A lot of ligapoker players often ask a query saying, “How do you know how well you’re running in live poker? I’ve played for many hours live and I’m up about seven grand. Despite being up to this amount of money I honestly feel as though I’m running a lot below EV”. So, if the same thing is happening to you, you will be glad to know that you are not alone.
How are you running
I have seen tons of people over the last 10 years or so who have objectively said that “Yup I’m running really hot”. But breaking it down you are making 14 per hour right now. So if we look at a top side hourly in one two or just live cash in general usually a one-two or two five that topside hourly is going to be about 10 big blinds per hour which mean 20 per hour when you’re playing one-two you’re already kind of almost there.
If you look at it and the average poker player is actually a losing poker player so you’re doing quite well compared to the overall field.
Real sample Sizes
Assuming you’re playing 30 hands per hour which can definitely be generous in a live environment. By the way, that’s a maximum of 15 000 hands. So while 500 hours feels like a ton of hours it’s only 15 000 hands maximum at the end of the day and honestly, with such a small sample, I wouldn’t even do a complete stat dive on a player.
Usually, I wait until they have 40 or 50 thousand hands before I do that. So if I couldn’t do a basic leak analysis for you at 15 000 hands, I certainly can’t try to deduce your overall luck in such a small sample.
Review your hand
People also start complaining about luck when it comes to running below EV conversation and tends to just feel like oh I run really really bad, go back and review the last three hands where you doubled up and really work through them and look at them.
The overall point is that it’s very easy to feel like you are running below EV and maybe you are but just as likely you could actually be running quite well over the sample size. So many people just dismiss the possibility that they’re running well over a small or a medium or a long-term sample. People only ever focus on the fact that things could be going poorly for them or aren’t going as well as they could possibly be.
That may not be the case especially when you start objectively studying your hand histories out. So try not to harp on it either way because at the end of the day you cannot control your luck whether you’re running really good really bad for a long period of time.
What can you do?
You can only control your actions and your reactions so make sure you’re studying, putting in those hand histories, analyses, and working on things that you know you’re currently weak at.
Make sure that you’re preparing yourself for making good strong real-time decisions when you are facing adversity mentally.
