Winning Players and Downswings

[jakally]

I have seen an example of a big winner in mid/high stakes cash game online (cts i think) breaking even over 100k hands.

Is it possible that players like CTS and Brian Townsend will sometimes take on games that they have little edge over just for the challenge.

Is it therefore probable that the most important factor to be a winning player is game selection? (i.e. the biggest variable factor is the quality of your opponents and not the cards you are dealt).

[bolt pp]

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

but the facts dictate that at the end of that 25 year period you're + 4mill

[bolt pp]

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).

I think you should have specified "online" in your first paragraph, poker didnt get invented 3-4 years ago with the inception of online poker, people made a living playing ONE table live for 20 years previous to that, how significant a factor is the varience playing live 7 card stud for a living on one table where every hand takes 10 mins to play and you have to utilise your ability to play marginal hands and situsations in comparison to playing 12 tables nlh online? hendon mob, tony bolton, a lot of u.k players that would turn up for a  cash game with 50% of their roll in their pocket and substute a profitable income thus for a full time job/career elswere without giving a consideration to ROI, EV ect, just playing hand for hand poker and making player dependent reads, the nucleus of live cash game poker, I dont think that variance is an applicaple concept indepent of online poker, it doesnt really matter, it just makes me laugh at all the internet bods that think poker was a game invented 4 years ago and developed by university students that supplemented there student fees by playing poker inbetween playing dungeons and dragons or whatever the fuck it is computer bods play and eating pot noodles.

Anyway, how the fuck can you be on a 2 month "downswing" at those levels?

[byronkincaid]

I keep on thinking I should try live cash games, everybody says they are crazy soft, but I'll be going from 400+ hands an hour to 40 and from max rake $3 per pot to what £10, possibly more. Are the live games so soft that it's worth it?

[bolt pp]

I keep on thinking I should try live cash games, everybody says they are crazy soft, but I'll be going from 400+ hands an hour to 40 and from max rake $3 per pot to what £10, possibly more. Are the live games so soft that it's worth it?

I think any winning player finds live a lot more easy than online, theres just so much more information availible but playing online is safer, it's a lot more structured, a very good winning online pro should be able to calculate he's ROI on an hourly basis and buy a sports car according to he's projected earnings, I think the perameters have changed for what now constitutes as playing within your roll because there are a lot more options whereas back in the day I suppose doyle and players that have built multi million pound poker empires from playing live cash game poker had to take a lot more risks, those are risks that just dont have to be taken anymore, i probably play 25% live but when you've been playing for 2 hours and get stacked by the table donk with fd vs set you think why am i bothering when i could be 6 tabling indoors for a garunteed profit, to make it count live i suggest you go up 2 levels to compensate for the ROI your losing whilst not plotted up indoors 8+ tabling, it's a risk you probably dont need to take though.