I don't find that to be true at all, no. I'm very focused on how I play each hand, not the results. I played well most of the weekend, made a few bad to horrible calls, and I got so unlucky all freakin' weekend I couldn't believe it. I mean it was just a disaster. That does happen after a great win streak sometimes, though. I'm not down that much actually, but it feels like a lot more than it is because I went from having ONE fourth place finish in about 40 tournaments to finishing on the bubble NINE TIMES because of either terrible calls that worked out for my equally terrible opponents or great hands that I just ran into and can't blame anyone for except the site for just reaming me all weekend.
I ran into pocket aces time and time again, and in hands I couldn't get away from. Not like A-K suited, which I did idiotically call once and should have folded, that was probably the worst call of the weekend. I could have gotten away from that easily. Just not sure what I was thinking. But the others were in much odder situations like on the bubble, 4th or 5th in chips out of 5, and I pushed all-in with pocket 10s, got called by bullets. Nothing I can do about that. It really screwed me on another one, though. Minimal pre-flop raise, I call with my pocket jacks figuring I can get away from this hand on the flop if there are overcards anyway. Flop comes 8-9-10 and I push all-in. I get called by pocket kings and miss. Ouch. I would not do anything different at all if I had that hand to play again. I'd push all-in with an overpair and open-ender on every flop from now until I'm 105 should I be fortunate enough to live that long.
Then it put me in other tough situations FIVE times today, wow I haven't had that happen I don't think one time in the last two weeks, and it happens five times today. I have the ace-high flush draw on the flop, two players with almost even chip stacks already all-in, and I call. I missed ALL FIVE flush draws, 39% chance. Again I would do the same thing if given another chance. Those were critical situations where I could have guaranteed myself at least a cash but most likely the way I play a 2nd or 1st. Those, to me, are worthwhile. One opponent pushes all-in and I have an ace-high flush draw? FOLD. Bad expected value over the long run for a 39% chance to risk all of my chips, no thanks. Two? Absolutely, call. I was the one pushing in one of those instances, A-J suited and the flop gave me a gut-shot straight and ace-high flush and I get called by a guy who was a terrible player (called 3-4 offsuit under the gun at a big tournament and hit a full house, lol, what a donk) because he hit the straight on the flop. That's not even to mention it's a terrible move to call a raise with J-Q offsuit, which is exactly what he did to hit that straight in the first place. Again I was at a stage in that tournament where I had to double up or bust out so I could move on. No use blinding out and that was an excellent chance to secure quite a few chips.
And I'm sorry, not to be boastful but I have a much more than basic understanding of tournament play. I have a very advanced understanding of tournament play after I've played in them for almost 5 years. That's exactly how I'm able to beat the game most of the time because I understand situational play as well as the times I have to push.
But like all players, from Phil Ivey to the worst donkeys, I do rely somewhat on luck. I mean that is to say that if the odds are slightly under what they should be, I should still be winning money. If they are even, I should be doing quite well. If the odds are working out highly in my favor like during that streak, 19 cashes for 21, which is freakin' amazing, then I will win almost every time and a lot of money. But when the odds are running way below average, I am probably losing some money. Today for instance I'd describe as terrible luck, yet I did finish the day down only $4, not even one buy-in. JJ got rivered by A-Q and I was down to 800 chips, came back to win the tournament. That helped.
Worst hand of the day by far, I have 770 chips, big blind is 160, I'm desperate. I'm on the button so I push all-in with 8-9 offsuit to steal the blinds and hopefully hang around. I get called, rightfully so, by 7-7 in small blind. I hit the flop twice, two pair, and now he has only a 7 or a runner-runner flush basically to win this. I guess there would also be a runner-runner straight, not even sure the odds of that, but anyway it's what about 5% on the 7, 4.65% on the runner-runner flush, and whatever percent that's even lower on the straight. He hits a runner-runner flush to win. Now I understand of course he had like a 57% chance pre-flop and I had no expectation of winning that hand, I was just hoping, but when you are almost a 90% favorite on the flop and lose to a runner-runner that just hurts. I'd much rather just see no pairs at all or see him hit the 7 on the flop and just get it over with, lol.
Also against all of the AA or KKs I was up against, which was about 10 I counted, I didn't hit the set on any of those. I should have hit the set on 2 of them. Even one time I would have probably gained enough chips to cash in an extra tournament, ending me up for the day.
The point is I don't care how great you are at poker there is a luck element in a single day that makes it literally impossible to end the day up if you can't get a certain amount of luck. On a scale of 0% to 100%, with 0% being you don't win a single hand all-in and 100% being you win every single hand all-in, either extreme is basically impossible. I can win anywhere from 40% on I'd say. But today was about 20 to 25%, i.e. I lost 75% of the coinflips instead of 50%, I couldn't hit a single flush ace high or not ace high, should be 39% from the flop, and I couldn't hit a single set. Even worse when I top paired in desperate situations I ran into sets on the flop. A-Q ran into A-K, that hand I might have been able to get away from and I rank it as one of the worst plays of the day, but it wasn't horrendous it just wasn't a good move to call the final bet at least. Should have figured him for A-K or at least two pair. It hurt me that player had raised with a lot of mediocre hands so I wasn't as respectful of his raises.
