Constant losing

Poker Discussion
164

I have been playing offline at casinos, and online for both real money, play chips, freerolls etc, on and off, on a semi regular basis, since 2004, 2005. Reason I play free chips, freerolls online now is Washington State says its a Class C felony to play real money online poker, and WA St says buying play chips with real money is a Class C Felony. Its why Pokerstars wont even let WA St players play play chip online poker. Also one of the reasons I wouldnt buy play chips at Replay, in addition to even if it was legal for me to do so I still wouldnt buy play chips. Only exceptions is freerolls, and maybe crypto based online poker, and sweepstakes based online poker(altho more and more of them are excluding WA players just to be on safe side, just in case). And because Replay is fun, tough, lots of good players at the higher stakes, etc.

I have played between about 850k to MILLIONS of hands, and the stuff in those Hand Histories happens A EXTREME LOT, as I have seen that a LOT both at casinos and online, because of extreme bad luck, extremely bad variance, extreme volatility, extreme statistical anomalies, like AA losing 3,4,5,6 times in row all in preflop, where AA was dealt 3,4,5,6 times in row, and where AA lost all in preflop 3,4,5,6 times in row, and where the players wrongly screamed rigged, flawed RNG, cheating, Dealers not dealing right, fairly, cheating at the casinos, etc.

That kind of stuff is VARIANCE, not rigging, not flawed RNG, not cheating, etc.

In the A9 4 spade flush hand history the A9 spade flush, called very small bets, that easily priced the draw in. If bets had been rightfully bigger maybe A9 flush draw wouldnt have called, maybe would have, might have sucked out anyway vs a big bet, and following call, but even that is standard VARIANCE. Its frustrating, but its NOT RIGGAT, flawed RNG’s, etc.

In the AK hand AK or JJ 1 of the 2 should have raised preflop, but postflop, as postflop would have the players in the pot in the postflop, even if the had raised preflop. Its about a 23% to 25% TO 27% to 29% chance that AK will hit flop outflop JJ on flop, and about a 10% to 13% to 15% chance that a J for set of Jacks, will hit flop, and about a 3% to 5% to 7% chance that a set of Jacks, AK hit A on board at same time. that means that over the long term this kind of thing should happen about 5% of time, altho if the long term is zillions of hands, there can be statistical anomalies of it between semi temporarily to semi a semi long time, happening for about 50% to 70% to 90% of time, until enough long term happen that variance eventually corrects, happens to return to standard percents over the long term.

Again this stuff happening either is, can be frustrating, but thats no reason to scream RIGGAT, flawed RNG, etc.

It isnt rigged, RNG not flawed, Replay does NOT cheat, There NO BOTS, etc.

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UNSATABLE EMOTIONS = Constant losing!!!

hi @asc123 , welcome to the FORUMs… this has turned into the anti losing thread!

poker sex

Personally I would be a little less harsh, and more psychological - but i love the analogy. A lot of players think experience and time = skill. Some players are naturally good at certain things but most are not. Some players are very good and disciplined at learning to improve, but most are not. Most professional players will agree “YOU” (me, we, everyone) should devote effort into whatever we want to be good at, studying, learning, improving etc. How many do???

the biggest credit and compliment I can give you as a new player is your level headedness… this is a massive advantage to be a winning player IMO… emotions is why most players are “constantly losing” IMO - complaining about losing, blaming the RNG or conspiracy theories…

Its surprising how many times we played together and players get unfriendly towards you or others about losing… you always respond as :sunglasses: as a :cucumber: (cucumber) I think more players need this attitude… from my perspective im always having a laugh at the tragedy of others when we play and they verbally attack - and I’m happy I never need to interject into the conversation too much… this kind of hostility can often cause a lot of bad experiences on RP…

BRM, its worth noting MTTs have higher variance than ring games so u need more buy ins… U can win a lot from an MTT finishing in the top spots 1st 2nd 3rd etc but often results will be losing or a small cash…

RE: variance and volatility. Whilst they are similar they are also significantly different.

On RP I generally wont play 6MAX SNG bc I think 9MAX pays better despite the fact i dont like 9MAX and prefer 6MAX.

Honestly you can win unfathomable amounts in ring games and the variance is lower than MTT.

If you wanna win then play a basic good strategy in ring games and selectively choose your tables…

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166

Replay has received official industry, online poker community Seal of approval, certification, certificate.

