Wednesday, November 25, 2009

Head back above water

The recovery is complete, with another very nice session on RedStar last night: +60BB or so.

At this point, I thought I would reflect on my graph (total profit), going back to about the beginning of the year:

As you can see, I am a very swingy player. The two red lines show some nice upward trends (well the first was really a two month heater), but there are also some very long flat spots. I wonder how other players seem to manage a much more consistent and less volatile trend (yes, I'm looking at you Bonus Chasing Grinder)? I think I am probably now playing slightly higher stakes on average, but I also suspect that I am a much LAGgier player and am undecided as to whether that's a good thing or not. It certainly makes for some excitement!

And to finish up, here is the funniest hand I have played in a long time (on the crazienst table I have played in a long time). TT is not a hand I expect to hold up in a six way capped pot preflop. Even less so when a king and queen appear on the board.

Apologies for the crappy formatting - anyone know of a hand converter which works for Cake histories?

Hand#2059012067000707 - Lillehammer (Turbo, 6-max) 12067 -- $2/$4 FL Hold'em -- 2009/11/24 - 17:57:41
Seat 1: Rabi***1 ($108 in chips)
Seat 2: sick***2 ($99.50 in chips)
Seat 3: 2iti***3 ($13.25 in chips)
Seat 8: Hero ($60 in chips)
Seat 9: PUTA***9 ($112 in chips) DEALER
Seat 10: flir***10 ($65 in chips)
flir***10: posts small blind $1
Rabi***1: posts big blind $2
Dealt to Hero [Ts,Th]
sick***2: raises to $4
2iti***3: raises to $6
Hero: raises to $8
PUTA***9: calls $8
flir***10: calls $7
Rabi***1: calls $6
sick***2: calls $4
2iti***3: calls $2
*** FLOP *** [3h,Kc,7s]
flir***10: checks
Rabi***1: checks
sick***2: bets $2
2iti***3: raises to $4
Hero: calls $4
PUTA***9: calls $4
flir***10: folds
Rabi***1: folds
sick***2: calls $2
*** TURN *** [Qs]
sick***2: checks
2iti***3: is all in 1.2500
Hero: calls $1.25
PUTA***9: folds
sick***2: calls $1.25
*** RIVER *** [ Ks ]
sick***2: checks
Hero: checks
***SHOW DOWN***
2iti***3: shows [4s 4c] (Two Pairs, Kings and Fours )
Hero: shows [Ts Th] (Two Pairs, Kings and Tens )
sick***2: mucks
Hero: wins $64.75 with Two Pairs, Kings and Tens
sick***2: mucks [ 7c, Ad ] (TwoPair)

10 comments:

parttimebonuschaser said...

I suspect your relative volatility is due to the size stakes you are playing at.

Taking a shot at 10/20 and if you have a 100BB loss which is entirely possible, is going to put a big dent in your graph.

Since i'm mainly playing smaller stakes, the downswings are not as big in dollar terms and look smaller on my graph.

Rakeback probably also smoothes things out a bit more at smaller stakes ... although at the same time more rake % wise is taken out, so that may not be a valid point.

The blindman said...

I hear you, but bear in mind the 10/20 shot is a very rare event and one that could never go to -100BB. The 5/10 shot did only because the tables were soo juicy.

I think there must be more to it, because your results are so remarkably consistent. I'd be interested to see what your worst and best swings have been over the last year or two.

Anonymous said...

a lot has to do with your playing style and expected winrate!

the looser you are , the bigger your swings will be.
The higher your expected winrate, the smaller your (down)swing

The blindman said...

@Anonymous
While that is true, winrate is a relatively small factor in swings. 1BB/100 is a big difference in winrate, yet standard deviation is typically around the 20BB/100 mark. So having a higher winrate is still not going to save you from those horrible 300 hand coolers.

Playing style is a bigger factor, but probably only because a tight player plays fewer hands per 100.

parttimebonuschaser said...

hmm in terms of worst swings - May this year I had a downswing of 200+ BBs and January was 275BBs on some fishy tables on Bodog - although other sites and bonuses held me up.

I know i've had a 300BB downswing before that but it might have been before my blog started.

Upswings I can't say I actually record and they're probably not that easy to measure ... there's no clear cut where they start and finish.

I'd love to know my real winrate. PT has me at about 1BB/100 lifetime, but it's missing a lot of my table winnings from earlier hands at cake and a few other sites, because it doesn't come close to adding to my total bankroll.

The blindman said...

Ok, those are bigger than they look on the graph.

I've had seven downswings in excess of $1k this year, including three over $1.5k and one over $2k. Some of those would be above 200BB, but none as large as 275BB I suspect.

Perhaps I have a tendency to tilt when running bad? I think I may need to institute a stop-loss rule for tilt control purposes.

parttimebonuschaser said...

the fact that my downswings are predominantly at $1/2 keeps em small too.

Probably my biggest would be $800 or so in $ terms

The blindman said...

That's the way: run bad at low stakes and good at high :)

Seriously, I am damn impressed that $800 is your worst downswing. It seems like I'm flirting with that much every other week.

Anonymous said...

the downswing will happen on the bigger stakes too...it is just a matter of time....

afterwards, the upswing will come back...

all that matters is the fact you are a WINNING player with a GOOD BANKROLLmanagement!The rest will come automatically

gl

anonyms

parttimebonuschaser said...

yeah i hope to keep that tradition.

thinking about it, my biggest downswing at a single stakes level for larger stakes is 150BBs at $4/8 on bodog.

however i wasn't only playing those stakes at the time and ran at a profit on other tables so overall losses were a lot smaller than that.

i guess how you choose to slice and dice your stats impacts what your biggest profit/loss is. That's why I just stick to overall bankroll as to how i'm going rather than purely by BBs.