Bisonbison on Winrates

From time to time, someone will break down and post some or all of the following thoughts:

"How much counts as 'beating a game'?"
"What about crushing?"
"What about crushing Party 2/4?"
"Well, what's the best win-rate a good player can sustain at 2/4?"
"What about if that player moved to 3/6?"
"Or 30/60?"
"What if, instead of good, he was great?"
"Or excellent?"
"Superlative?"
"And if he was playing 2 tables at the same time?"
"How about 6?"
"You know, hypothetically."

We tend to invest a lot of belief in this stuff. And by we, I mean me. Games I play while driving include figuring out what I could make 8-tabling .5/1 40 hours a week, then adding in my 25 hours of 6-tabling 3/6 on top of that. There's a real satisfaction in doing the math to add up the hands per table per hour, and multiply that by this rate or that rate.

I mean, if I could just 8-table 3/6 for 4BB/100 I could make $125 an hour. I could work 5 hours a week. I could play 15 hours of poker on the first of the month, 15 hours on the second, and go on vacation for the rest of the time. I will do this anytime I am alone in my car for more than thirty minutes. This is valuable braintime I could be devoting to the war in Iraq, man's inhumanity to man, or breasts.

There are a few beliefs hiding underneath this obsession with win-rates, and they all have to do with figuring out how good we are:
1. We tend to believe that the numbers are accurate; that they capture not only how well we're doing, but how well we're playing.
2. We tend to believe that the numbers are precise; that there's a significant and meaningful difference between a win-rate of 2.5BB/100 and 2BB/100 over 1 million hands.
3. We tend to believe that the numbers are important; in the end, winning is better than losing and winning more is better than winning less, and the numbers tell us if we're winning and how much.

These beliefs endure because they are true. But they're both true and dumb. They are, in short, convenient places to stop thinking about our games, to stop self-evaluation.

When I'm driving, I rarely find myself thinking "I am unwilling to do a lot of the middle-pair/overcard-kicker/backdoor-draw hand protection that Ed insists is vital" or "I keep forgetting the precise odds I need to draw to 1-14 outs". Yet, near as I can tell, these are accurate observations about my poker game, and areas which, if addressed, could help me play better (and presumably win more Sklansky bucks) from here on out.

More importantly, these are things about my game which only I know and only I could know. I have played about 100k hands at 3/6. My most frequent opponent has been at a table with me for maybe 2% of those hands, very few of which made it showdown. What's he gonna know?

Sure, I post hands, but even though I try to avoid it, a cross-section would show more sets and flushes and straights and trips and boats and pocket aces and so on than is really representative of the times I feel uncomfortable or uncertain at the table. Yet I play dozens and dozens of top-pair-bad-kicker or middle-pair-good-kicker or overcards-with-a-backdoor-draw hands every day, and if I'm making small mistakes in those very frequent hands, they're probably costing me more than medium-sized mistakes in my rarer hands. Ed made a post about this after his book came out, but it's been a while and I've been thinking about this since MAxx's "Eagle ISO the right questions to ask himself" post (which I thought was an excellent way to get going on self-evaluating).

Everyone eventually runs into the limits of their ability to improve passively. Reading books, reading the forums, playing hands in our typical frame of mind, these are all pretty unfocused ways to learn, and they often leave our blind spots pretty much untouched. Posting and responding to posts is better, but it's still open to the same kind of problem: favoring your obvious flaws over ones that may be more fundamental or widespread.

Those questions about win-rates aren't bad in and of themselves, and questions about pokertracker stats aren't stupid, but they're often one or two or twelve steps removed from the actual work it takes to play better. Your ability to diagnose and treat the problems in your game and the ability of the forum to help depend on you comprehending how you play.

If you're a decent player and you can't or won't say "these are the things I'm good at" and "these are the areas where I'm weak", then your improvement is going to stall out. The hand-specific advice you get here just reflects the hands you pick to share, and choosing a better wallpaper for the foyer seems dumb if you don't know that your basement is flooded and the toilets are all vomiting tar.

