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[Closed] sm112 - still shortstacking NL100

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If you and me would play a sweat session, we'd probably bust our bankrolls by being under EV :f_biggrin:

I so understand how you feel!


Snodreliss
Joined: 23.12.2007

Pokerstars is the only site that hate shortstackers and actually do something with them. To bad I'm not tracked there :(


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

WTF is this shit? Already more than 1k$ below EV this month. This is statistically impossible to run way below EV month after month.. Rah, you shouldn't complain so much, I run twice as bad as you :f_biggrin:


I guess poker rooms know we would grind them out of all of theirs money if they would let us be Ev+ :)


This is bit weird indeed, any coach, wise-kid have explanation for this?


Originally posted by sm112
WTF is this shit? Already more than 1k$ below EV this month. This is statistically impossible to run way below EV month after month.. Rah, you shouldn't complain so much, I run twice as bad as you :f_biggrin:

theoretically you could run below ev for the rest of your life... its highly unlikely but its not impossoble


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

Another nice session, I don't know whether to laugh or cry. I looked through my hands and counted the times villain had a pocket pair and improved to a set - 7 times out of 8 during 1500 hands. I think it's ridiculous, but what do you think?


hello sm112, i was following your blog for some time. obviously you are very good shortstacker because very few ss players can achieve such winrate as you. good job !

Having studied math I would like to say that being 35 buyins one direction or the other "lifetime" is nothing and its really crucial that you come to grips with that as a professional

You never get to the absolute longrun in poker as everything is based on math and statistics which can never be 100% accurate. The fact of the matter is, the more you run under ev your first 100k hands, the less likely it is that you will be at ev overall for 200k hands, 300k hands, etc. It's the real Sh$t thing about poker but that's just kinda the way it goes. Some of you will run below ev for life and some of you will always run hot. As a percentage of your overall winnings, the amount you are +/- ev decreases over time but the absolute number of buyins does not necessarily approach the ev=0 line

Variance at high stakes is the worst. You can't put in the same volume as low stakes guys so your bad stretches that would be gone in a week at nl200+ often last two months.

At lower stakes, however, variance is just another means of you getting an edge on your competition. Chances are that most of you will run horribly at some point or another. If you are able to play through these unlucky stretches though, keep mentally strong and stay on top of your game, you will suffer a much lower loss to your bankroll and hopefully move up in stakes faster than a total headcase would. The fact that you were able to fight through the sht storm allowed you to say, move up from 1/2 to 2/4 faster than other people whose games fall to pieces when they're running bad. In this manner, you will be able to easily recoup 1/2 losses at twice the stakes and at the end of the year, your graph will be a little higher than your opponents

It's important to realize as a poker player that almost nothing is in your control when you play. This is hard for us to come to grips with because it's human nature to create the illusion of control wherever it does not exist in our lives. The cold harsh reality though is that the only things you have control of when you play are your state of mind, the games/seats you sit in, and the way you think about decisions in poker. That's it.

To some extent you don't even have control over the decisions you get to make. Random chance may dictate that you end up with far more difficult decisions that your opponents over 100k hand samples. Just as everyone isn't going to run at ev, everyone isn't goign to be forced to lay down a set on the river, fold JJ preflop, or cooler AA with KK the same number of times. There are variance in those numbers and a thousand other factors when you play, just like there is variance in the outcomes after the arbitrary point that HEM calculates your "all in ev" and to fret over this one visible variable where there are thousands of others you cannot measure seems silly from a completely objective standpoint.

I'm not perfect myself. I certainly do my fair share of whining and crying at the tables when I'm not running well but it's mostly just a means of venting my frustration so that it does not affect the decisions I make at the table. I like to think that if I ran very bad over a life time I would have the mental fortitude to still be where I'm at today but the truth is I'll never know. I'm very greatful to have ended up on the good side of variance in life and in poker

hope this will help you at least a bit to overcome your constant bad run


I think you should go to church and pray more, or visit a witch or something. Seems there's something quite wrong with your carma :)

As for rational thoughts, you don't know how many times villains had pps and folded without improvement. Anyway, such things really suck, and for myself, I'm getting a bit tired of repeating "cool down, this is poker, these are probabilities, this shit happens". Sometimes we need some good probabilities to happen, and we need it NOW.

GL


Originally posted by marvinas
I think you should go to church and pray more, or visit a witch or something. Seems there's something quite wrong with your carma :)

As for rational thoughts, you don't know how many times villains had pps and folded without improvement. Anyway, such things really suck, and for myself, I'm getting a bit tired of repeating "cool down, this is poker, these are probabilities, this shit happens". Sometimes we need some good probabilities to happen, and we need it NOW.

