I've been trying hard to work on my game so i figured this was a good place to start.

The last time i read about this subject was way back in 09. I haven't see too much data from other players on this so i'm not sure if my Big blind loss rate is considered way too high?

is -0.20bb sustainable from the bb?

other regs care to share their loss rates?

Please filter for #players dealt into the hand. You will attain different winrates 6max than 5max.

Your sample is way to small to gauge your winrate, let alone your positional winrate.


Lastly, even though it may be interesting, looking at positional winrates is unlikely to improve your play and is thus a waste of time.

cant see how spotting a way below average loss compared to other winning regs would be a bad thing? i mean i dont know what a good bb loss rate is but if the norm is -0.20bb and mine is 0.40 or 0.55, i'll know where my potential leak is and can spend my time reviewing my big blind play.

Making such an observation is unlikely. You will be in doubt whether you are playing or just running badly in that position, if it's the only position where you perform poorly. Unless the results are drastic, which is very unlikely.

But ok, say you make such an observation. Now your mission goes from "improve your poker play" to "improve your BB poker play". Not specific enough to be useful imo.

entirely disagree. I think you're correct in the assumptions made in your first paragraph to an extent, however suggesting that "improve bb play" isn't specific enough to be useful is just wrong. Especially when so many players are making fairly big mistakes there

i don't get why you'd ever not want to just improve always from every position. like let's say you have an amazing winrate from the sb...are you just gonna give up trying to improve and find ways to get even better?

i don't really see a point either.

i guess if you are a coach this might not be a terrible place to start to look for leaks in someone's game who you don't know. just as a starting point or something. but just for yourself...i dunno. I wouldn't worry much about comparing winrates from one position with other regs.

btw game_on...if you do wanna do this, sort the hands for the biggest pots and just take a look to see if there are a few outlier hands that really sway your winrate one way or the other...since it's not a huge sample of hands. it's going to be hard to do but if say for example you flopped set over set 30 times in the sb, your winrate might look amazing but prob got lucky. (just made that number up). or maybe you won a few cooler pots but were like 250bb deep or something from there. or you just won more than your share of flips or suck outs. but yeah I guess just look at your biggest hands to try to rule out some quirkiness and make a mental note of if you think that winrate is "fair / accurate".

I don't get how working on one's play from the blinds, or the bb specifically, is not synonymous with working on your entire game as a whole.

focusing on an area where you're specifically weak or feel lost, in turn improves your game in it's entirety

I think the question is completely valid and sample size is enough.
Your winrate looks good in all positions except big blind.
I have been reviewing a lot of winning payers and I would say the target is:
SB: - 15 bb/100
BB: - 30 bb /100

Higher is possible, but when you are at this level you are in line with other really good players.

This means that you have a BB leak of 10 000 $.

So yes, I would focus a lot of my attention on figuring out what can improve in the big blind play.

If you like you can send me your hand history and I can try to help you (free of charge).
I am not a great player, but I believe I am pretty good at DB analysis.

Sent from my Nexus 7 using 2+2 Forums

The fact that players, in your opinion, make big mistakes in the BB, does not support the claim, that telling someone their BB play is poor will help them.

They are two unrelated statements.

Consider a group of people. Most of them are very bad at high jump. I say, telling them they are bad at high jump, will not help them get any better at high jump. You say, because they are so bad at it, it will. But that causal relationship does not exist.




Of course you can still argue that "improve BB play" is good advice to hand to out. But you can't support it like you did.

I think comparing poker with a sport is a bit farfetch lol. Poker is virtually completely self taught or learnt whereas high jump requires almost entirely the correct genetic ability.

Gotta have brainpower which can't be taught

Don't need a whole load of brain power to be good at poker lets be honest...

shhhhh don't tell this to regs! let them think theyre one of a kind.

i never claimed telling someone their bb play is poor will help them. I simply disagreed with your statement that working on one's bb play isn't specific enough to be useful.

this comparison is absurd and out of context

Sorry I wasn't clear enough.

The comparison was not between poker and high jump. I only used the same argumentation. Since it may be difficult to separate the argumentation from the poker statement, I extracted the argumentation and applied to something else: high jump, so you could see why it's wrong. Maybe read it again.



You disagree with "working on BB play is not specific enough advice to be useful. That means you agree "working on BB play is specific enough advice to be useful". Where is the difference between the latter and "telling someone their BB play is poor is helpful advice"?



Well let's cut it here, we are not getting anywhere.


Regarding OP

- filter winrates by #players at the table
- never lookt at your own positional winrates because you lack sample size
- for average regular winrates look at simulated bot winrates and datamines of a large group of regulars (that don't violate any site's T&C)

telling someone their bb play is poor isnt the same as that same person actually improving his bb play. What you're saying is essentially the same as if I were to tell a basketball player that his jump shot is sub par and he needs to improve it to become a better basketball player. Me simply telling him that may or may not be useful depending on how/what the person does to improve their play in that area.

My only issue with what you were saying, which seems to be just semantics, is that working on one's bb play and actually improving it is most certainly
specific enough to see overall improvements in their game.

I agree completely with your last three bullets

C'mon, it's nonsense.
Knowing in which spots you lose more/win less than top players in your games have huge value as you may then focus on those spots, go through a lot of hands and try to understand what is to be improved there. While you will never be 100% sure because of sample size you can get valuable clues. If you don't look at your winrates you are just guessing what parts of your game need improving if you look at them you can say where most likely your leaks are and set priorities for your work.

To answer OP question: top players lose less than 40bb/100 from BB in tough games although not much less. -30bb/100 is a pipe dream in 6max (at least from I've seen).

thanks for actually answering my question! got derailed there by others. this was helpful.

I disagree. Looking at winrates does not work.

Sure, with Snowie playing a trillion hands it does. But for even for your high volume grinder, filtering how 22-55 perform opening UT or flatting BU does not work. Because your sample size will be too small.

Better to have an educated guess what parts need improving than look at random spots where you happen to run bad.

Yeah, you need a sick sample to get an even somewhat true outcome of many of these numbers. So much RNG.

Just out of curiosity, how big of a sample would I need for this to have value? I have about 2.5m total, so say if I filtered for the ev of calling IP with 56s-T9s against a MP/CO open would it be anywhere close to a reliable numer if I had a sample of a few thousand hands?

I just dont think so because
1) within those 2.5 million hands the games changed
2) you always play different opponents
3) your thinking / play changed

Something that could have been +EV for 2 years, dont have to be +EV anymore and so on

I started this thread because i had a suspicion my big blind play was leaky and so i wanted to compare my loss rate vs others (assuming they had a large sample). I've always felt like i was probably losing too much from that position.

of course looking at winrates can work. its something to compare vs other regs just like any other stat you might have. seeing anything that is outside the norm for a good winning regular is the first sign of something that might be wrong. obviously if you already have a hunch what your leaks might be you can start there but sometimes these numbers tell you things you didnt notice like you're folding to 3 barrels too much etc. yes sample size is important but if theres even any hint of a leak i wanna know about it so i can look deeper into those types of hands.

You also have to remember if your WR is lower or higher than somebody elses, chances are you will be under or overperforming in most/all areas...

My loss rate all in adjusted is -10 and -25 last ~300k hands for 6m but you have me crushed on the BTN. which is at 25