I just wanted to thank all you excellent players/writers who are so into picking apart all the hands posted here. This forum has helped me more than anything that is available to me.

Tonight I was finally able to get a run of hot cards and I think I did better with them than I usually would have, thanks to all the advise I have received on this forum. Several of you have suggested that I haven't been raising enough. So, tonight I took that advise and got angry.

I walked in and immediately sat down with a rack of $1 chips (standard for most of the people who play here) at the only open chair at the 2/4 table - no waiting - good omen? Saw only two or three people I had seen b4. One was a married couple and another guy who mostly plays NL.

Because of all the great advise I have received here and the lucky situation that I was consistently getting some relatively playable hands, I found myself playing much more aggressively tonight than I have played in the past. I had a ton of good hands and raised them pre. Seemed like I was the bully. There were few PF raises other than mine. And, it worked. In 90 minutes I had two racks.

It seems there were three factors here:
1) soft table
2) great run of hold cards and flops
3) my willingness to raise wider

Any opinions on which of these 3 factors had the most influence on my success tonight?

I am really excited to read your opinions. I'm just so charged up from this great two-hour session I had. I know you're going to tell me it's more about the long run but I don't see how you can have a successful long run without several nights like I had tonight.

#2 for sure. There are only 2 ways to win very big in a single session: Play good and get lucky or play bad and get lucky and there are more ways to play bad. So you played good and got lucky which is fine, you're entitled to run good.

Pumping up the aggression when you have an edge seems to be the thing you've gotten from reading the forum. It'll mean that you win more w/ your big hands than the others will and that will make a real difference.

Soft table helps too, of course. Congrats on your win but remember that it's playing well, not winning, that should make you feel good.

^ +1.
All three helped add to your score, but for any particular session, the cards you get are the biggest factor. If you look at the trend over a longer period of time then that answer will change to (1) and (3) which is a subset of "playing well."

When your cards and flops are bad, raising wider will add to your loss.
Enjoy the warm glow from your big win.

Congrats. Having a run of good cards is fun. Playing well is fun. Having both happen at the same time is a great time.

Your session was only 2 hours? I've had many 2 hour stretches (or longer) where I didn't win a single pot. Sometimes in a 2 hour stretch I will hardly have any playable hands, and the ones I do completely miss the flop, someone else bets and I end up quickly folding. Remember that playing well can also lead to much lower losses.

Learning to raise preflop is huge. Yes, occasionally you'll occasionally lose a hand you thought you were going to win when some passive player calls you on the river with AA that they never raised with. On the other hand, that same player will lose the next time they have AA to 72o in the big blind who flops 2 pair and wouldn't have been in the hand had it been raised. Basically, by being the only one who raises preflop, you are playing the pots you want to play for (roughly) twice the amount of chips than when you aren't in the pot. Plus, you should win your share of those big pots, which leads to better results. And you are making it tougher on the players with worse cards than you have.

Keep up the good playing!

When I started playing 3/6 I wish someone had told me this. I would go up because I would get lucky and run good and maybe sprinkle in some decent play. Then I would go through a 2 hour period where I thought "I am just running bad" when all I would be doing i spewing. If you got up and left after playing well and ending up ahead good for you brother, just remember that even if you are up and dont pick up anything playable for a while stay consistent with hand selection.

If you find yourself thinking "Oh well this could hit huge if the right 3 cards hit on the flop" just fold PF.

Congrats on the score!

Keep Calm and C-Bet on

Glad your session went great and you're feeling that your game has improved. As a more serious recreational player, you're trying to get better. You found some issues with your play, you fixed those, and now you are playing better poker. That's the reward. You get to do something and feel that you've improved. Being happy about this is good.

As others have pointed out, the results are great. You can be happy to win. However, there is so much short term luck in session results. Enjoy the win, but you can't explain it as "I played better so I won". If you were taking up tennis, this might be the case. In poker, you have to smooth out the highs and lows.

If you judge your sessions by the quality of decisions you made and are happy/sad based on your decisions, you'd have more control. However, everyone tends to decide that they should be sad or that the plays didn't work out when their KK runs into an A -- you lost the hand, so it was bad. Win the hand, you played it great. Untrue. Knowing what you knew when you dedicated, did you make the best decision you could? That's why we discourage posting results in hands on the forum.

Still, nice session. Keep it up.

Was your session 2 hours because you only had 2 hours to play, or because you were up and wanted to lock up the win.

Here is a list of sessions from 5/T or higher online. These are equivalent to 3-5 hour live sessions. Assume most hands are 5/10. This is from a 1BB/100 winner.