So I'd just recommend that people stop worrying about their winrates, or other people's winrates, or whether your dog could beat the Party 15/30 game for 1.27BB/100 on a Friday night. Post about the common, everyday decisions that baffle you or make you wince or leave you feeling icky. It's those tangible things that make the winning and losing happen.

Waiting Until The Turn

Cnfuzzd:

Ok. I understand now where Spiders dilemma is on reraising the flop.

First: Waiting to raise on the turn is a play that you typically make both when A) you are trying to face the field with bad enough odds to make them either fold or make a large mistake, which raising on the flop will not do, and B) there are a number of outs which can cripple your hand, and no way to push the hands that those outs fit with out on the flop due to the nature of these players. All of this is done to protect your hand from all those little draws that small stakes players like to play.

However, this simply does not apply to this hand. First, you had no choice but to bet the flop, or you would have given a free card. When you bet, the player to your right made it two to go. So, the field has already been faced with two bets, and made thier decisions. Given your relative position to the flop raiser, it is unlikely that you will be able to face the field with two cold again, and even if you did, the pot is now large enough that most draws are not making a large error in calling. Even worse, you are faced with being checkraised by a virtually unknown hand, or giving away a free card.

So, due to this, protecting your hand has gone out the window. It is now tiime to think about VALUE. You are more than likely ahead here, and its time to get money into the pot while you are. You know that most of the field likes their hand, and that you have the best hand. RAISE RAISE RAISE. As an added benefit, there is a chance you will get the SB, who likely has top pair, to cap the flop, and face the field with two cold again, which may, but is not likely to, fold some out.

So why not wait until the turn to raise? Not only does betting/raising the turn do little to protect your hand, but it gives you all the right information at the wwrong time. It is almost never correct to raise for information, because any information you gain is usually worth very little, no matter how helpfull it may be. Since it is so worthless, you want to pay as little as possible to get it. Raising for information should be done on the cheap streets, so that you can use whatever you glean to maximize your perfromance on the more expensive streets.

I know you middle pair Nay-Sayers are out there talking amongst yourselves about how half the deck can cripple your hand, and why raise when there are two chance two have this tragedy befall. Fear Not!!! By 3 betting on the flop, you are sending out very strong information about your hand. Its likely that you can use this later in the game to either force your opponents to reveal the strength of their hands, or obtain a cheap showdown, which is something these hand love to get when a scare card pops up. Waiting to raise on the flop does none of this, AND lets someone take advantage of you blindly raising the turn like a drunken cnfuzzd.

there entity, i posted more.

peace

john nickle

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
StellarWind:

There is another major objection to waiting until the turn to raise.

It usually won't work. Obviously raising the turn when SB has the best hand is not a good idea. So assume he has a small pair, flush draw, or OESD. Is he going to bet the turn for you? Not very likely. Not with a draw. Probably not with a seven after the inevitable bad card comes (they're almost all bad).

And there you are. You passed up your flop value raise for nothing.

This simple objection to the turn raise play has wide application and is often overlooked. Always ask yourself: will they bet the turn when I'm winning or just when I'm screwed?

Paying Multiple Bets Preflop

Here's a forum post I made recently:

Think of it this way. if you are in a 1/2 game, and it comes 3 bets to you preflop, it's almost as if you are playing 3/6 preflop and then switch to 1/2 postflop.

What this means is that your implied odds are terrible.

When you put in money preflop, you will need to make it back postflop. If you pay 1 SB to see the flop, your postflop play in the long run needs to make back 1 SB to break even. So there will be several hands where you pay 1 SB to see a flop and fold, sometimes you hit a hand but still lose, and other times where you hit a hand and win. All of that needs to add up to > 1 SB for your 1 SB call preflop to be profitable.

Now if you are paying 3 SB preflop, you have to make up 3 SB postflop in the long run. A suited connector will have alot of trouble doing this, as you often hit weak draws that the flop aggression will force you to fold, since it was 3 bets preflop. And it will be hard in the long run to make back those 3 SB.

Hands like AA, KK, QQ, JJ, AK can play for three bets or more preflop because they win so often that you more than make back your initial investment.

