Help, my first downswing?
I posted a while ago that I wanted to take poker seriously enough to beat the micros, this is the result I have gotten in NL2, I know its a small sample and I know for sure I am having bad luck, but can I take something good out of this graph? I dont care about the money but its really frustrating.
How long do this streaks last? How many hand is a good sample of how I am doing. What do you do when going through this rough times?
9 Replies
Looks like you're around 25bi below ev in 23k hands or so, that is certainly unlucky.
Unfortunately a downswing can last a very long time. You can take a look at a projected sample given winrate and std deviation here:
That looks pretty rough, Unlucky.
EV looks good though, just need to grind it out
Thanks for the help, the determination to keep grinding is there, hope better times come soon.
You shall have many. Poker is just like that.
Grind through it! Graph looks like from GG Poker's PokerCraft. Micros at GG Poker are pretty wild and splashy, so you have to accept, that it's high variance.
Grind through it! Graph looks like from GG Poker's PokerCraft. Micros at GG Poker are pretty wild and splashy, so you have to accept, that it's high variance.
Standard deviation usually increases as you move up stakes, so you're statement may not be true. Std dev will correlate to the frequency/amount of how often you put chips in the middle—basically frequency of 3bs of 4bs more or less, and because micros are usually less aggressive (lower average 3b or 4b) the std dev of micros is actually often lower compared to higher limits.
Regardless, poker is a pretty high variance game no matter the limit.
Downswings always feel more painful the more serious you take poker.
Most important thing is focus on your game (orange line) forget the Green Line.
Keep it up, the upswing will feel amazing 😉
Standard deviation usually increases as you move up stakes, so you're statement may not be true. Std dev will correlate to the frequency/amount of how often you put chips in the middle—basically frequency of 3bs of 4bs more or less, and because micros are usually less aggressive (lower average 3b or 4b) the std dev of micros is actually often lower compared to higher limits.R
This is a good point and points to a misunderstanding that people often have about variance. Variance is often misunderstood as “bad luck”. People often think of a spot where some idiot jams KJo 100bb deep and we call with AA and lose as being a high variance spot. This actually is a LOW variance spot, but we got unlucky. Variance is simply deviation from the expected value. Yes, in that particular hand our variance was high, but spots such as that are (relatively) low variance since we will win much more often than we lose, and when we do win, the result is relatively close to the EV of the spot.
A typical tournament coin flip - say AKo vs 77 - is a much higher variance spot. The EV is close to zero, but the actual result will NEVER be close to zero; it will be either win or lose a stack. Mathematically, if p is our probability of winning and S our stack size then our EV is
Sp - S(1-p) = S(2p-1). Our variance is p[S(2p-1)-S]^2 + (1-p)[S(2p-1)+S]. This is simply the square of the difference between our EV and actual result when we win plus that difference when we lose. After some tedious algebra (which I will leave as an exercise for anyone who wants to go through it) this reduces to 4S^2*p(1-p). What this demonstrates is that the variance depends on the pot size and the probability of winning. Bigger pots naturally lead to more variance. But for the same pot size, having a larger edge (or our opponents having larger edges) will decrease variance. ItÂ’s easy to show that our variance for a given pot size is maximized when p=1/2, I.e. no edge for either player.
This analysis is for one hand but on average we get bigger pots and presumably smaller edges when moving up in stakes. Hence we should expect MORE variance, not less.
Here's a neat trick: learn to pay attention to your All-in Adjusted BB/100 figure exclusively. Treat it as your 'true' WR. (because it is) Above or below your actual $$$, it doesn't matter. Yellow is king.
WR >$$$, and All-in BB/100 WR > $ BB/100 WR
I used to think the opposite but I was wrong. These days when i GII good vs mr fish I am ROOTING for the fish because I know it improves my all-in EV WR, which is the one figure from which I draw any personal satisfaction. Forget Downswings. Forget Upswings even more. It'll wobble uncontrollably forever so you're just wasting stress neurons. Enjoy the ride and find ways to actively invite variance into your heart.
