I have a couple Q's for you limit xperts

1. I read somewhere that in 6max limit you should be a winner with 1 pair hands, is this true( I am losing at a good clip)?

2. I also seem to be completely lost playing small PPs, it does not seem to be profitable to call preflop to set mine, is this true?

3. My BB is losing (.14) per hand, I think this seems reasonable, is it or should it be lower?

4. I seem to be losing a ton in the SB, any tips for SB play(ie how wide of a range should I be raising), especially SBvBB?

Thanks in advance.

Alot of your questions revolve around blind play which is a rather complex topic, I have tried to give some short and sweet answers below but feel free to ask additional questions if you would like myself and others to go into mopre detail:

Jager,

I was able to dig this image up from a couple of years ago from my 10/20 6max days:

http://img412.imageshack.us/img412/7721/100k2fk.jpg

The 10/20 stats I realy liked, except I think my SB could have been a little better (I think -.07 is optimal there, -.15 in the BB is damn near perfect).

Also, I made plenty of preflop guidelines in my post here:

http://www.flopturnriver.com/phpBB2/forum/a-shorthanded-lhe-article-i-was-working-on-t65026.html

Those were all from around the same time as that the image above. In general with pocket pairs you need 5-1 pot odds in a LHE game to correctly set mine.

Jib covered it pretty well. Only things I'll add are ... the point of pocket pairs is to get them heads up with position as much as possible. Figure theyre about 50/50 to win, with position you make the profit, and OOP you lose it.

The BB and SB numbers should be within -.08 (SB) and -.16 (BB)

Well so far I have been playing 5/10. I made a few adjustments from my nl game from that exact link Jeff, and the 2p2 articles on defending your BB. I am winning just under 1.0 bb/100, but I feel like I am not running particularly well and if I can improve my SB play I think I could push this to ~1.5 bb/100.

Thanks again for the hellp guys.

I appreciate your questions about playing pp, etc., but with regards to your questions about stats, here is a brief tutorial on an often-mentioned-but-rarely-fully-understood-concept: VARIABILITY.

First thing is, very few stats are going to be reliable over small sample sizes. Over 100 hands, you can get a good idea of a player's VPIP, PFR%, and AF (which is why these are the stats that are often included when people post hands for analysis).

Things like WSD and W$SD need about 500 and 1000 hands, respectively, to become statistically reliable.

Borer, Mak, and Tannenbaum give figures for how many hands are required to get statistcally reliable data on all kinds of other stats, like Won Showdown When Raised Turn, etc. so buy their book if you're interested in that.

Next is most germane to your question about winrate out of the blinds. As your position moves from UTG to BB, your variability in winrate per hand will increase because you are generally playing weaker, drawing hands in later position and the blinds. Conversely, you will play more hands from later position and the blinds which will decrease you're overall variability. The upshot is that performance from all positions should become statistically reliable after about 50-100k total hands played *

Finally, you need at least 200k hands to get an accurate idea of your overall winrate, more for smaller win/loss rates and less for higher ones. For example, if you play well enough to win 1 BB/100 hands, your average (expected) profit over 200k hands will be 2000BB. However, because winrate is so variable, there is a ~ 5% chance that you will fail to even break even! The other side of the coin is that there is a ~ 5% chance you will win more than 4000 BB. **

I've had swings of 100BB up and down over 10-25k hands so often that it no longer surprises, elates, or discourages me. Ok maybe it does a little, but the point is I don't quit playing if I have a losing month and I don't retire from my day job if I have a good month.

To answer specific questions:

1) I can never seem to get PT to calculate this correctly, but what Jibalob said is good advice.

2) Small pp usually win in only one of two ways: a) getting HU against someone who is tight enough to fold to preflop+flop aggression if they miss; b) getting in cheap preflop (5:1 odds or better) and hitting a set. Playing these hands in other situations is just not going to be profitable.

3) What i said about stats above. My BB in the last 100k hands is around -.17, but in the last 25k hands it's -.21, even though i've had a nice run in general in that period, and I haven't played any differently out of the BB that I'm aware of.

As far as i've been told, BB -.16 is excellent, -.18 is good, -.20 is marginal, < -.20 is poor

4) SB -.08 is excellent, -.10 is good, -.12 is marginal, <-.12 is poor.

A final bit of advice is that you should never get complacent with your game. Just because you're winning consistently doesn't mean you can't play better and win more. So keep studying the game because you can always improve.

* by 'reliable' i mean with an estimated margin of error of +/- 0.02 BB - but please don't quote me on this because it is just a reasonable guess based on my experience with variability in my own databases - i could go through my databases and do the math to get a more precise estimate but i'm too lazy.

** assuming a standard deviation of 17BB/100 hands in winrate, fairly typical for 6max.

Poker Forum

Join Our Poker Community!

Poker Forum Index

Limit Hold'em

I have a couple Q's for you limit xperts

Poker Forum Index

Limit Hold'em

I have a couple Q's for you limit xperts