This explanation isn't completely correct. Sometimes you have an equity edge and are actually making money when you play for several bets preflop, but this equity edge is only useful if you see a lot of rivers. A medium suited connector will have to fold on a lot of flops giving up it's equity because you can't protifably draw for that runner runner straight or backdoor flush.

Greg Raymer Talks Pot Odds

Yes. I'll say it again mid-way into a tourney POT ODDS ARE ALL BUT IRRELEVANT. Those extra chips WILL NOT double or triple your win rate here. But BUSTING WILL TAKE IT TO 0%. And too the dude who said he just cant fold AQ when he isnt on a huge stack...well plz join UB in fact ill thrown you my referall bonus just to get more dead money in these tourneys..if you cant lay AQ in a tourney then your just not gonna make many final tables imho.

And that statement about pot odds is simply dead wrong. 180 degrees wrong. As absolute a wrong as there can be.

Pot odds, including implied odds, are everything. However, there is a lot of data that has to be considered in determining the true odds of a situation. And when I say pot odds I don't simply mean chip odds, but money odds. As we know, there are times when your expectation in terms of chips doesn't correlate linearly with your expectation in terms of money, and money is all that really matters (at least to me). However, when you're not in or near the money, these two things are linear, and once you gather all the data you can, your decision comes down to the math (calculated using that data).

Players who have a great ability to read players can afford to make a few math errors, because they gather such great data. But that doesn't mean that they wouldn't be better if they did the math perfectly. Similarly, your strategy of risk avoidance may leave you as a winning player, but it doesn't mean you wouldn't be better if you made some of these risky decisions more correctly than you do now.

Later, Greg Raymer (FossilMan)

Clarkmeister Hand

I thought this hand might be of interest to the forum. 2-4 online.

4 limpers to me in the SB with AsKs. I raise, BB folds and everyone else calls. 4.5BBs and 4 players.

Flop: Qs 5h 6h. I bet, EP calls, MP1 folds, MP2 folds, CO raises, I call, EP calls. 7.5BBs and 3 players.

Turn: 2c. I check, EP checks, CO bets, I raise, EP folds, CO calls.

River: 5d. I check, CO checks, MHIG.

HEPFAP Loose Games vs. SSHE (Miller post)

The discussion in the Loose Games section refers to a different game type than this one. In HPFAP, S&M refer to a game where your opponents play a few too many hands, but then generally play well after the flop.

In such a game, hands like AQo do not have as large a preflop edge (because your opponents, while loose, play reasonable hands). Furthermore, you gain much more after the flop against good postflop players than you do against terrible players.

I know this was their assumption for the Loose Games section... we have discussed the differences between my book and the Loose Games section many times. In David's words, "Your book is about games where people not only play way too many hands, but they also play them badly."

I wish HPFAP had been a little clearer about their assumptions for the Loose Games section. Everything they say is correct, given their assumptions. FWIW, you generally find games fitting the description of the Loose Games section games at the 30-60 and 40-80 level, not the 3-6 and 4-8 level.

As a result, you will see many differences between advice in the Loose Games section (and HPFAP in general) and my advice (in my book and in the posts). This is not a contradiction... both bodies of advice are correct given the assumed playing tendencies of your opponents.

Take off the Preflop Training Wheels by Ed Miller

This is a post targetted to the posters who have been around for at least a few months. If you are brand new to poker, ignore this for now (but bookmark it and come back in two months).

How many of you still ask preflop questions like,

"How many limpers do I need to play..."
"Do I have the odds to call with..."

etc.

How many of you give preflop advice like,

"Without at least three limpers you have to muck..."
"You are getting 7-to-1 so you should..."

If you still think this way about preflop play, it's time to take the training wheels off!

Preflop play is NOT about "pot odds." It is not about how many limpers you have. Preflop play is about getting to see flops against players who will give you their money by playing poorly.

The goal of preflop play is to maximize your time spent playing after the flop against weak players and weak hands and minimize it against strong players and strong hands.

You make money in poker from your play after the flop. You've already noticed how poorly many of these players play after the flop. They put in tons of bets as huge underdogs. They don't put in enough bets as the favorite. They hemorrhage money after the flop.