• -84.10
• +58.93
• -122
• +85.50
• +53.50
• +183.00
• +236.50
• -2.50
• -171.50
• +95.00
• +37.50

Not sure how to respond, Doug. I really did need to leave when I left up $100 after two hours. Coincidentally, I seldom have a good opportunity to stay at the table more than two or three hours. Sometimes I do and when I don't bust out, I stay. If I lose a rack of singles I don't buy back in. I know then that I'm up against a table good enough to take more of my money. I'm starting to think that the table can tell me pretty quickly whether I should be there or leave.

I have played about 100 live sessions over the last couple of years at the only two places you can play LLHE in my town. I know you guys are going to say that's nothing. But it's a hundred more sessions of experience than I had two years ago. In all that time I have NEVER run into anybody who indicated to me that they knew what Sklansy/Malmuth/Miller's SSHE was or read this forum. I've tried to turn a few people on to these resources but, what's the point of that really, if what I want to do is win money?

Tonight I had what may be my second of two winning sessions in a row for the first time. And I feel like I know what I am doing differently that has contributed to this success. Last time I knew I was just getting a good run of cards and raising more aggressively PF and not taking the kinds of bad risks I used to take. Tonight, even without the great run of cards (in my opinion) by reigning in my spewiness, I was still able to come out $62 ahead in three hours of $3/$6 against a table of what I considered to be mostly decent experienced players. That's only $20/hour but you guys keep telling me this game is unbeatable due to rake. I think if everybody played according to SSHE that would be true. But, maybe my town is way behind the times and the common mistakes that SSHE teaches us to exploit are still very pertinent here. So, last two sessions, I've made about $40/hour over 4.5 hours playing either 2/4 or 3/6. And, I know I'm not tracking pot odds accurately or doing much more to put opponents on a range other than to say "what could they have that can beat me?"

Still, I feel I owe it to all the outstanding contributions of the members of this forum - those of you who are intellectually gratified enough by articulating all the issues to spend your free time doing it for the good of the community. That is really amazing to me. It's almost unbelievable to me that this forum exists free to me with so much value. I hope my playing does justice to all the effort you guys put in to argue all the possibilities of each hand posted.

But I never notice this being discussed here: table selection. I'm thinking that at this point in my playing career I need to realize when I am up against a table of better players and just cut my losses and get up and leave, rather than write it off as being part of the "one long session" and just go ahead and let the second half of my rack evaporate. Because, usually, if in one session I buy 100 chips and lose half of them before winning a pot, the rest of the session continues that way. Conversely, it's starting to become clear to me when I am up against a soft table that I can exploit dependably, even at my experience level, by consistently using the strategies and tactics of SSHE and this forum. And, I have a lot to lean, which makes me feel like if I do learn all you guys teach here, I actually could beat these LLHE tables consistently for some decent $ in spite of the rake. I guess it goes without saying that you don't have to be some all-time champion to win if you can find a table where most of the players are clearly worse players than you are. Isn't that the whole point of SSHE and Lee Jones' book, i.e., that the LLHE tables are where the worst players play? And if you can learn to exploit their mistakes you can consistently make some money?

Results won't tell you as much as the mistakes you see your opponents making or not making. Mason talked about this in one of his Poker Essays. Look at my session swings above, that's a solid regular beating a mid-stakes game for a decent rate. I promise you I table selected every session in that sample. Your $ results take a long while to tell you stuff. Noticing that every hand turned over in the first hour was played as well or better than you know how to play, that means you'll lose to the rake at best.

It isn't nothing. It is experience. Everyone starts at zero. Everyone who improves moves forward. You've learned stuff and hopefully had some fun. Winning.

Again a happy thing.

You don't really understand variance and the long run, and that's OK. We'd want a 1000 hour sample to really start discussing your win rate (WR) seriously. I had a 70K hand stretch of running really well online, so that's 2,300 hours of live play? $20/hr in 3 hours means you have $60 and are happy. Realizing that you think much more about the game than your opponents and that they make mistakes that you don't means you beat them. Rake? It depends.


I'd be really concerned about your quitting habits. Are you locking up wins and chasing losses? Even for winning players in beatable games, this leak can be an issue. If you can only play hour long sessions, great. Do what you can. If you planned to play 12 hours over three sessions, and ended up playing 4.5 in those sessions because you were up in each, a big leak is being confirmed as good play. Poker is like that, bad habits get positive reinforcement.

We enjoy talking poker. I know I learn stuff from arguing with people about it. Glad it has helped.

