Yes, there is something wrong with the graph: it cuts off at about a tenth of a representative sample. Either clear your filters or play more hands.

There could be many reasons for that. Could be simply the variance you experienced in the span of one session - it's another version of running bad - sometimes you get a lot of good cards but at the same time vilains get nothing that can give you action. Or maybe you are such a nit that people get out of the way every time you raise because it's obvious you have a premium. Or conversely, maybe you were playing with nits and weak-tights

Here is the latest graph:

as you can see, downhill since 2000 hands. funnily, i seem to get a higher percentage of premium cards (AA, AK, AQ, AJ, KK, QQ, JJ) in this period although i can't get any value out of them. AA raise to 3bb - everybody folds. QJs raise to 3bb - get re-raised left right center.

i hope it's variance and not because i'm playing wrong. lost 3 BI today already. i used to take down a lot of pots with cbets IP, but now i keep getting re-raised and have to let it go.

Don't post graphs with 600 hands downswing and ask if you're doing something wrong. Seriously, 600 hands is nothing! If you don't get action on your big hands, well that's actually pretty normal. Most of the time you won't get much action. Occasionally you will and might stack someone. Or you will get action and lose your stack sometimes.

If you kept stacking someone most of the time when you were dealt AA during your first 2k hands, then that's what we call a heater. A heater mostly depends on your opponents getting good hands while you get even better hands. This will not last forever and it will also happen the other time around when you seem to lose with the second nuts every single time you get some action. Because of these heaters and coolers you need a LOT more hands before you can get any idea at all about if you are playing well or if you are a winning player just by looking at your results.

Yeah, sample size is too small to make generalizations about OP's play/winrate/etc, but I think the graph shows examples of what *I think* he is asking. i.e. When his graph moves up, it moves up in large spikes, while in between those spikes is a downward trend. So is that a concern?

He doesn't have enough hands to see anything but AA it seems, so imagine this was an excerpt from someone with more hands and those spikes were due to other non-AA large pots. Is it a concern that the graph seems to show a downward trend in between the large pots won? In the micros, it is not, IMO. You are going to have that pattern from folding blinds and playing the exploitable bet-fold style advocated for the micros. I think to have a constant upward trend there, you would have to have an upward trending red-line as well. But I am really still a beginner too, so I am interested in others thoughts.

I have been concerned from time to time about this same thing on my graphs, so I know the feeling: "Geez am I so weak I can only bet and win with monsters?" You need to build up more hands and then analyze the reasons for those downward "in-betweens" and see if they are expected and normal or if you are leaking from something like over-limping too often, not c-betting/c-betting too often, whatever. I bet you will find that most of that trend is from the blinds, though. Once you look at it objectively and, as suggested earlier by lowanizer, post some hands/situations you are unsure about and get feedback, you'll be a bit more at ease.

My bb/100 dropped to 6.96 after losing TPTK to a set

How many hands would be a good sample size? I want to know asap if I'm just in the middle of a downswing (unlucky break) or losing (leaks). Heh.

If the outcome of one hand has a significant effect on your winrate, then your sample size is way too small. I'd say you need at least 20k hands, preferably 50k-100k before making any conclusions.

PS. post the tptk<set hand and perhaps we can see if it was indeed unlucky or if it was badly played.

Alright I'll post a few hands for evaluation... and I realize I'm a bit of a nit when I get called... many times I could have taken the pot down with a river bet but I try not to bluff (I hear that it's best not to bluff at NL2)...


Poker Stars $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $2.00 - VPIP: 17, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 6
SB: $1.47 - VPIP: 20, PFR: 13, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 30
BB: $2.58 - VPIP: 60, PFR: 60, 3B: 33, AF: 0.0, Hands: 5
UTG: $4.86 - VPIP: 0, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 1
Hero (MP): $0.75 - VPIP: 20, PFR: 14, 3B: 4, AF: 4.0, Hands: 3006
CO: $3.09 - VPIP: 35, PFR: 18, 3B: 0, AF: 1.0, Hands: 17

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is MP with K A
1 fold, Hero raises to $0.07, CO calls $0.07, BTN calls $0.07, 2 folds

Flop: ($0.24) 9 A 2 (3 players)
Hero bets $0.10, CO raises to $0.22, BTN folds, Hero raises to $0.68, CO calls $0.46

