the depth of downswings

I'm a 4NL player on Party. I play 9-seater regular-speed non-jackpot tables. I avoid short tables and tend to choose tables that have the largest average pots.

So far my VPIP/PFR/AF are about 15/9/4.2 over about 5.5K hands.

Over the first 4K hands I won about eight buyins. Over the next 1.5K hands I lost ELEVEN buyins.

What I need to know is, can this wild swinging be attributed to variance, or should I look for holes in my game?

In general, what kind of variance can a player like me expect? In other words, how much more money can I expect to drop before the downswing ends?

(I am tempted to blame my losses on the fact that I tested my Party Cashier MasterCard with a small cashout, because it's well-known that poker sites doomswitch anyone who cashes out in order to force them to reverse the withdrawal, but the cashout was puny compared to my bankroll, so I don't want to be paranoid.)

So, over 5.5k hands your down 3 buyins. Its not a huge sample size and not a big loss. It could be variance, leaks in your game, or both. How long have you been playing poker? Is this your first 5.5k hands or just a recent sample? Post some hands in the hand analysis sub forum and get some feedback.

I'm going to asume that you are a rational grown up and were being sarcastic about the whole doomswitch cash out curse nonsense.

As for the length of downswings, well the long run is really long and sometimes it takes quite a while for things to even out. Solid mid stakes regs have reported break even or losing stretches as long as 100K hands in some extreme cases but 5 thousand hands wouldn't really alarm me. After all, the net loss is only 3 buyins. I'm pretty sure everyone on this site has had 3 buy in swings in a given session. I know that I have.

Good luck and don't get discouraged. Remember, your job in poker is to make the right decisions. The results will work out in the long run.

The swing is not three buyins but ELEVEN buyins, which is $44 at 4NL. Over 1.5K hands that works out to 73.33 BB/100. If that kind of swing is normal, please let me know.

As for "rational human being," it's not rational to insist on the squeaky clean saintliness of businesses that situate themselves offshore in order to avoid legal consequences. Offshore = crooked in nearly all cases. I realize that Cardschat is sponsored by poker sites, but it would be naive for anyone to think that the pokersites are TOTALLY honest or run a TOTALLY clean game. There are certain things they do that are dishonest. It is possible for a good poker player who is diligent to be profitable in online poker, but that's despite the way online poker sites run their operations and not because of it.

40 buy-in swings over 5K hands are not unnatural.

I guess that's why a 50 buy-in BRM for sngs is considered standard.

Afaik CC is not funded by poker sites, it's only the CC money added games that are partly funded by the sites they're on.

That whole cashout = doomswitch idea doesn't make sense as the sites gain no benefit by rigging the game for a single player

- they earn their money with rake and couldn't care less who wins and who loses.

And by the way: 4K+1,5K = 5.5K; (+8)+(-11)= -3 so you're down 3 buy-ins over 5.5K hands (completely standard)

My lord, FORTY buyins????? That's insane. But thanks for letting me know what to expect.

How many hands do I need to play before I have a reasonably clear idea whether I'm a winning player at a particular level?

The poker sites don't rig the game for a single player. They rig the game for EVERY player who makes a withdrawal. It's just a matter of coding the software a certain way, and it's universal to all poker sites. I thought that was well known and not controversial.

Its 4NL.

Its more likely that you are playing badly than playing well and suffering a bad swing.

What makes it more likely, the fact that it's microstakes? Just curious.

Well obviously your default assumption will be you made money because you are played well and lost money because of a downswing. Its a reasonable assumption for the player involved to make.

However how do we know that you actually played well when you made money and just faced a downswing when loosing money?

The average 4NL player is bad. There is no reason to assume you, or anyone, is significantly different from the average of their stake. (its like when people talk of 2NL or 5Nl or 10NL "regs" and how hard they are to beat.. think about it these players are so good that they are impossible to play against yet not able to make enough money to move up a stake. Are they good or is the player posting the comment just a lot worse than he believes?).

So given that the average player at this limit is bad its more likely that losses are due to bad play than to downswings.

It can be because of variance. You can't do much about that. Address what you can do something about...

If you are serious about being a profitable player you should always (and I mean ALWAYS) be looking for holes in your game. To think your game does not need work is a huge leak.

Sigh - quote before lock/move to the rigtard thread.

Explain the certain way the code is changed so that it doesn't show up in anyones stats.