Those things are not given out until, unless a online poker site, whether real money, or play chips, has its RNG pass inspections, testing, etc.

Thats actually better then the coders of the RNG coming out and saying it, because they could in theory be more likely to lie, then the certification, seal of approval, testing, etc, process.(Not saying they would lie)(just making a point)

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167

Hi @DogsOfWar ,

That means a lot coming from you. You were the first person who explained the absolute basics to me when my poker knowledge was extremely limited and even took time out to show me the ropes. When we first spoke, my bankroll was probably around the 100-200k mark. I’m now close to 7 million.

People like yourself and @Younguru (who also has gone out of his way to give me pointers) are a credit to Replay. And it’s this social aspect of Replay that has made me love poker even more.

You raised a very important point regarding emotions and this is where our egos can either make us or break us. If it’s not kept in check, it can get the better of us at the tables, which is when we start playing like a maniac (tilt).

I’m not completely immune to this myself and on the rare occasion I will also get at the hands of a bad beat, but mostly I am able to keep my cool and continue to stick to my plan - despite a heavy loss.

I honestly feel the reason why many struggle to build a bankroll is because they are trying to get rich too quickly.

My play-style might be considered boring because it is slow and steady. But it works and this is why I’m not questioning the integrity of Replay’s RNG.

If the struggling players simply did what I’m currently doing, they’d have a few million in their bankroll too.

Here’s my profit and loss chart for the week. Nothing too exciting. Healthy wins followed by small losses (variance). There have been weeks where the losses were more severe, but eventually it all balanced out (so long as I kept my ego in check).

I honestly believe that “anybody” can achieve this if they remain disciplined, patient and not bet like a maniac. Leave the aggressive betting to the highly experienced players.

Profit-Loss

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I hope this doesn’t seem like bragging - it shouldn’t because I was only learning poker at his stage, and aside from having a rough idea of what hands I was supposed to open from each position, and playing mostly raise or fold, I didn’t really have any idea what I was doing. Anyway, here’s my graph up to around 100m chips:

Screenshot 2024-09-03 101531
Screenshot 2024-09-03 101531899×544 22.2 KB

Note that the vertical axis is logarithmic, so bankroll growth is exponential overall, but any visible dip is actually a pretty significant downswing. At A, I actually go from around 1.4M chips to 450K. At B I drop from 6M to under 4M, and it took months to recover from that.
My point is that if you play preflop better than your opponents, you’re going to be winning at a high rate in the long run, but that won’t stop you from having significant downswings in the short term. Or basically, exactly what @asc123 said.

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169

@Asuronetorius

[quote=“Asuronetorius, post:164, topic:48970”] it isn’t rigged, RNG not flawed, Replay does NOT cheat
[/quote]

First off, a flawed RNG doesn’t mean there is cheating going on.

Second, if you read my post in 129 and replay the (1) hand in post 150 it might suggest that I’m prescient or just maybe I’ve seen this occur a lot on here.

In another post you refer to the way the hand (2) played out which I provided. I only provided the hand because of Bluff’s comment in the chat of having Qs.

If only Bluff had read my post 129, he could’ve seen the inevitable result. Btw, as I recall Bluff busted shortly after that crushing hand loss.

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Or maybe it’s expected it would happen a lot and there’s nothing special at all about your prediction?
When only one of your hole cards plays and you don’t have the nuts, you’re going to be beat quite often at showdown. It doesn’t really matter how high your hand is in terms of absolute hand strength - you will always be behind a decent number of combos.

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171

I suggest… you play one game… the same time daily … I like tournament games… but many of them keep a leader bord for the mo. play ever game 4 a mo… and try to make that leader bord… soon you will know that the good players all ways make their way to the top…

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I play for 1 to 3 mo at a time… I don’t let 1 bad game… get me down.

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I think its fine if your a truly experienced, disciplined, decent, semi good, good, semi great, semi shark, shark, winning player, semi pro, etc, over a long enough period of time, sample size to play different tournament formats at the different times, at the same stake level’s etc, if you have good bankroll management, know how to play the different formats, etc. Sure I might not do as well on the leaderboards, etc, doing that, but I still do well enough on the leaderboards doing that, that I still do pretty good at, on leaderboards, and still grow my bankroll.

I also look for good, better value tournaments, still keeping in mind good bankroll management.