I'm not the kind of player who can't get away from top pair on the flop, haha, in the last tournament I just won I had A-10 with A-4-9 rainbow flop, no raises pre-flop, and I raised. I get re-raised three times my bet. I folded. He showed 4-9. In that situation A-10 offsuit wasn't a raising hand, I've gotten in as much trouble raising with garbage like that as I have not raising with it, lol, so that's a tough situation. But fortunately I was smart enough to fold, wait for better hands, and go on to win that tournament.
Now it's easy to say "just focus on good play, don't worry about the results." Well I focused on good play all weekend, I went an astronomically terrible 27 tournaments where I won just ONCE. I cashed still only about 8 times. It was just absolutely brutal. It's a miracle I'm not down more than I am.
I will say that my experience with Full Tilt has been that the variance is just far higher on that site, maybe their randomization is different than on other sites, or perhaps it's just been a bad run for me over 200+ tournaments. On that site you can see I rocket up, then I run into a bumpy patch where I lose some of my gains, then I steadily lose some more of the gains or win a bit more, but it's bumpy either way, then I rocket up again, then repeat process. On Poker Room over 400+ tournaments, twice the sample size, you can clearly see almost a linear progression upwards. I mean you can literally draw a line through my stats and it's consistently up. Yet I'm a better player now than I was on Poker Room so that's kind of strange to say the least. I think that both sites will end up working out over 400 tournaments to be a similar ROI and I don't doubt they are both just as "fair," I just wonder how exactly it's possible for the same player to have such drastically different graphs on two sites. In the first 100 tournaments I just blamed it on historically bad luck combined with a small sample size. Now the sample size seems good enough and I can't make much of it except that on Full Tilt I should expect to have either great luck or awful luck, nothing in between. I have never just plugged away like on
PR where I'd play weeks in a row cranking out maybe $5, $7 profits a day, maybe $20 here, down $15 there, but nothing ridiculous.
I think the issue is really that any given day is such a tiny sample size that it's easy to get screwed on an unbelievable number of hands. Like during my winning streak I was getting lucky in every facet of the game in addition to playing well so I was able to grow my bankroll at an absolutely unreal pace that I knew had to come to an end. I was just hoping it didn't end up turning into a bad streak, which it has. But the way I look at poker is different after having played so much of it. I don't think it's a matter of how well you played over, what, 1,000 hands in a day, 2,000 hands, whatever. It's completely unimportant how lucky or unlucky you got in 95% of those hands. It's only important whether the odds work out in what I call "critical hands," which are all-ins or large pots essentially. You may only see 50 critical hands in a day. If you had the odds to win 30 of those, let's say, and you actually won 25, that's not statistically that unusual but it is crushing for that day's winnings. It could be the difference between finishing up $50 and up $5, or up $20 or down $15, etc. There's also the fact that today and over the weekend I was on the short end of every monster. When I hit a full house nobody would bet, and when I'd make a bet on the river or whatever I wouldn't get paid off. When I hit sets, same thing. When I had big pockets, same situation. Yet I ran into aces, kings, sets on the flop, flushes, straights, you name it and paid off my opponents. It would be my fault if I was paying them off with garbage but it would be like top pair as low stack, when you have to make a move, two pair beaten by a set (actually top two pair), that happened twice now that I think of it, with 2s and 3s of all things, so very stealth because no raises with those pre-flop. Ouch. During my win streak I was the one holding monsters when opponents would bet into me. I would very much like to have a streak where it's about half and half! haha. If I constantly am winning it makes me nervous, like I don't even want to play because I'm about to step in some horrid luck. And when I have horrid luck I feel like the next bad river is just around the corner so it's no fun. I prefer to grind and have some even luck where I win more than I lose, but move up steadily, haha.
If I look back at today, down $4, I can tell you that just winning two more critical hands would have given me an extra $20 at least. Once on the bubble I pushed with 9s, got called oddly by Q-K offsuit from the second to smallest stack, and he sucked out on the river with a queen. That cost me $9 right there. I would have almost taken him out with that hand and there's no chance at all I would have finished in 4th if I won that hand. That also would have given me the chance to play for $22.50, the win, and it's likely I would have been able to finish 2nd anyway. A $13.50 swing on a single river card. One card was worth that much money. So throughout the day if I have GOOD luck I can win $30, $40 more than I should, or if I have bad luck I can end up like today, down $4 instead of where I'd expect to be which is at least up $15.
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