When bad players limp in front of you, you should want to play with them. Say you have a hand like K4s, and two bad players limp in. You should WANT to play. Your hand has no advantage over theirs at this point. But after the flop, you will make good decisions, and they will make terrible ones. Your hand isn't good, but it is good enough.

Now you may decide not to play K4s even though you WANT to play. You might not play because you are in middle position, and the chance someone will pick up a big hand behind you is too high. You might not play because there are strong players behind you who can really interfere with your goal of playing against weak players and weak hands. But you should WANT to play. If you are on the button, then you SHOULD play because there's no one behind you to screw with your plans.

When it is raised in front of you (by a normal raiser) you should want to fold K4s. You are playing against a strong hand, and you want to minimize your exposure against strong hands.

If two strong, tricky players enter the pot in front of you, you DON'T WANT to play K4s. You want to minimize your exposure against good players.

You can play quite loose if you are sure you will only be playing against bad players and bad hands. Your superior skills after the flop can turn very marginal hands into solid winners.

Ed MIller's Fundamental Principles

I believe there are two fundamental principles of winning poker:

1. Bet and raise your strong hands for value.
2. Play tightly in small pots, loosely in big ones.

It is the responsibility of any book on poker strategy... particularly any book targetted at beginners... to convey these principles. They lie at the core of every good strategy.

Unfortunately, when I read many (most) poker books, I often see these principles ignored. Some authors recommend limping preflop with very strong hands like AA, AK, and AJs. Some tell you to stop betting your top pair and overpair hands on fourth and fifth street when someone calls your flop bet on a somewhat dangerous-looking board. Some tell you to check and call with monster draws. All of these ideas run counter to the most fundamental principle of winning poker: Bet and raise your strong hands for value.

Some authors tell you to "fit or fold," regardless of the size of the pot. Some tell you to fold top pair and overpairs routinely on the turn if someone raises you, again without mention of the pot size. Some tell you to fold flush draws on paired boards and straight draws on two flush boards. All of these ideas run counter to the second-most fundamental principle of winning poker: Play tightly in small pots, loosely in big ones.

If I question one of these pieces of advice, often I will be told, "Well, the author was just trying to simplify advice for new players." My question is, "Are not the two fundamental principles of winning poker already simple? Is it impossible to forumlate simple ideas that support and reinforce the core principles rather than ignore and undermine them?"

The reason this issue hits home with me is because I see SO MANY players, many of whom think they play well, who could not articulate these two very basic principles of winning poker. They think winning poker is about making laydowns, saving bets, reading tells, wearing sunglasses, or who knows what else. And it seems so silly and frustrating to me... "How can you have played for years and still not have grasped these two extremely simple ideas?"

I think the answer lies largely in the body of available literature. The overwhelming majority of advice - books, magazine articles, internet sites, etc. - ignores and undermines these principles. It's no wonder so few ever figure it out.

So to answer your question, simplifying for beginners is fine for me. But when you simplify, you must do so ACCORDING TO THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPLES OF WINNING POKER. You are supposed to play tightly in small pots, so feel free to tell beginners to play even more tightly than "optimal." But DON'T feel free to tell beginners to limp with their strong hands or lay down overpairs in big pots. These ideas are simple, but they run contrary to the core principles.

Final note: I've said it several times before, but I wanted to reiterate it for this conversation. I think ITH is a good book filled with generally solid advice. My final test for any poker book is, "If you read and follow the advice in this book, will you become a solidly winning player?" (Not a BETTER player, a SOLIDLY WINNING one. Better sets the bar far too low.) I think the answer for ITH is definitely yes... and that is something I cannot say for most poker books.

Nevertheless, there is that one area of the book that I'm negative on.. the advice to limp preflop with strong hands like JJ and AJs. Whether it's "simplified for beginners" or not, it runs counter to basic principles, and it teaches people to think about poker the wrong way.

A pair on a paired board

Here is a common situation on paired boards.

Davidross's Diary

Davidross is a 2+2er who played professionally and kept a journal every week in his first year of doing so. This site has archived all of those posts:

School of Hard Knocks.