The Theory Behind Tough Runs
Tuesday, January 16th, 2007http://forumserver.twoplustwo.com/showflat.php?Cat=0&Number=8351774&page=0&fpart=all&vc=1
I found this link while reading the Law School Drop Out Poker Blog. I recommend any of you who are running bad, to take a look at this thread on twoplustwo. I recently went through a tough dry streak that clouded my mind. I went through 50k hands with a winrate of .97bb/100 in NL400. I mentioned it a few weeks ago that I was running terrible – constantly breaking even. I did my research through various blogs and forums to see if there are players in the same boat as I. I know what you’re saying, “bad beats happen to everyone”, so all players should be in the same boat as I right? No. We’re not just talking about a typical bad beat day. I’m looking for a player who’s made a lot of money in poker, and yet still went through a horrid run. I read that a few players on twoplustwo played 100k hands and broke even! To be honest, something like that will give me a heart attack. I experienced something close but not as terrible as I went through 50k hands only winning + 8 buyings. This run was very discouraging and it had thinking about poker even more.
In the link above, you will read about a player who’s known to have made over 7 figures in poker. He’s a high stakes regular in LHE in games like 300/600. Later, he finds himself playing 5/10 LHE after a 1500+ big bet downswing. There have been other reports by highly respected online poker players telling their side of the story about excruciating downswings. Although these swings are rare, the fact that it can happen to any one of us is what’s frightening. Reading these reports scared me since poker is my career and currently I am dependent on it, but after a lot of thinking and a hand that happened recently in December, I think I’ve figured out. And of course, I’m not as worried.
The Theory:
In December, I experienced one of those urban myth hands that tend to only happen in the movies. I mentioned this hand to a few friends and they all came to the same conclusion: It’s one of those situations where you can go through few lifetimes playing poker and still never see it.
>Dealt to Me [Ad Ac]
>PoorNapoleon folds
>slee95 calls $4
>magic805 folds
>Feel Laak folds
>Ravenous20 folds
>jlajla raises to $12
>Me raises to $36
>slee95 folds
>jlajla calls $24
>*** FLOP *** [6h Ah Qh]
>jlajla checks
>Me bets $55
>jlajla raises to $110
>Me raises to $364, and is all in
>jlajla calls $249.70, and is all in
>Me shows [Ad Ac]
>jlajla shows [Qd Qs]
>Uncalled bet of $4.30 returned to Me
>*** TURN *** [6h Ah Qh] [Qc]
>*** RIVER *** [6h Ah Qh Qc] [As]
>Me shows four of a kind, Aces
>jlajla shows four of a kind, Queens
>Me wins the pot ($792.40) with four of a kind, Aces
After experiencing something like this, I started thinking about how poker brings out the “Impossibles” into reality. There are scenarios in poker that are nearly impossible for anyone to witness, but according to math, it is for certain that it is possible and that there has to be somebody out there playing right now witnessing these types of situations. Hence, that’s why there have been people who have won the lottery. The question really is “Will YOU be the one experiencing it?”. The idea behind understanding how these “impossible” tough runs occur is the same concept that many of us poker players use to win consistently.
Why do we play many hands? We play as many hands as possible to try to overcome variance. We play many hands to overcome the luck factor in poker with skill, in a sense, that’s part of the skill in poker. Eventually, we may get lucky and experience the situations just like my hand above. I am definitely fortunate to see that hand happen so early in my career. I had a professional poker player friend of mine telling me that he’s played near 1 million hands, and yet he has not been out drawn by a lower set versus his higher set. So, experiencing something like the above is somewhat haunting. However, experiencing something in a series of 20k or 50k or 100k hands is also crazy. But, given the fact that there are so many poker players online, and so many hands being played per day; you cannot doubt that a few players (like BicycleKick) will go on a forum and tell us about his horrendous experience. For example: Lets say there are 1000 professional poker players online who play about 50-75k hands per month, it is obvious now that at least one of us may go through that entire month or two breaking even or losing. And reading a thread like the above can scare anyone, especially players who have only played 50k hands total. It will scare the newer players that are thinking about going pro. And for certain, it’ll scare players like myself with an experience of only 300k+ so far. That is approximately how many hands I have played last year while converting to become a professional from an office job. Imagine if 1/3rd of the time I played last year, I broke even or lost! Yikes!
That thread may sound ludicrous to many players currently who are winning consistently. For those of you, who think that way; just know that you are just fortunate to not have experienced something like that. Although LHE has much higher variance than NLHE, I will still prepare myself for something worst than my last month. Some players can experience that kind of hit early or late in their career, if it were to happen to me, I hope that it will happen late in my career when I’m filthy rich or something. However, there are other players *ahem* like Moneymaker, who’ll strike the “impossible” in the other direction to make more than enough to support themselves for the rest of their life. Fortunately for Moneymaker, he did it at the very beginning of his poker career.