Swings in NLCASH

[jay_shark]

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 .

[TNixon]

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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 .

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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.

[TNixon]

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.

[MasterLJ]

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.

[TNixon]

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

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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]

[jay_shark]

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%

[jay_shark]

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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%.



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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 .

[TNixon]

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

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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:

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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?

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

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

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20BI downswings seem to be quite common.

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

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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:

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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).

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And some further responses from me:

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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.

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

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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

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

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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.

[jay_shark]

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 .

[PureDiesel]

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.