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Sample Sizes

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  1. keylight keylight is offline

    United States

    Posts: 6,230
    Joined: Jan 06

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 12:46am)

    Over 900 sitngos I had about 20% ROI. Over the next 100 sitngos I went broke (along with some 1/2nl losses). After a bad couple days at 1/2 I went back to sitngos to try to recoup and went on a terrible run for about 2-3 weeks until I had lost it all. My bankroll was 1100 after the 1/2 losses and I was playing mostly $20 and $30 sitngos. So my question is could the first 900 sitngos have been aberration? Or is it normal to have extended losing streaks like that, and I just went broke cause I was playing a bit out of my roll and had some bad luck?
  2. luckybacon luckybacon is offline

    Fayetteville, AR
    United States

    Posts: 850
    Joined: Dec 05

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 1:01am) in reply to keylight

    how many were u playing at a time. Were you playing your best game?
  3. trixter23 trixter23 is offline

    Phillipsburg, NJ
    United States

    Posts: 203
    Joined: May 06

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 1:10am) in reply to luckybacon

    how many did you play in that 2-3 week span, not 900 im guessing?
  4. keylight keylight is offline

    United States

    Posts: 6,230
    Joined: Jan 06

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 1:40am) in reply to trixter23

    It was about 100 that I played. I generally play 1-3 at a time while looking at porn/aim/email/espn at the same time. This was about a month so I dont know exactly how I was playing. I'm sure I tilted off some of the sitngos, but it would be a cop out to just blame that for 100 games spread over 2-3 weeks. My real question is just that is 900 sitngos enough of a sample size to go on and is a downswing of 100 games normal?
    Thread Starter
  5. Ibanez8185 Ibanez8185 is offline

    Proctor, VT
    United States

    Posts: 917
    Joined: Nov 05

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 2:08am) in reply to keylight

    Porn and AIM are not a poker players friend when playing. 900 is a decent sample size and yes it is possible to have a 100 game downswing if your not playing your A game. I would take a few days off and drop limits.
  6. keylight keylight is offline

    United States

    Posts: 6,230
    Joined: Jan 06

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 2:21am) in reply to Ibanez8185

    Awesome. I was looking for someone to restore my lost confidence, and you did that. Thank you Ibanez8185, no further responses please.
    Thread Starter
  7. Karnage Karnage is offline

    Sydney
    Australia

    Posts: 1,289
    Joined: Jun 06

    Sep 6th, 2006 (9/6/2006 4:05am) in reply to keylight

    The first 900 are unlikley to be an aberation, but that does not mean that the second 100 are either. You cannot rule out the possibility that you are looking at two distinct samples. I mean, you could have changed the way you play, lost your edge, discarded a playing trait you never knew you had.

    The answer is most likely to be you. Because over 100 SNGs the rules dont change, the game doesnt change and the average skill level of your opponents should be approaching the average skill level you experienced in the 900 sample. The thing that has the most variability is you.

    Dont forget, your ROI for one sample is 20%, your ROI for the second is -100%. The difference between the two, in my opinion, is not going to be affected too much by the different sample sizes.

    The amount you were committing to each SNG was less than 3% of your total BR. This is much lower than the maximum most pro's advise for MTTs (well the ones I have heard at least). They advised 5% for playing MTTs which have a much higher variance than SNGs. This advice was in answer to the problem of variance killing your whole BR, and there is likely to be a margin of safety involved. So I dont think you were playing outside your BR.

    Now it IS possible to have extended periods of bad luck, and that may well have happened to you. But you blew $1100 in 3 weeks, you cant afford to assume it was simply bad luck. Critically analyse your game and try to find the leaks. You will have them, everyone does.
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