Happy New Year, now you suck at poker

Since the start of 2005 I've lost $3,000. I guess its actually worse than that since I have $400 of buy-in bonuses improving that number. Definitely the worst losing streak I've ever experienced, and frustrating as hell. Its taken me a week to write this part, which reminds me that I never finished writing my LA trip poker recap because I didn't want to write the part about losing $1,800 in one horrible day. I should finish that story and post all of it on here.

Anyway, here are some numbers from pokertracker, which might be a little off since I tend to forget to request hand histories from Paradise. Also I took a shot at $15/30 and lost $1,200 and kept those hands in a separate database, so I won't include those unless specifically noted.

Since 1/1/05:

$3/6 full handed
Total Hands: 5,746
VP$IP: 18.34%
W$WSF: 34.21%
W$ at SD: 54.46%
BB/100 hands: 0.16

$5/10 full handed
Total Hands: 3,557
VP$IP: 16.17%
W$WSF: 32.63%
W$ at SD: 50.22%
BB/100 hands: -4.20

$5/10 (6max)
Total Hands: 1,360
VP$IP: 27.72%
W$WSF: 35.05%
W$ at SD: 45.85%
BB/100 hands: -10.28

Aside from the huge drop in win rate, there aren't even any stats that jump out at me. I've felt like I've played fairly well - I really can't believe my play has been this drastically poorer. I do think that I have a lot to learn about shorthanded play, and its going to be a while before I try the $5/10 6max party game again.

I'd like to figure out how to use pokertracker to get to the bottom of this losing streak. Is it just bad luck? Have the games changed? Here are some more comparative stats on the full-handed $3/6 and $5/10 games:

2005 (2004)
Average pot size in big bets: 6.66 (5.93)
Winning %: 8.84 (11.02%)
Aggression Factor Total: 1.49 (1.52)
Aggression Factor Preflop: 1.35 (1.43)
Aggression Factor Flop: 1.70 (1.80)
Aggression Factor Turn: 1.64 (1.53)
Aggression Factor River: 1.34 (1.28)

I'm surprised that the pots are actually bigger, cause it has seemed to me that the games haven't been as good. It looks like I'm playing just as tight and just as aggressive as I was before, I'm just not winning hands. I'm winning 20% fewer hands. So with an average pot size of 6.66, if I won 11 pots per 100 instead of 9 I'd be getting 13BB/hour back. Assuming that there are slightly under 10 players at the table on average, I guess I should be winning a little over 10% of the hands (I'm tighter than the average player, so maybe this should be lower??). So it looks like those 3 ridiculously good months I was winning a bit more than I can expect, and lately I've been slightly unlucky.

I'm still averaging 4.47 BB/100 and about 3BB/hr overall at $3/6. Playing 4 tables for 20 hours per week for a year that would make $72,000.

For now I've decided to stick with $3/6 until I win back the $3,000 I lost mostly at higher levels, at which point I'll reevaluate. I'm going to play only 3 tables until I start winning again. I also will try a few tournaments on occasion to increase those skills.

I did this whole post without a bad beat story. I rule.