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Slumps - Variance or Bad Play?

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  1. fleapid fleapid is offline

    Chatsworth, CA
    United States

    Posts: 4
    Joined: Mar 09

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 5:21pm)

    I'm firmly locked into the worst slump of my career. It may not sound like much considering the fact that I play micro-stakes tournaments (typically $2-$5 buy ins and S&G's), but for my roll, its more than a little troublesome. I hit a big score (3rd in a $5 MTT) to pad the roll quite a bit, and then the doomswitch flicked on.

    I went 0 for my next 47 in my tournaments, and on the 48th, I min cashed (a huge $3 prize for my $2.25 buyin). I had to take a look at some of the stats to find out, is this just variance, or am I playing that crappy. I reviewed every swing hand (and/or bust hand) of every tournament that I'd played during those 48 tournaments just to see if there was a recurring trend that could tell me something. Without posting 48 hands here, I thought I'd just give the results of the study. Bear in mind, I lost all 48 of these hands:

    On 33 of the 48 hands, the money went in Pre-flop
    On 15 of the 48 hands, the money went in on either the flop, turn or river
    On 40 of the 48, I shoved all in.
    On 8 of the 48, I called all in.
    On 26 of the 48, my hand held a statistical edge pre-flop
    On 22 of the 48, my hand was a statistical dog preflop
    On 24 of the 48 hands, I was a statistical favorite to win the hand when the money went in.
    On 24 of the 48 hands, I was a statistcal dog when the money got in.
    The average number of Big Blinds that I was shoving was 14.67
    My collective average on hands preflop was 47.65% to win (this includes all 48 hands)
    My collective average on hands when the money went in was 42.78% (this includes all 48 hands)

    Again, I lost all 48 times in these spots for large pots, or to go broke. I can share hand histories, but really am just looking for opinions on the statistics, also to see if there are other areas that I should be evaluating. Every comment is appreciated. Thanks.
  2. m_hawk_1 m_hawk_1 is offline

    Australia

    Posts: 752
    Joined: Mar 07

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 5:58pm) in reply to fleapid

    1. There's bound to be a million different ways you could improve your game so as you have more chips when these spots come about, making them avoidable or less damaging to your stack.
    2. You're only looking at the hands you lost. This is pointless. If you find all the hands you won in those 48 tournaments, it will probably go pretty close to evening out the 48 you lost. Running bad is usually just when you run pretty average to bad across a lot of tournaments without running really well in 1 tournament to make up for it all. If these were your only 48 all in situations in those tournaments, the chance of losing all 48 is about 1 in 50 billion - in which case you can count yourself quite unlucky.
    3. Welcome to MTTs, variance sucks.

    I ran a simulation a while back regarding MTT variance - http://www.pocketfives.com/f7/update...-sizes-319957/ - a no-cash streak of about 79 MTTs seemed to be about rock bottom.
    471 
  3. donkiman donkiman is offline

    Posts: 1,332
    Joined: Aug 10

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 7:03pm) in reply to m_hawk_1

    Continuing from Hawks point#2 - Imagine being allin with AK vs. 1010. Hit your A double up. Then your allin again later with QQ vs. AK. It holds. Now you have won 2 consecutive flips which will only happen 25% of the time. Now your allin with KK vs. AK. He hits an A and you lose. In the grand scheme of those 3 allins your about running about even. But all you focus on is how unlucky you got with KK. Basically what I'm saying is that the more times you are allin throughout a tournament the more you are pushing the odds of busting out. I mean even if your allin with AA 5 times, win the first 4 and lose the 5th to bust out your still running above expectation as the chance of having ur AA hold on the first 4 allins is less than 50%. I guess try to focus on not being so reliant on winning allins to make it to the money. 47 without a cash does seem like alot at these stakes.
     
  4. AmSlim22 AmSlim22 is offline

    Port Jefferson, NY
    United States

    Posts: 8,627
    Joined: Jan 06

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 7:10pm) in reply to donkiman

    seems like u should be getting in better. only getting it in ahead 50% of time, doesnt seem good at all.
     
  5. Glo4m Glo4m is offline Confess to me

    Posts: 14,902
    Joined: Dec 06

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 7:20pm) in reply to AmSlim22

    Downswings affect you psychologically, and that may alter your play. I can sense the frustration in your words, and believe me buddy, we've all been through brutal slumps and downswings (well most of us anyway). And they can last longer than you think, especially when you play the micros with the gigantic fields.

    My advice -- take a step back and take a little break. Don't play any more tourneys until you are ready. And by ready, I mean excited about playing, optimistic, and most importantly, confident! Shaking off bad beats and keeping focus on optimal play is THE toughest part of the grind imho. It affects even the best players, and everyone needs a little break from time to time. Come back focused with a clear head and you'll be at your next final table in no time. GL!
  6. fleapid fleapid is offline

    Chatsworth, CA
    United States

    Posts: 4
    Joined: Mar 09

    Oct 7th, 2010 (10/7/2010 10:44pm) in reply to Glo4m

    Love the advice guys.

    I tend to lean towards bad play over a standard variance. I agree with the "you tend to be getting it in bad too often." comment, where I was expecting to see that I was a favorite, and a higher percentage favorite in more of those all ins.

    I also recognize that this is a fairly smallish sample size. I play in the upwards of 500 tourney's/S&G's per month, so this represents just 3 days' play.

    I am going to chalk this up to a bad variance, and then really get into where the leaks are by re-playing the events as a whole. I really don't think that I made too many mistakes in these events, but I did find that I was getting called in a lot of flip situations quite often. (of the 40 times I shoved, 12 ended up flips. Pretty high percentage.) I also received very few bad beats (Only 10 hands were 70% or better to win).

    The most interesting part was the fact that biggest pots were the ones where I entered in with the highest percent to win. I lost 7 of the 10 hands at 70% or better with a 40 BB stack or better. The other losses where I'm losing coin-flips at 8-15 BB's, I think are pretty standard. But a couple of rights turned out right, and I probably am talking about 5 or 6 really good cashes mixed in there.

    Anyhow, thanks for the opinions and the links. I'm going to play my tail off tomorrow and hopefully break out of this slump in a big way.
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