by Pok 7's » Wed Jun 13, 2007 10:36 am
Ice just something to consider which we had some discussions about this in the past on PFO. This also came from a LHE standpoint, however I think it can be applied to NL short stacking as well. It can be VERY possible you hit or are in a terrible run of cards.... Now I know most NL players think hitting a bad run in NL is far fetched, however I don't think I agree 100%. My reason is this.... Lets assume you're getting in as say a 60% favorite in some situations, 75% in others...Whatever the case may be. Statistically there's nothing saying that that hand has hold up 75 times out of every 100.
That's one of the things that can cause terrible runs in LHE.... There's plenty of places where you're a clear favorite in a hand. However since you can't get people off hands as easily by making PSB's like you can in big bet games people will call you down. Just like people are calling you down with because you're a short stack. So much like LHE you're going to have a lot of hands that go to the SD. It's similar to playing LHE, people say "well you're going to get drawn out on a lot in LHE because people won't fold" and they're right.... But if you're in a situation where you're a favorite...regarldess of how big why would you want them to fold anyway? Casino's have games where the house may only have a few % edge over the players, but the games still make the casino $. While I'm sure they may have nights or even weeks where they take some hits on these games the reality is they will turn a profit.
So you have to expect some variance.... There's plenty of great LHE players who have hit BAD runs of cards, for thousands and thousands of hands... Because there's no set number on when those percentages need to kick in... In theory you can be a 75% favorite but lose for a long period of time. For the simple fact that, that 25% can run against you for hundreds, or thousands of times in a row.
Think about it like this, for the sake of arguement let's look at a 75% favorite.....It's guaranteed you'll lose 25%, but who's to say what that sample size actually is? Out of 100K times you'll lose 25K, so is it impossible to have it string together a few hundred or even a few thousand times? Of course it is... it's like saying you can't flip a coin and have it come up heads 50 times in a row, because it IS possible. It might not be likely but it's not an impossibility either.
So like Shamdonk mentioned if you're getting in as a favorite it WILL be profitable, but I don't think it's unreasonable to see similar runs/graphs that would look similar to LHE.
Anyways that's my .02