Many people who post here play in places where there might be one or two tables of the limits they want. If there are lots of tables, being at the best one is clearly the right thing. The micros forum is more of an online forum, and table/seat selection was a key skill discussed in depth. Post Black Friday, there are fewer games and they are stuck more like live players in small rooms -- if you want to play, take that seat over there.

I will 100% confirm that good seat and table selection can have a huge impact on your long run earn. If that's a tool available, it can help. The down side is if you spend all your time looking at other games and trying to move tables, you might pay less attention to the game you're in. The distracted you finding the best tables eventually might will less overall than the focused you crushing the games you're in. As you get more experience in a room, you can look around and know the best/worst tables. Less effort, and more results with experience making you right. Just don't use the fact that you're stuck $20 as proof that you're in a bad game. All our biggest losses (as good selectors) come in great games. I'm not dropping $2000+ in a 20/40 game unless it is a good one, I'd have just quit a bad game before lighting 50 bets on fire... I think.

Mason's claim in the other thread was that he and a mid-stakes pro he talked to thought the 4/8 game with a half kill (raked 5% with a $4 cap) was only beatable for $5/hour. Some other people argued it would be something more like $8 or so. Effectively under $10/hour, in a game much bigger than you're playing. This was for a skilled player who played much higher and won there.

You can win money. You can learn stuff. The "decent $" part is the contention. Get good enough to move up. Save up a roll. Once you're in a 8/16 or 10/20 game, the arguments about rake matter less.

Still, mission one is to enjoy your hobby. Sounds like you're doing that. You have already won.

[QUOTE
You can win money. You can learn stuff. The "decent $" part is the contention. Get good enough to move up. Save up a roll. Once you're in a 8/16 or 10/20 game, the arguments about rake matter less.

Still, mission one is to enjoy your hobby. Sounds like you're doing that. You have already won.[/QUOTE]

I know it's not as easy as I want it to be. Problem is in this tiny market there is only 2/4 and 3/6. The only other limit games are 15/30 and 20/40, but you have to be there just at the right time about once a week to be able to get in on them and I don't really have enough $ to play even 15/30.

Thanks to you guys I am accomplishing the mission. I am enjoying coming out $50 ahead after a session of two or three hours. I just wish I had a way to put another zero on it.

what state are you in? it's likely you are able to play limit holdem on the internet for small amounts of money and large amounts of experience and sample size. feel free to PM me for more details.

Did Mason know there was a half kill in the game when he said that? It's a change that the Bellagio has made only recently.

You realize the pots being 50% bigger 1/9th of the time doesn't make the game much bigger right?

what state am I in?

A pretty good one at the moment. Last night I had to give a friend a ride home to a posh private lake development not far from Hollywood's place here. Couldn't pass up that opportunity on my way home. Played 2/4 from 12:30 am to 4:30 am and left up $87. Last 30 or 40 minutes was three-handed. I thought "this is stupid - I'm probably going to lose my money" but I guess the other two guys were worse off than I was. I just did the simple conservative stuff . . raised PF when you should. They were just passing their blinds over to me . . . hand after hand. I can't understand it. Before I got ahead I was down from my $100 rack to $48. Glad I stayed. It's kind of spooky out there in the middle of nowhere walking out to your car at 4:30 am with some cash in your pocket. I don't think I've ever had three winning sessions in a row before.

[hope the parking lot thugs are not reading this]

Not only that but there were some crazy personal interactions that went on tonight that I never would have looked for . . way more than I bargained for when I walked in the door. Does crazy stuff happen to you guys too if you stay at the casino till the sun comes up?

"Eh? Know what I mean? Say no more?. . Say no more? [if that doesn't ring a bell think Monty Python]"

Doug, I live in MO, as in "The SHOW ME" state. I even called the gambling commissioner's office once and they told me "if you win and they don't send you your money don't call us 'cause we can't help you collect [illegal winnings]." It's crazy. There are 13 tiny little casinos along the Missouri river and collectively, they have the state legislature by the balls.

Of course. I can't argue with that. I never expected Mason to predict a winrate like $8-$10 an hour in a 4/8 game with a half kill.

Please believe me. I am not trying to gloat, and this isn't much to gloat about anyway. But it seems very significant to me that I have adapted my playing to try to conform more to SSHE and what you guys are trying to teach me here. And, I had my fourth winning session in a row. Now, tonight I only made $22. But the point is that it had a plus sign in front of it instead of a minus sign. It seems to me that making even just a few bucks an hour is a really significant thing. Because, all you guys say stakes this low are unbeatable. Maybe that is correct. But I have come out ahead four sessions in a row and the worst I did was about profiting $20/ hour. I don't expect this to continue quite this well, but I still think it might be a trend that I can use to my advantage. I think I am doing what you guys say to do and it is working.

