Quote:
Originally Posted by a dewd
If you want to know if you suck or are getting slapped around by variance, look at how you played your hands. If you played them correct but got outdrawn, you're okay.
Right. Here's what I did during my downturn. Because believe me, I was throwing things and started doubting everything I knew. I made a chart of all possible categories of my all in hands. For example, pair over pair, pair under pair, 2 over cards vs. under pair, 2 under cards vs. over pair, high and low card vs middle cards (A2 vs. J7), dominated (AK vs AJ), dominating, etc. etc. etc.
Then I used a hand calculator to determine my equity for each of those categories. Then I tallied every hand I played for each category and scored win or loss.
It turns out I was so far behind the quotas, it was sickening. For example, for pair over pair, I was supposed to be winning 80%, but I was only winning 50%. For AK vs. 99 I was supposed to be winning 45% but I was only winning 20%. I mean I was getting hammered. Maybe in one category I was break even. Really sick.
Of course I studied during that time to try to improve as well. But if I studied all in hands (which there were a lot of during those turbo SnGs), then I would know it had nothing at all to do with my decisions. For example, if someone shoved on me and they had AA and I called with 72o, you could say objectively that it was a bad call, but the fact is it doesn't matter because the math says I'm supposed to win that 12% of the time. If I'm losing that more than 12% of the time, then I'm running bad regardless of how good or bad I'm playing.
Once you know your quotas are correct for all those hands, then you can start to get an idea if you're playing bad or not.