Running bad and wondering where it goes

Posted by Verstehen

June 26, 2008

Lately I’ve been playing the 1/2 NL games on Pokerstars. I’d been warned that 1/2 is a pretty big jump from smaller-stakes games, and the warnings are fairly accurate I think. The average regular is far better than at lower stakes: looser, more positionally aware, better at bet-sizing and better at hand reading. Most don’t stack off too light, and can put you in very tough spots on later streets. Squeezing pre-flop is really common, too much so I think but I’m pretty sure cardrunners has convinced people that it works with any two cards.

At the same time, with proper game selection these games are beatable. There are donks at every level, and honestly 1/2 NL seems to have plenty. I’m not sure why; I suspect it’s because 1/2 would be considered a very small live game, so live players migrating over to online play jump into these games assuming the same level of play. Another possibility is that you can beat the micros with a variety of styles, so plenty of people roll up 3-4K and take a shot at 1/2 NL.

I had a decent winning day, up a little more than a buy-in. But I ran absolutely terribly, about $500 below expectation on all-ins. It was all very standard stuff where neither pllayer really made a mistake. The three biggest ones were:

I got it in preflop with AA against KK and he hit the K

I got it in on the flop with QJ against 99 on a T98 board

I got it in with top set against AA and he hit a runner-runner flush

All very very unremarkable beats. Obviously in hands one and two it was just a cooler situation and my opponent would have been wrong to fold unless he knew my exact hand. Hand three he had limp-min-re-raised pre-flop, which is donk-speak for “I HAVE ACES!!!!” and I called just for set value and hit. I knew he wouldn’t fold no matter what, so I shipped, he called, and I lost.

I often wonder about the surplus money lost when you’re running bad. The usual answer is that it all evens out - you’ll run good eventually and those same players will run bad. That’s true, but….

The assumption underlying that argument is that all of the money stays in the poker economy. I often wonder if donks take a shot at 1/2, run hot for a while sucking out or winning flips, and then cash it out to go on vacation.

Of course, good players cash out too - they cash out far more often than bad players. But I wonder if deep down, the 41/2 stations realize that they’re on a run and just walk away with the surplus. If that’s true, I’m never really getting that EV back, nor is any other winning player.

Oh well, running bad warps your mind a bit, so I’m just taking the rest of the day off. It’s nice to book a win, even if it could have been much more.

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