Why?

Tilt is a very real entity that the best players can minimize in themselves as well as recognize, exploit and sometimes catalyze in others. It comes in a variety of shapes, sizes and intensities and it affects all players.

Many, many "name" pros, some revered on this forum, are excessive tilters.

Anyone who tells you they don't tilt or that emotion doesn't affect their play is lying.


It's ironic that people are arguing this small spot (AJo UTG) where neither side can be wrong by much when their efforts would be better served in figuring out ways to control their tilt, as tilt will cost them much more than being wrong about this spot ever could. But maybe we can prove someone wrong about something that doesn't matter all that much money-wise. Poker players, as a whole, appear to have really small dicks.

Why? Nobody has presented any evidence, data, or samples to support this conclusion, while plenty of people can show data that shows AJo is profitable.

Just Becusse I don't open A9o UTG 6 handed (I don't) doesn't mean AJo isn't profitable 9 handed. Being able to mKe a straight makes a big difference.

I don't know how to get per hand stdev from HEM1, my overall stdev is ~12BB/100 in fullring. In my admittedly small sample, AJo isn't close at all. 75bb/100 is a huge WR. Might have to import to HEM2 and try to get a more detailed analysis, if so motivated. I know Jon and the guys are in LAS and might not have real computers with 5 year old databases.
You're reading my post wrong. I'm posting about 10 handed full ring games on pokerstars in 2009 and 2010. I was mass grinding those games up to 5/10 (with a little 10/20) trying to hit milestones at times. As a good shorthanded player at least in my mind, those games were super soft and I could fire up 20+ tables expecting to do well. The completion at 6m seemed much tougher, though those were my normal games when not bonus whoring. I think FTP was 9 handed and Stars was 10.
This was always my thinking, that making str8s was huge. Given how profitable AJo and ATo (in smaller samples) were, I'm wondering. Maybe we should have played more hands. I was allergic to A-high hands that couldn't make straights. I preferred A5s to A6s for that reason. Doubting that, perhaps.

No. You're confusing a constant, the fact that a coin has a 50 percent probability of coming up heads or tails, and there's no variance on a constant, with sample data where a variance will exist. So of course getting 55-to-45 is a positive expectation bet and you don't need data to confirm this.

MM

Hi Doug:

Let me try to work my way through some of this and see what we come up with.

Notice that this is not the same as playing AJo every time which is actually the question being asked here.

ANd this is not the same as playing only UTG in a full nine handed game which is also what is being asked.

That's too bad. If you can figure out to do this please come back with that information.

I think this result is reasonable.

This could go back to a hand being slightly unprofitable UTG but moderately profitable UTG+1 so that when you put the two together the result was positive. And as you point out in certain type of games these hands do better thus if you had played them every time your results might be somewhat different. But we just don't know.

I agree that if several good players got together and combined their databases it would certainly have value.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Montrealcorp:

In a 2,000,000 hand data base you would expect to get AJo approximately 2,000 UTG in a full nine handed game. Furthermore, I suspect that the game wasn't always full, so those hands would need to be discarded for the purpose of this analysis. And given, as I stated earlier, that we are looking at a small positive value as opposed to zero I question whether this sample size would be large enough, and JL has made it clear that he won't release this information.


When looking at statistical data there can always be biases that distort it and you're mentioning two possible distortions.

Here's another reason why a good statistician will want to error on the conservative side.

I agree completely. And if it is a very close decision it shouldn't matter much what you do especially since a hand like AJo will appear in the UTG position approximately one-tenth of one percent of the time that a hand is dealt in a full ring game for a particular player.

This is a good point. There's no question that expert players can play a few more hands since they can coax some profit where a more typical player can't. That's always a possibility as to what is happening here.

Best wishes,
Mason

I agree with this. On the one hand, the games I'm playing in are much more aggressive than they once were and that requires some changes in strategy relative to what was needed years ago. But on the other hand, at least in the games I play, I see a lot of new players who play just like you would expect a new player to play.

Best wishes,
Mason

I understand. I don't like it when other people give me work assignments, so I guess you feel the same way.

This is easy to estimate. There are 1,326 possible hold 'em starting hands. 12 of these are AJo. So you'll be dealt AJo with probability 12/1,326 which is .009050. Then you're only UTG one-ninth of the time. So we can take .009050 and divide it by 9 which is .001. This means that one-tenth of one percent of the time you'll be dealt AJo UTG.

Now suppose you're playing online and are getting in 100 hands per hour and play a 40 hour week. This means you'll be dealt 4000 hands a week and at a rate of .001 you would expect to get dealt AJo UTG four times in a week. If you only played 20 hours a week at 100 hands an hour, you would expect to be dealt it twice. If you played 40 hours but was dealt 500 hands an hour you would expect to get it 20 times in a week.

And for a live player who gets 35 hands an hour and plays 40 hours a week he can expect to get AJo UTG in a nine handed game (assuming the game is always full) 1.4 times a week.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi phunkphish:

I play A7s and A9o. Nothing personal, but please keep in mind that some posters on this board call me a nit.

Best wishes,
Mason

Hi Verona:

Actually, CrazyLord is right. We don't want to get into poker psychology issues in this thread especially with my participation. However, what you mention are certainly worthwhile topics and perhaps you might want to start a new thread and I could join in there.

Best wishes,
Mason

Lol, at least now I see why you may
question the sample size of peopl's online databases

Make that 1000+ hands/hour.

Also this is literally exactly what I said for my estimations, except I said 1-2 times for A live player rather than 1.4

No. You don't seem to understand that I'm just using simple numbers to show how the math works.

You must really be insecure.

Lol. I know how the math works.

Doesn't deny the insecure part though...

There are lots of people reading this thread. The math isn't just done for you.

After thinking about it I agree with you, thanks for clarifying

This thread is hurting my brain. Can we please lock it up. I don't want to read anymore but I know will keep clicking, lol.

My .02, and it may not be worth that much.

Mason, earlier in the thread you stated you open AJo utg+1, but not utg. And acknowledged that A10o utg may be opened by some UTG, but if its correct not by much (paraphrasing)

You admit that in todays games folks are opening wider than in the past. At least two respected players live and online, have indicated that through their experience, backed in part by their dbs, A10o and AJo are profitable openin utg.

That is potentially valuable information that may prompt others to look at their own ranges and dbs and change for the better or worse.

Its at least worth the consideration, and although they may not have shared the dbs, they shared their experience. That alone is not a sign of insecurity....

Is mason trolling when he suggests nobody thinks of him as a nit?

Love it when Mason is deeply involved and posting a ton, but, what happen to Jacks for 3 bets ?

No

Ajo must just be the most interesting hand in the world because if I recall correctly my last big arguemnt/disagreement with mason was with the exact same hand. Button open limps and he says we should check AJo in the bb. I disagreed