You know when you have those sessions where you feel you played an awesome game? Hand reading well, outplaying people a lot and just feeling good, kind of in the zone?

Yesterday I had a session like this at the 50USD 3min blindlevel at stars.

I played 30 matches in a total of 2.9 hours. According HM my realized EV was 34.5% and my expected EV was 24.8%. Sure, insignificant sample, and likely a very good run. But it wasnt only this, I feel I actually played very very well, like I was outplaying people a good deal and making good calls and folds in general.

So, good run? good play? Can you tell the difference when you have good days?



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For most people, running good makes them play well (or better) and sometimes vice versa. More severely though, running bad makes them play bad and often vice versa. So yeah, it's hard to separate those two imo.

One of the reasons why running good helps us to play better is that, when we're running good, we can actually have a better feel of what opponents had, how they play in certain spots, etc. because they will often check to us and be more passive than we are. On the other hand, when we're running bad and kinda have to c/f a lot of spots it's relatively hard to gain this information. Plus, running good/bad brings some psychological effects as well - most of us will feel much more comfortable bluffing when we are running good, for obvious reasons.

+1

I don't think anyone isn't influenced by how they are running when evaluating their own play

If you run good this extraordenary plays work out.
That doesnt make them correct.

e.g. you feel villian 4bet light and you 5betshove 52s, he folds.

good play?

In general running good makes you feel confident.
Usualy that is a good thing but eventualy you get to the point where you only go with what you "feel" is the right play and make mathematical incorrect decisions.

Ofc you can tell when you have good days,but it's important to try and analyze your game when you are running good,being objective on your decisions etc. I mean you could be running very well postflop,bluff in -EV bluff spots that just happen to work and you think you are playing really good and so on. Also not a good idea to get attached on day to day results,just know that when 'stars align' and everything seems to work you are in a vry good mindset.

i think running good and playin well go hand in hand as well as getting it in good and loosing alot makes you play worse imo, nice post tho OP

go back and review your hands played, specifically hands with large amounts of chips involved.

less coolers= you playing well

more coolers means the wins were more reflective of the cards, rather than your skill

KK vs their JJ is a cooler, as is AK vs AQ etc

It's also possible that you ran hot in multiple ways. Like lets say you decide to c/r bluff in a big pot and you estimate villain will fold 70% of the time, now what if you misread the situation and his range and it's really only 10% fold, but this time is one of those 10%. Or you might not have had any spots that you find challenging.

Really, if you played well TODAY is mostly irrelevant. This is a very long term game. Who cares if one day went well? You need to look objectively, look at your leaks, and see if there is genuine improvement. It takes longer than most people realize to increase your skill in this game.

This. Although even if you didn't misread the situation, it's still running above expectation to get a fold. I have a long post on this I've been finish for a while, perhaps I will soon. The main point is that virtually every single hand has luck playing a significant factor - not just "coolers" or "suck-outs" as some seem to think. If there is more than one possible result in terms of chips won, some results will be above expectation and some will be below-expectation.

Judging if you played good in a session by results isn't good, especially at husngs.

I tend to use more of self conscious analysis, I don't have a checklist but mostly this is what I am thinking:

- Did I was thinking properly about hands?
- Did I tilted?
- Was paying attention to villains patterns?
- Was trying to adapt the best way I know with the data I had?

If I see that I am failing at some of them I like to shorten the sessions, unless some exceptional edge is presenting herself, and go do other things (at least for a hour or so).

+1

That is how you know you a playing well.

One to add would be:

- Not chickening out making plays/calls you know to be +ev but you might feel uncomfortable making

Yeah, that is true. Even if you get AA vs 73 AIPF, and you win the pot, you ran hot. You ran above EV. Same thing with other types of equity as well.

Or the fact that you are playing a guy who is bad enough to be willing to put it AI with 73 is a way you are running hot.

+1

As an addendum to what ^^ said, something I hear ALL top husng pros say is to play with confidence. Winning helps with confidence and you wind up seeing the game better and playing much better, much like your frame of mind when you review your HH after a game, when you are not emotionally connected any longer. In the heat of the moment, when losing, you are blinded by emotions, perhaps you play faster, less patiently, and with reduced confidence, your game suffers.

I agree with this on individual hands only, but you have to look at it in the long(er) run, no? Imagine you're playing an MTT and you were to get it aipf with AA against 73, 50 hands in a row - now this is not exactly realistic but just trying to paint a picture. Anyway, as you say, I win the first 35 hands with my AA and "run hot" and lose the next 15 hands "running badly". Those labels makes sense if you look at each individual hand but once you add up the sum of each expectation it should always approach an even expectation of like an 80% favorite for the AA right?

I guess I just don't see the relavence of isolating an individual hand when talking about expectation. The more hands you play, the more you approach the expected value. I think same holds true for "running good" by playing a weak player. I don't know if you're able to label it "running good" since the source of that "run good" lies in the way they play their hands. I think just because you get more equitable opportunities i.e. AA vs 73 instead of TT vs AKs, it doesn't necessarily effect your running well or badly. You're still supposed to be a big favorite in the first case and slightly favorite in the second in the longer term.

Yes, that is the law of large numbers. But we're talking about relatively small samples when your expected value is uncertain. We're trying to figure out our approximate expected value, but doing so isn't trivial.

Suppose you played the worst fish in the world all day. This player always open-folds, so you win every game. You go back and evaluate all the hands and determine that you didn't get lucky on a single one of them. You conclude that, for at least that day, you must have been on your A++++ game with a 100% expected winrate.

Obviously this isn't true. But on a subtler level, it could deceive you. Imagine that, in expectation, half of your games should be against players you have a 45% chance of winning against and half should be against players you have a 55% chance of winning against. In expectation, you should win 50% of the time and be a loser after rake. But suppose over a small sample, you end up playing 80% of your games against the latter group. In the games themselves, you run exactly at expectation. You win 53% of the games, becoming a net winner. You continue to play poker under the misguided belief that you're a long-run winner when you've just played weaker players than was probable.

What's the difference between 1 hand vs 50? The sample size becomes more significant with 50, but it's still not always representative of your true winrate. You can run hot along both sample sizes, but it's more likely that the wins in a 50 hand sample is closer to the actual equity of the individual hands.

My whole point was that you if your opponent doesn't have 0% equity, you ALWAYS ran above EV if you won the pot. Some people have the mentality that AA is suppose to win against 73os, but it's only suppose to win 85% of the time.

Same thing with HUSNGs, nobody is drawing dead in a match unless they are exxtreeeeemly bad.

So in the context of this thread, you need to be really open, and realistic with yourself and your skills in order to determine if you are running hot vs playing well.