This is obviously a blog read by myself only and is intended to be a cess pool of my ramblings and complaints. It got a little much always messaging the same people with sad stories, who really wants to hear all that shit? I know I wouldn't.
Poker really is a curious game. It can trick you with its variance into thinking you're better than you really are or *gasp* even a winning player. In today's state of the games I think variance is really the only thing keeping people going. Breakeven 100k hands, sick heater 30k hands, downswing 50k hands, breakeven 50k hands, sick heater 20k hands. Those heaters where we are temporarily fooled into thinking we are God's gift to poker and unbeatable, keep us going in this game. It's always the same. I just need to run good longer and everything will be okay, I KNOW I'm better than all these regfish. But at the end of the day, are you really? Do these same regfish watch all the videos you do? Do they post in the same forums? Do they always seem to be grinding when you're playing? Why do you think you are better? Because you soul read them in a couple spots? Because they made a terrible bluff in another? Because you 3barreled them off a good hand when you just knew they were folding a ton? Do these same things not happen to you though? Do you not get soul read and bluffed by even these same regs on occasion? Is it possible they consider YOU the regfish?
What has happened is the real fish pool, which we all need to steadily profit at this game, has decreased drastically in the last year or so. The games are almost dead (people keep denying it but c'mon everybody's winrates and action has decreased). You have mass amounts of regs at midstakes who cannot find games at all. They sit for hours and hours and hours to finally get a game. They play 10 hands, lose a flip and get insta sat out. Wow, sick. And that reg who you just know you have a edge on well, when he sits and 4 tables you for and hour and wins 10 buyins, what do you chalk it up to? Variance of course. But what these regs don't understand is that variance is everything in poker. Your edge against another regfish is almost non existent if you don't run good yourself. Even if you really do have a slight edge, if a reg fish runs a little better than you, you will not win money off him. The only way to not lose $ running worse than another player is to play someone shipping air and bottom pairs in big pots with few to no outs. Droolers are why people used to get rich and the lack of them nowadays is why people are starting to realize how tough this game can really be. Why do you think all those early poker gods have long quit? Once they couldn't easily print money anymore and could face months of breaking even and possibly losing they took their loot and moved on in life. Ah if only I'd been playing during the boom right, well you weren't so make the decision now: Am I going to be one of the best at this game (this is what is required) and hope the games get better or at least stay the same? Or am I going to cut my losses and get a real job. Don't think a couple 6 fig months mean anything. A couple months of breaking even are right around th c
People are fooled by sample size. It used to be 10k hands was a good sample, people actually complained about losing for such an insignificant amount of hands. Then it was 20k hands, 50k and eventually people realized it was hundreds of thousands of hands to determine a winning player. In my opinion it is somewhere between 1 and 2 million hands at any given stake. A player who has played this many will have experienced many drawn out downswings and will understand what variance is all about. You can run hot for 100k, 150k, 200k hands. People seem to doubt this but it is true. You can also run horrible for the same amount, even more. Variance is nothing but past hands added up. There is nothing to stop it from being any amount. 1 bad day or a year of bad days. But don't be fooled into thinking it has something to do with time. This is why live luckboxes think they are so good when they bink a bunch of MTTS. What they don't understand is they are running extremely above expectation to win even one given the number of hands played. An online player can put in more hands in a day than a live player does in a year. A month of grinding for some online players is more than live players will play in a life time. So that few thousand hands a live player plays a year really means nothing in terms of variance. He could run extremely hot or extremely bad for years.
Poker players need to understand that as I mentioned earlier, variance is everything. You cannot win a hand without your opponent getting a hand he wants to play. Variance. He has to bet, call, or raise when you have equity. Variance. He has to fold when you have bluffs. Variance. He has to call when you have good made hands. Variance. Everything comes down to chance in this game. You can get runner runnered every-time you flop a good hand. Variance. Your 2 barrels can get raised or shipped on every time you have air and every time you have a good made hand they fold. Variance. People need to understand that every action on every street is variance and sooner or later everything that can happen will, and frequently in a short period of time. This is why you can miss every single flop in 3bet pots or have all your 4bets called and watch as over cards come.
This is why people are playing more and more hands a month. Edges are decreasing and variance is increasing. Hundreds of thousands of hands are being played to go on that magical heater. Lows that people never imagined possible are also occurring. 60 buyins below EV in 200k hands? Don't think it could happen to you? You're too good for that right? Okay. Keep playing this game and see if you don't run worse than you ever thought possible. It's not just a saying it's the truth.
This game truly is a hard way to make an easy living. I like to refer to it as the sickest game on the planet.
p.s. I don't profess to know everything about poker, this post might not be very coherent and it may even be contradictory. It is all stream of consciousness and where I'm at right now. GLGL
p.p.s. hopefully I'm running better by the time I make my pooh-bah so I don't have to post something like this :)
No comments:
Post a Comment