Winning Players and Downswings

[jakally]

Yesterday, I was reading some poker blogs on Cardrunners, and noticed in particular two that had a similar theme.

Both were from Cash players playing smallish limits NL50 - NL200, and both described themselves as 'winning players'.
They both also described themselves as being on a 'downswing'.

One of the downswings had lasted for around 600 hours playing, and one was over a period of about 2 months.

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

From a cash players perspective, how long do you think a downswing has to be (or how big does it have to be) before the person having it goes from being a winning player to a losing player?

[Bongo]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

[stoneii]

"Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays."

agreed, but not wholly if said player was not having his hh's independemtly reviewed

[jakally]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

One of the guys in question had spent a decent amount of time and effort putting together a bad beat tracker to prove that he was running bad, and both had posted equity charts from PT to prove that things were going against them.

But there must be a limit as to how long you can fall back on this as the reason you are losing?

[kinboshi]

I've noticed that when I'm on 'downswing' and I'm suffering from 'bad beats' my game also suffers.  I start to get into more situations where I'm setting myself up for a bad beat (playing too aggressively, too passively, too loose too tight, too impatient, too cautious, etc.).

So I think that a long-term winning player can have a downswing that might be initiated by 'variance', but then is compounded by bad play.  That makes then a short-term 'losing' player - but does that make them a losing player overall? 

[boldie]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

One of the guys in question had spent a decent amount of time and effort putting together a bad beat tracker to prove that he was running bad, and both had posted equity charts from PT to prove that things were going against them.

But there must be a limit as to how long you can fall back on this as the reason you are losing?

no there doesn't have to be. If you start off by winning the WSOP ME for..erm 12mill..and then donk off 8 mill of that over the next 25 years..you're still a winning player.

[byronkincaid]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

One of the guys in question had spent a decent amount of time and effort putting together a bad beat tracker to prove that he was running bad, and both had posted equity charts from PT to prove that things were going against them.

But there must be a limit as to how long you can fall back on this as the reason you are losing?

no there doesn't have to be. If you start off by winning the WSOP ME for..erm 12mill..and then donk off 8 mill of that over the next 25 years..you're still a winning player.

I would say that you are a losing player who got lucky once

[jakally]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

One of the guys in question had spent a decent amount of time and effort putting together a bad beat tracker to prove that he was running bad, and both had posted equity charts from PT to prove that things were going against them.

But there must be a limit as to how long you can fall back on this as the reason you are losing?

no there doesn't have to be. If you start off by winning the WSOP ME for..erm 12mill..and then donk off 8 mill of that over the next 25 years..you're still a winning player.

My thinking was more relating to cash games - tournies are a completely different ball game IMO.

[Sark79]

I wondered this as well.   There is a blog by a known online player ( not a superstar ) who I occassionaly look at ( or used to look at, it got too boring reading constant complaints/excuses so I stopped reading ).  I just checked it and it is just the same as normal 

 Nine out of ten times, he uses words like 'Terrible luck', 'I am so unlucky' , 'how long will this last for', 'my luck has to change some time soon', 'I hate fish they are so lucky',  etc, etc, etc

Is he unlucky or just a losing player like most other people?

[RichEO]

Can you be a winning player but never win?

Statistically, there have to be some players somewhere who are making the right plays but just keep getting stung.

And probably, there will be a player somewhere at some point who can run so bad that he will NEVER win in his life, no matter what he does  If it can happen it will happen.

[Sark79]

There may be some people who are terribly unlucky and constantly get outdrawn, etc . However, most people I talk with who play poker tend to say the same things ( look at my above post ) .   Maybe the reason they are so unlucky is that it is just down to poor play.  Perhaps if they stepped down a few levels they may find their luck improves .

 I read a post on a forum once by a $5/10 player who was getting stung by fish every day, however suddenly found his luck returned after he dropped down to his previous $2/4 game.  When he took another stab at $5/10 his luck vanished and the poker gods were out to take his bankroll .  After a while he noticed he always won at $2/4, but he just couldn't catch a card at $5/10.   Was this bad luck or a failure to admit he wasn't ready to play up at the higher game? .  I think it was on 2+2  and every response said the same thing, maybe his bad luck was increased by bad play

[kinboshi]

I have always struggled with the difference between a 'downswing', and a losing player.

Downswing would be making +EV plays and losing, a losing player would be making -EV plays.

One of the guys in question had spent a decent amount of time and effort putting together a bad beat tracker to prove that he was running bad, and both had posted equity charts from PT to prove that things were going against them.

But there must be a limit as to how long you can fall back on this as the reason you are losing?

no there doesn't have to be. If you start off by winning the WSOP ME for..erm 12mill..and then donk off 8 mill of that over the next 25 years..you're still a winning player.

I would say that you are a losing player who got lucky once

Did you quote the right post there - or were you looking at the one before it.

[steeveg]

 there must be players out there who have been really unlucky at the wrong time ,if it wasent  for this bad luck they would be playing for big cash in vegas but dont think there are many, i always try and be honest with myself, if i get a bad beat i try to let it not affect my game, just think ul and move on, but i also may give a bad beat and think i shouldnt have done that and try to learn from it, i never use Sklansky Dollars myself but it will tell you if you spend the time checking all your hands  if your playing well , the grey area is when you think you should of won when ok you where  ahead or chasing and  it may have been better to fold,but you carry on in the hand and loose ,if you dont learn from it and  just carrying on making the same play you will always think you a good player who never gets any luck, the thing is you may not know you played the hand badly thats where forums like this can help so much,

[Longy]

Varience in poker is much greater than the majority of people give it credit for. Yes downswings happen to winning players and they are often contributed to by bad play but occasionally not.

I have seen an example of a big winner in mid/high stakes cash game online (cts i think) breaking even over 100k hands. Recently sng grinder spacegravy completed a challenge to make 25k in a month from $60 games. He did it averaging an ROI of around 7-8% but in the middle of it broke even for 2000 games (wow).

[Sheriff Fatman]

Mason Malmuth's book 'Gambling Theory and Other Topics' covers this topic from a mathematical point of view, and the results might surprise a few people.

Basically, your results are a function of your win rate (average £/hr) and your standard deviation (the higher this figure, the more prone you are to big swings in results).  By monitoring your own play over a few thousand hands you can get an indication of these figures for your own game using programs such as Pokertracker.

The book uses a $30/$60 limit lowball game for it's examples and has a table of results for different stats.  For example, a player with a win rate of $100 per hour (1.67 BB/hr) and a standard deviation of $1,000 per hour (16.7 BB/hr) would be considered a reasonable winner in this game with a 'typical' variance (the book was written prior to the internet explosion before multi-tabling became popular so this is based on a 'live player' playing a single table).

The maths shows that this player would have to play for 900 hours before being mathematically assured of a being a winner.  Assuming he's playing for 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, that's 18 months of play before he can guarantee to be ahead!!!

Simply put, it's impossible to say over a period of a few months whether someone is a winning player or not, as the maths is likely to prove inconclusive over that period of time.

One sure thing though is that the vast majority of players will tell you that they're on a downswing before they tell you that they're losing players.  That's just human nature!!!