Turn: ($1.60) 8 (2 players)

River: ($1.60) 3 (2 players)




Poker Stars $2.00 No Limit Hold'em - 6 players
DeucesCracked Poker Videos Hand History Converter

BTN: $3.77 - VPIP: 0, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 8
SB: $1.64 - VPIP: 100, PFR: 0, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 1
Hero (BB): $0.96 - VPIP: 20, PFR: 14, 3B: 4, AF: 4.0, Hands: 3006
UTG: $1.18 - VPIP: 100, PFR: 50, 3B: 0, AF: 1.0, Hands: 2
MP: $3.47 - VPIP: 19, PFR: 13, 3B: 4, AF: 2.5, Hands: 67
CO: $5.10 - VPIP: 20, PFR: 7, 3B: 0, AF: 0.0, Hands: 15

Pre Flop: ($0.03) Hero is BB with 9 A
UTG raises to $0.04, 3 folds, SB calls $0.03, Hero calls $0.02

Flop: ($0.12) T 8 A (3 players)
SB checks, Hero checks, UTG bets $0.02, SB calls $0.02, Hero raises to $0.10, UTG calls $0.08, SB folds

Turn: ($0.34) 2 (2 players)
Hero checks, UTG checks

River: ($0.34) 7 (2 players)
Hero bets $0.15, UTG calls $0.15

A few more hands from my mobile play:

1) I hold KT, I hit my K on a safe board (no flush/straight draws, no overcards), river was a J and villain OOP shoved all-in. I called and KK<JJJ. I'm not sure if this is a dumb call on my part on what, I've seen idiots shoving with pocket pair and with monsters and so I have no idea what to do.

2) I hold a Q high flush on a 87498 board, on the river villain bet 2/3 the pot and I called, flush<99988. I bet ridiculously small (1/5) the pot on the turn to get value, should I have bet bigger?

3) I raised pre-flop with TT, got re-raised, shoved all-in, TT<KK. Again I have seen a lot of cases whereby people call all-in shoves with AK/AQ, so was it bad luck or stupidity on my part?

Hope to get some feedback. Sorry for the crude hand histories, I played on my Android

Graphs and basic stats rarely tell anything useful beyond the obvious (aggression preflop, how tight/loose, etc), things which can be shown more effectively by simply discussing preflop opening ranges by default and how/when to adjust. For a beginner, it's more useful to talk about situations and how to approach poker than to talk about numbers. Wait until numbers mean something. For now, things are too in flux. You're likely not even playing the same hand/same spot the exact spot the same way because you're not sure what is optimal yet. Find your "default" play in situations, then ask questions and see if and how you should change them, ie. plug leaks. When you can't find any obvious ones, THEN look at numbers to find more subtle ones.

Also for your pots, you must realize that stack size and pot size and action overall is VERY important, and the detail you give in your hands betray a surface approach to analyzing hands. Hands begin preflop, and preflop begins with reads (in this case, non due to zoom, at low stakes anyway), and then stack sizes (influences opens and 3bet decisions if any), and so on and so forth.

1) really depends on stack sizes
2) can't see any circumstances where I bet 1/5 pot. Yes bet more. River is probably a call anyway, but folding wouldn't be horrible either
3) depends on villain and stack size.

2) I'm really sick of finally hitting a monster and betting 1/3 pot and having everybody fold, and I've observed ultra-small bet sizes to be effective at extracting value, that's why.

Q high flush on the turn is not a monster. Almost half of the possible river cards are potential outs for you opponent and will give you tough decisions on the river. Therefore you want as much money in the middle as possible while ahead. As played you gave your villain correct odds to call even if he would have seen your hole cards.

And just because ultra-small bets are called more often doesn't mean that they are more effective. Instead of betting 1/5 bet 60-80% and you don't need to get called even 1/3 as often to make it profitable. Add to this a river bet in proportion to the turn bet and you will make way more money betting big even if villain folds the turn most of the time.

i have been a LHE player for last year or so and thought about giving NL a try this month.Since i never played NL before so decided to start at 2NL.

This is my 2NL zoom graph for this month.
red line keeps going up while blue is just break even

Most players have 1 line negative and the other positive. The majority have negative red lines so your play style must be extremely aggressive, which actually works better as you move up. I honestly wouldn't change a thing.