Ask the guys here who frequently cash out - I've only cashed out a few times so no real sample size

- whether anyone of them experienced a downswing that has any connection to their withdrawing.

I bet 5$ you won't find anyone who will say so and can prove it by significant data.

Hey, are you Stu Ungar the pro?

He's Stu Ungar - a source of almost unlimited knowledge.

Yes I am, although I haven't been on the live circuit all that much in recent years.

Okay, let me do the math for you. You claimed a total of 5.5 k hands played. Over your first 1.5 you won 8 buy ins. Over the last 4K you lost eleven buyins. 11 minus 8 is 3 buyins lost over a total of 5.5 k hands which is what I said in my reply to you. 5.5 k hands isn't a large sample size to begin with and there's no way I would divide it into seperate 'swings". You are at worst on a 3 buy in downswing.

As for the whole online poker is rigged thing. I'm wasting my breath but if the sites were rigged. It would show up in the statistics of players with a with large databases of hands. There are a number of such players and none of them have ever reported such a discrepancy. There have of course been cheating scandals involving collusion and even employees of sites (ultimate bet) but no one has ever presented credible evidence that the site programming is "rigged".

Of course it is a logical impossibility to prove a negative so I can't "prove" that it isn't rigged but if you are making the acusation than the burden of proof is on you.

Check with the legendary Stu if you don't believe me.

I don't blame you, since the live circuit has become a bit of a circus. Unlike most poker fans, I have less respect for the pretty talent in front of the TV cameras than for the pros who quietly play the $400 NL tables at Vegas and make 10 times as much money because they don't lust for glory. I recognize that poker needs to continue being promoted in order to keep renewing the supply of fish, but the whole TV poker circuit strikes me as a bit...tawdry.

What are you doing with yourself these days, poker-wise, if you don't mind me asking?

We're getting sidetracked on a rigged subthread. I'm going to drop it.

On another forum, someone discussed the psychology of cashouts and suggested that there might be a genuine phenomenon of post-cashout downswing, but that if it exists, it's based on psychology and depends on how cashing out affects a player's thinking. I've been examining my play and my stats over the course of the downswing and can see that I started playing differently after the cashout. (Of course, part of the change is that I took people's advice and started to raise 4x preflop instead of 8x the way I used to, but I'm not convinced that's a big part of why I started to lose.)

I'll pull out a few key hands during the downswing and post them in the hand analysis forum for comment.

Don't worry about downswings. You cannot control the random luck you encounter.

You can control how big your edge is. By getting better, your edge will be larger, and the swings you experience will be smaller. So if you work on your game, and you play better, you will experience the effects of random luck less.

Not a great deal, I have had some health issues.

Yeah, especially since 1998.

Good to see you're back.

Yeah obviously 98 was a bit of a setback which would have prevented most other players form winning, but if you look at what happened in 1990, I still placed 9th even though I was otherwise occupied for the last couple of days of the tournament, so its not as big a setback for me as for others.

The only other guy capable of such a comeback is Jesus, but nevertheless...well done.

Jesus only won it once although he probably has better BRM than I do.

...and he keeps collecting.... worldwide.

If you didn't have that little drug issue I'm sure you'd find someone to stake you.

On the other hand I'm pretty sure you didn't touch any drugs since 98.

This thread is great. It's always nice to see Stu Ungar posting.

♥

Im glad someone appreciates my posts!

LOL Good one!

The highlighted part makes much more sense than the assumption that the sites are being responsible imo.

Do post in the HA section - but be aware that you might be jumping into a fryer (still ++EV to post there though).

Don't want to kill the fun but if you read my whole post you might find something interesting somewhere .

wow how about the depth of playable eight and under hands in razz.

Just had a run of 34, 2 were playable, got so excited with the second, lost a few bucks.

Gave up after 34 hands

The saying is 1 in six hands a is 3 cards 8 and under will average out, but that was 1/17.

Have a plan to be playing $5/10 in six months but have reached a block at 50/$1, will have to hang in there, though a run of baddies at higher limits could be a bit of a bummer.

Sticking to first principles and hope to turn ir around soon.

If your game is sound then the bad run will end eventually noname.

Its not that bad as long as you follow the guidelines and keep an open mind.


Here are the guidelines. http://www.cardschat.com/f50/hand-an...osting-174514/ (http://www.cardschat.com/f50/hand-analysis-read-before-posting-174514/)

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