Examples. You can play for a 2.5 mil to 3 mil prize pool for just 20k, 50k. Thats way better then 100k for 3 mil, altho those not bad value, its just that the 20k to 50k for 2.5 mil to 3 mil is BETTER value. And 250k for 10 mil is BETTER then 250k for 5 mil. Of course thats only part of the equation.

Fortunately a lot of the good value tournaments dont play at same time as the lesser value but still ok value normal value tournaments. But if there is a conflicting tournament times of tournaments that want to play, then can multi table, but dont recommend that, and only recommend that to very experienced, very good players. And dont recommend more then 2 tables, and only if your not going to slow down tournaments waiting for you to act. If do multi table I recommend using the quick fold button, and making faster decisions, and if only semi good, ok, etc, at speed chess, speed poker, thinking quickly, still making good decisions quickly and only taking a long time to decide in tricky hard spots, and to click sit out in the other tournament, while you take more time to think your way thru a tough, tougher spot, etc, if you want to, and if you want to do well.

But if a player is less good, less experienced, a newer player, etc, they probably want to, should follow your way, suggestion.

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agree

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I have same problem cuz when they cant extort money from you they turn the algorythms so you can/t win… I have had a ton
of good hands and they never win…

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176

This definitely doesn’t happen. It’s just variance.

Track ALL your hands for even just 250 hands and see what happens. You can’t rely on your own memory; there’s too much cognitive bias. We remember “bad beats” that go against our expectations, and forget about hands where what we expected to happen actually did happen.

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@lihiue

I find your reply both amusing and interesting.

It’s amusing because in some societies and even many more countries whenever someone has exhibited prescient abilities they are revered and adored which may be unnecessary at this point because there’s plenty of time for that later.

It’s interesting because you always chalk it up to variance.

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Except that’s the opposite of what I’m suggesting here. I’m not saying it’s expected to happen sometimes due to variance, I’m saying it’s the most likely outcome period.

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You know, in life and poker, you win some, you lose some, and some you just got to chalk up to it happens

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There are statistical anomalies in the number of 4 card flushes or straights given to the underdogs in preflop standoffs.
When you see the same person get pocket 10’s 3 times and then win all 3 standoffs in 9 hands, that’s not randomized.

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181

What exactly is random, randomness, randomised?

The dictionary definition is - to put it simply - “to lack a pattern”.

If Replay’s deck is not random (or as close to random as an algorithm can get), then what is this pattern that you are seeing?

The chances of making a royal flush is approximately 1 in 650,000 hands. I have made one royal flush after approximately 50,000 hands. It’s possible that I might not make another royal flush even if I played another 1,300,000 hands.

I often play live games with a couple of my friends (3max with play chips) and we have witnessed boards that you just would never expect.

In fact, we played earlier in the evening for approximately 2 hours and 90% of the boards were paired. That hasn’t happened before but I know that it ‘does’ and that it ‘can’ happen.

For the sceptics, what is it that you’d be happy to see?

  • A royal flush only show up once every 650,000 hands?
  • To make Quads once in every 4000 hands?

If that’s what you’re expecting to see, then that in itself is a pattern and not random.

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I also wanted to add - which is relevant to this discussion - that after 5 days straight of continuing an upwards trajectory, I reached negative variance and lost close to 1m chips in a day.

Yesterday I reached approx 7.1m chips and by the end of the day, I had plummeted back down to approx 6.15m, so that is a huge downswing.

At no point did I think to myself that Replay is now rigging the card deck against me or favouring other opponents. In fact, here are some of the reasons why I lost a lot yesterday.

Not in any particular order:

  • Poor sleep the night before, so was tired compared to usual
  • Played at several tables with some very loose and aggressive players who were playing almost every hand, betting aggressively and I’ll admit, I became tilted and started to play them at their own game. I deviated from my own strategy (that has proven to work for me) and I started playing loose and aggressive which led to the inevitable; I lost big
  • I made some very bad bets and called quite a few all-ins (something I don’t do often).
  • My current (not average) fold rate is around 65-70%, and yesterday, I kept playing average hands hoping “to get lucky”. That’s a gambler’s attitude and not what makes a good poker player.

With all things considered, my 1m loss was a combination of a downswing in luck and also bad play on my part.

After 5 days straight of going up, I was somewhat expecting to go on a losing run and thus, I am not surprised at all.

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