Quote Originally Posted by kfaess
Nice post outlaw, def gave me some insight into variance, however

I think these graphs are being misconstrued slightly. The point of the graphs is to show that your true winrate might not be accurate until a very large sample of hands. But my question is, how significant is this? If you are making good decisions and are a winning player then you will know you're winning/make money much before 10,000,000 hands. The thing most of us care about is beating a level and making some cash (at least thats what I care about) and less about what our true winrate is. If you work hard on your game and start plugging leaks then this will be affect your winrate and the amount of money you win long before 2,000,000 hands are played.

This is why I don't think the graphs should discourage anyone, which is what happened to me when I initially read the thread. Look at the graphs after 100k hands. All the graphs have winnings between approx 1500-2500 except for 1. What are the chances of a 100k breakeven stretch/downswing? Probably pretty darn small.

Look at all the small/mid stakes players on FTR. How many hands did it take each of them in any given level before moving up? Look at all the current micro stakes grinders and how fast they are able to move through the levels. I'm not that experienced in poker yet at all but I think its realistic for a player to play 50k hands at each of 2nl, 5nl, 10nl, 25nl and each time beat the level and move up.

I was gonna say more but some people just showed up at my house so I'll cut it short.
I think we would typically be in the middle area of each graph.. however the extremes are possible due to variance. The graphs are actually meant to encourage people who might have had a big downswing recently. If you are solidly winning I doubt this post will discourage you. It might make you learn to appreciate running good a bit more though