You're pretty much missing the point with this line of thought, GG. A win rate or loss rate isn't a thing that people have and carry around with them. It is nothing more than a mathematical description of the difference in skill between two players, or, more commonly, a player and his field. It varies constantly as players come and go, and even when they just get dealt different hands that play to their strengths or weaknesses.

Your idea that you can't improve your WR by improving your skills would only be true if you already played every hand perfectly against every player.

I do agree with you to this extent: improving from horrible to break even is much easier than improving from decent to good. And there is an upper limit on everyone's skill. Not everyone who works his ass off will automatically become world class. So, if your competition are getting better, they're going to get better faster than you are, because they are going from horrible to ok. Meanwhile, you sound like you've given up on trying to go from good to very good or very good to excellent, or whatever.

Well said, mpethy.

It seems that as a small pool continues to shrink, in order for winning players to continue to win, they would need to target stronger players or beat up on the weaker players even harder.

If the table has to lose on average of 50bb/hr in order for someone to win 7bb/hr, the effect of one whale who loses 20bb/hr leaving the game would be quite impactful.

Quick example:

-50bb/hr loss rate of table
-6 losing players, 2 winners/BE players, and 7bb winning player.

6 losing players:
-Whale: -20bb/hr
-Fish A: -8bb/hr
-Fish B: -7bb/hr
-Fish C: -6bb/hr
-Fish D: -6bb/hr
-Fish E: -5bb/hr

2 winning/BE players:
-Small Winner: 2bb/hr
-BE: 0bb/hr

Total: -50bb/hr

If we remove the whale and his loss rate of 20bb/hr and replace it with someone losing at -5bb/hr, the only way to recoup that loss of 15bb/hr is to be able to improve the ability to turn those other guys into even bigger losers.

Often enough, easiest way to make more is to target the small winner and BE player.

aka picking on the bet/folder

So much lineup dependency on loss rates. A weak tight player not only benefits by winning off a whale but also has his weaknesses protected by the presence of a call station (i.e. He is not exposed to many bluffs in multiway pots involving the whale). When the lineup changes, he is exposed to top players.

So I really feel a top notch player doesn't suffer near as much from the loss of whales as the middling players do. The middling player suffers tons beyond just losing whale $$ - middling player is now the target.

(As others alluded too )

That is really interesting. Not only are middling guys protected, their game is often totally built around making nutted hands and calling down. It is a really good strat vs. whales.

In other words, you believe top players are consistently focusing on exploiting middling players, not whales?

I think he means once the whale is gone the top player just moves on down the line to the next "mark" and he doesn't see as much (if any) win-rate decay as a middling player does when the whale leaves. But the top player probably still wishes the whale stays rather than leaves.

I don't think (???) we're disagreeing that much. If all the whales in the room improve to fish, and all the fish in the room improve towards breakeven, the advantage gap I have relative to them all is reduced (which will in turn obviously affect my winrate). I think maybe we're saying the same thing but differently?

I've always maintained that our achievable winrate is more a function of our opponents than ourselves once we reach a certain point in our game. I more-or-less stated in my "clueless noob reaches 1000 hours" thread that table selection is pretty much the be-all end-all regarding the lifetime winrate of a mediocre player like myself. And I reiterated the same thoughts in the current COTM. Being a small percentage better than all of our opponents at a raked table full of nothing but good opponents makes us all... losers; we underestimate the effect of rake if we think otherwise. I stand by this opinion, and I don't think it's unreasonable.

That certainly hasn't mean I've given up in attempting to learn or get better. I enjoy this hobby, and like all my other hobbies there's an ok chance I might get slightly better with time and some (reasonable) effort.

Gtryingtogofrommediocretogood,butfindingitdifficul tG

Yeah - a one dimensional player A can have the ~same expectation as a top player B in soft lineups. But the expectations can drift miles apart as the lineup toughens.

I've known for a long time that table selection is really really important and now I'm thinking I might have been underestimating it still.

Do you think there comes a point where the lineup toughens enough at a raked table where the game becomes unbeatable?

GIthinktheobviousansweris"yes",butIgetthefeelingno teveryoneagreeswiththatG

yes and the people who disagree are the ones still sitting there

poker's a beautiful game because you can just let wrong people be wrong

That also ties into why so many people are lifetime losers.

Even if you're a very good player, if you decide to stay at a horrible table then you are bad at poker. There's a lot more to it than just betting.

Even more satisfying than that, you can directly *profit* from wrong people being wrong

I am sure that such condition can exist, but I doubt that it will ever happen in LLSNL.

100% yes. But that rarely comes up in live casino poker. It can come up in private games with high rake. Here is why:
- the games that have a significant rake impact are 1/2, 1/3 etc.
- there is not enough talent assembled in those games that they are unbeatable.
- games that have the potential to be the lineup of death are usually mid-stakes+... A T/25 game with $15/hr in time rake per player is a tiny tiny rake effect. At this stake, the games don't run without reason and even then - someone is top dog.

I wish I kept stats on this, but my room has been decimated to the point where I'd guess something like 1/2 of my hours this year have been played while there has only been one table running. Lots of these times I've looked around the table, sighed, and said "meh", but I knowingly stay at this poor table because (a) it's my one poker outing this week and I've still got 5 more allotted hours to play (after all, I am just a rec player playing a game) and (b) hopefully the game improves / more tables start running.

GbutIknowdamnwellI'mplayingatabadtableG

I have been playing in single table games for the last 4 years.

Has your giraffe improved or worsened during this time (compared to how it was before)?

GoftenBravo'syourroom,sadstate,imoG

I got put at a 2/5 table on Tuesday where I recognized everyone at the table as a 2/5 reg. I didn't necessarily know the quality of them, as in who is a long-term winner or loser, but I recognized all of them nonetheless. I immediately went to the floor and requested a table change and got moved to a soft table with 2-3 clear marks.

It boggled my mind that reg players seemingly taking the game seriously and playing for profit would willingly stay at a tough(er) table when there were easier fish to fry, pun intended.

Because their motivation != your motivation for being there.

Takes time to get it - but quit projecting your mind and thoughts into other people and open up your observation and you will learn why they are there.

Some have nothing else to do
Some like to gamble
Some like the "guy's" environment.. can't talk like that at work or home
Some have been there long enough that it is their social group

Nothing wrong if you know why you're at a bad table. If there's no other option and you figure it's still worth your time, however you want to measure that, it's a good decision.

I meant people who play in a bad game who could change tables, or people who play in a game they are a dog in whether or not they realize it instead of not playing.

Very few are there to win

(Responding to johny buz)

It ain't easy to be this good and look this bad.