11

two things:

1. lolsamplesize
2. mods, can we change the title of this thread to "drew dead's results thread" or "drew dead's winning sessions trip reports"?

drew dead, please understand that i'm messing with you a bit with the above comments. it's great that you've been playing better, running good, and winning more often. that must feel very good. but your sample size is so small that your results are basically meaningless. there are players far better than you and i, world class crushers, with very large samples, (1MM+ hands), who have had 100k hand stretches where they were breaking even or losing. these are guys with loads of empirical data that proves they are big winners. how do they make it through? they do their best not to pay attention to the immediate results. instead, they look at large samples to conclude whether or not they are winners. it's not an easy thing to do, but very necessary to stay afloat.

what's a large sample size? for live poker i'd guess 2000 hours would be reasonable. that's around 60k hands. online players would scoff at that number. they put in that many hands in two months or less. 2000 hours of live play is 40 hours/week for 50 weeks a year. imagine how long it would take a recreational player who only plays 10 hours/week to accumulate that many hours. well, 4 times as long i guess. a lot can happen in 4 years. the point is, it takes a long time to accumulate enough hands in live poker to ascertain whether or not you're winning or losing in the long run.

I was never very good with statistics, and I'm sure all these questions have been covered multiple times on 2+2, but isn't the required sample size a number that you can calculate based on confidence interval and standard deviation? Does measuring in hours played vs. hands played cause issues here?

Obviously if you look at your stats after 2,000 hours (using rodeo's estimate) of online play they're going to be more accurate than after 2,000 hours of live play because of the hand volume, but is the difference going to be enough that it should make a difference to the typical live rec player? Is live vs. online even a good comparison because of the hand volume?

Sent from my SCH-I535 using 2+2 Forums

The point I'm trying to make is that OP's sample size is far too small to make any conclusions. I used online poker, where sample sizes are much larger, to try and illustrate that point. I was not intending to directly compare live to online.

I understand that. Maybe my questions are better suited for a different thread, but they are things I struggle with myself and since it seemed sample size was somewhat relevant here I thought the answers to my questions might also be useful here.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using 2+2 Forums

This is a huge point that most people just ignore. Unless you grind the **** out of a live game by the time you have a reasonable sample size the game itself has likely changed enough to render your stats useless. Suppose you play 500 hours a year and want to use your last 3000 hours.....how relevant are the hands you played in 2008?

I guess I misunderstood your question. Try again?

I didn't phrase my question very well, and now that I think about it I'm not sure that I really even understand my question very well myself.

Anyway, it's a fact that the sample size of a live rec player is incredibly small, especially when compared to someone who is multi-tabeling online so what can a rec player ever do to know whether or not they're a winning or losing player other than tracking pure wins and losses?

Myself, I only play 150-200 hours/year and what I find frustrating is exactly what Jesse referenced in that there is no way to get a sample size big enough for my results to mean anything when playing that much.

If my memory, google, and my rudimentary understanding of statistics didn't fail me (they probably did on all accounts) if you're ok using only a 90% confidence interval and being within 2 standard deviations, you only need a sample size of around 200, but at that point does it still mean anything, and how much of a difference does using hours in those statistics vs. hands played make?

Hopefully that makes a little more sense because I'm still not sure if it does.

if you can accurately evaluate your game (or have someone solid do it for you) and most people at the table are making big mistakes that you're not making, then you're likely beating the game (rake factors aside) for a small amount

i'm not sure answering these specific questions is going to make a difference for you or anyone else. mostly because lolsamplesize.

overall, you may never know whether or not you're beating a game because:

1. your sample size will be too small.
2. your game may not be beatable due to a high rake structure.
3. when your sample size is large enough, say after 10 years, the game is likely to have changed rendering your results irrelevant.

if you're only going to be putting in a maximum of 200 hours of poker per year, figure out why you play the game, what you love about it, and focus on that.

generally, people play poker for a few reasons:

1. fun and entertainment

2. to connect with others socially

3. the thrill of competition

4. to make money

if you play mostly for reasons 1-3, then set aside an amount of money you're willing to lose each year and don't exceed that amount. if you play mostly for reason 4, study the game as much as time will allow. read/post in the forum. watch videos. deposit online and put in a bunch of hands at micro stakes. get better.

obviously, most of us play poker for many or all of these reasons. i'm just suggesting that, if you can afford it, you should focus less on your results, and more on what it is that makes you love this game.

in fact, as long as you're not hurting yourself or others with your gambling and you're only putting in a maximum of 200 hours per year, you really don't need to play attention to your results at all.