GL

mate your approach will not make you a winning player, dont get it personal

In poker we deal with EV, which simply translated means "betting our money when we are a mathematical favourite, and not betting when we aren't". We all know that when you are a 60/40 favourite, you should come out with the mad monies when the river is all said and done. Right? Wrong!

This may seem simple to most of the people, but when we are talking equity edges in poker, they are very, very slim. What I mean by that is that one of the best edges you can have in poker (all in with AA versus AK preflop) is still only approximately 10:1. That kind of edge is only offered to us very rarely in typical play. What we usually deal with are edges like holding a set versus a flush draw (a 3:1 edge) having our opponent draw to 3 outs (70:30). Edges of 60-65% are still very good and are more common.

What you need to realise is that when you hold an equity edge of 70%, you are a favourite, BUT if you were to play the situation 100 times, you are guaranteed to lose 30 times. If you talk about a 2:1 edge (a big edge in poker), if you run it 100 times, you are supposed to lose ~33 tand win ~66 times.

My point is, if you get it all in with 70% equity and lose, then immediately think "I was a favourite. I was supposed to win that pot", you are seriously deluding yourself and you need to properly understand what it is to have an equity edge. An equity edge is NOT a golden stamp saying "Sup dude! Ship the monies!". It just doesn't work like that. A 60% edge means you win 60 times out of 100, and lose40 times out of 100. Thats right...40 times out of 100 you are mathematically destined to lose. We are all very happy when our edges hold up, but when we lose, how often do we say "oh well, 70% isn't a lock. You gotta lose those ones sometimes"... never. We say OMG 70% EQUITY WTF HOW DID I LOSE THAT WITH SUCH A HUGE EDGE FFS I RUN SO BAD ASKHDHGASD" - right?

basically we can consider the following rule:

"The only time you can be truly justified in complaining about losing with an equity edge is if you had your opponent drawing dead on the turn and the dealer dealt a 6th card to give you opponent the best hand, and no-one said anything and the floor ruled that the 6th card was legal and there was nothing you could do about it"

or, more realistically,

"You cant complain about losing with an equity edge in one specific hand, you can only complain about losing with an equity edge when mathematical variance has evened out. Given that nobody knows how long "long term" actually means, you can't really ever complain about losing with an equity edge".

Hopefully now you have a better understanding of what it means to be a "favourite" in an all in confrontation. Sometimes you don't just lose, sometimes you HAVE to lose. Sounds unfair but reality is harsh.


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

Today's session started well again - one of the first hands I had KK on small blind and was first to act. Standard rise, 3bet by BB and all-in we went. What do you think BB had?

But I finished the session above 0 - only 1BI above but still, haven't had a winning session for a while. Thank you silent21 for the posts, they helped. I will reduce the tables to 18 to give me some more time to think and will make shorter sessions to control my mindset and tilting monster. I will also concentrate more on analyzing my game and hope it all helps to start winning again and regain my confidence. I need about 30k hands to release a 1,5K$ bonus, it will take my BR back to over 100BI and maybe I could even cash out a little. Should be doable within next week.

So wish me luck. I have been in this kind of situation before and I'm still playing, so it is only a matter of time I will overcome this downswing and start making money again.


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

Oh, and silent21, I'm about 250BI below EV in my NL100 career (560k hands or so), not only 35. 50BI this month :)


I just read your entire blog and you multitable like a mofo _o:. Thats awesome, why don't you move up to NL200 though?


drachdudek
Joined: 06.11.2007

Originally posted by Snodreliss
Pokerstars is the only site that hate shortstackers and actually do something with them. To bad I'm not tracked there :(

+1, i ran very very bad there when playing....


nice blog dude, youve got me started on the sss myself, i keep running under ev aswel, but after seeing you keep determind, I willl do the same


wow u r 5000$ below EV


Kemor
Joined: 18.03.2007

Hi sm112. Is it possible to get your PT3 HUD ?
my skype is: kemor_gdynia
Thanks a lot.


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

Hi Kemor,

Sorry to disappoint you, but I play without HUD. My 15" laptop would die if I open HUD while 24-tabling..


sm112
Joined: 14.10.2008

This month so far.. Includes some tilting and HU, that's why the EV line is so low, but hopefully the rest of the month will be tilt free.


Snodreliss
Joined: 23.12.2007

Holy crap, man seriously. This is pretty insane!

I'm in a downswing myself, but my EV line aint bad, I just hit coolers after cooler + bad play obv...

Hope your hands hold up in the next sessions! ;)

and start playing poker.

GL!;)