '00,000s of hands and I'm pretty sure that I'm a winning player in the games I play in. [Am I the best? Far from it. Do I have lots of room to improve? Absolutely. But based on observation and my results I believe that I'm among the best players, at least at 100/200]. I had NEVER had a losing month and never a dowswing more than 350BBs.

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This is key. Never a losing month? You got to be kidding. This is variance in YOUR favor bigtime. Now you just got a taste of what most others suffer through - months of break-even poker.


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But then, all of a sudden, without my game changing, I got destroyed over a relatively small # of hands. And then just as suddenly, starting winning boatloads again.

So, my conclusion: wicked variance. Variance of the degree that only a few posters have ever admitted to having. Is variance necessarily the cause? No, not necessarily. But all things considered it sure seems like it's by FAR the most likely.

That's all I was trying to share. And the reason I wanted to share it is that it may cause some people to think just a little differently about their game and about the game in general.

[/ QUOTE ]

Post meant as an encouragement to those who think they suck, telling them to hang on, gotcha.

[Hock_]

What's your name on Stars?

[Hock_]

[ QUOTE ]
If it is online play then the best explanation is that it is probably not bad luck or poor play, but cheating. Too many colluders, not enough fish. Player after player who was a long term winner is suddenly complaining that they don't win any more.

[/ QUOTE ]

Unless someone's figured out how to collude to hit 2-outer after 2-outer against me, then I don't think that's the explanation.

[Hock_]

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in all honestly (seriously) i don't know how you win money. maybe it's because your game is much better than mine and i'm missing something crucial.

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I've said before that it's hard to be a big winner if you're playing conventional 2+2 poker. The trick is to deviate in just the right ways. Most players view some of my "deviation" as retarded. I believe that it's often the key to my success. So, yeah, I'd say you're probably just missing something.

[sweetjazz]

Hock,

I don't play the high stakes games and consequently what I have to say is limited to general comments on variance. There have been various posts of mathematical models of the variance associated with limit hold em. The basic gist of it is this:

If you win more than 2 BB/100, then you're unlikely to experience very many large downswings (say 500BB+). Indeed, even 200-300 BB downswings will be pretty rare, though they will happen.

If you win less than 1 BB/100, you will experience large downswings on a not infrequent basis (perhaps once every couple of months for people who play a lot of hands). If you're actual rate is at 1 BB/100, the variance will probably be tolerable [depending on how much running bad leads to tilt] but unpleasant at times. When your winrate drops below that appreciably (say 0.5 BB/100), the downswings will be pronounced and fairly frequent. The bankroll requirements for such a game are quite high, and I suspect many (if not most) people don't have the self-control to maintain the bankroll and tilt avoidance necessary to maintain that slim edge in the long term.

Personally, the biggest weakness in my game BY FAR is having my play deteriorate when I run bad. I'd much rather win, say 2 BB/100 in a 10/20 game than 1 BB/100 in a 30/60, even though the latter is more money (numbers picked for simplicity -- not my actual winrates), because I'd prefer to end more sessions in the green and avoid pronounced downswings.

As far as what to do about variance, if I were you, I would strongly consider the possibility that your winrate is around 0.5 BB/100. This is likely an underestimate, but it's worth at least considering the worst case scenarios. Do the math to see what your bankroll requirements are. Make sure you are financially prepared for the downswings that will happen again. (This means both having enough liquid assets available and the ability to fund your account in a reasonable amount of time as needed. You might already have this covered, but I thought it should mentioned as something everyone should do for their own situation.) And then brace yourself psychologically for running bad. Honestly assess how you dealt with it this past time. If you managed to play reasonably well, even though not your "A" game, that's pretty good in my opinion. In my personal experience, I have found that my "A" game has, on a handful of occassions, deteriorated to a "C" or "D" game, where I was playing at best breakeven poker. That has been my sign to be careful and measured whenever I move up in limits. It sounds like you don't have this problem; unfortunately, you are playing in games where giving up even smaller edges can squeeze your already (relatively) thin edge in the game overall.

My suspicion (which isn't worth much given my lack of experience) is that the long-term high stakes winners will come in two varieties:
(1) A few players who are just significantly better than the others [the best of the best, if you will] who have higher true winrates and experience less frequent and less pronounced downswings.
(2) A few very good players who manage to consistently play close to their "A" game and/or are very careful with their bankroll management.

I suspect that the edge in the game is thin enough that people who are wasteful with their winnings and capable of tilting when running awful (which could happen even to someone who plays tilt-free "most" of the time) will end up going broke even if they are winners. Even if the high limit games are not at this stage yet, their eventual evolution to this point seems like a foregone conclusion. (Of course, it's not clear *how fast* that evolution will take place, and I have no intuition for this.)

[tmfs]

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What's your name on Stars?

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I'm interested in this as well, it seems as every time a thread comes up about a high stakes limit player on stars, daryn comes out to say how bad they suck except for a few maybe.

[tmfs]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
So the question has often been asked: How big a downswing can a solid, winning player expect to experience playing high stakes LHE? [500BBs? hahahaha]

[/ QUOTE ]

You should experience downswings of every size, 500BB, 1000BB, etc. If you have an edge, the bigger they are the less frequently they should occur. You just need to know if this is a once in a lifetime thing, a once in a year thing, once every ten year thing, etc.

If it is online play then the best explanation is that it is probably not bad luck or poor play, but cheating. Too many colluders, not enough fish. Player after player who was a long term winner is suddenly complaining that they don't win any more.

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm disappointed in you, after reading the initial post I was expecting you to post about collusion much sooner than you did.

[emerson]

Sorry, but I can't respond to that caveman avatar. It inspires too many jokes.