Variance

[BradL]

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

[mindless]

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.

[Bluffman]

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.

[PartyGirlUK]

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.

[Bluffman]

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

[bicyclekick]

[ 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.

[ggbman]

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]

[Victor]

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.

[bicyclekick]

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

Great post.

[PartyGirlUK]

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]