an observation

For those of you using statistical tracking software.

If you have a reasonably large sample of hands (say, 25,000 or more at a particular level on a particular site), you should be making a profit in every position other than the blinds.

If you are not making a profit at an early position, this means that it would be +EV for you to fold every single hand from that position (even pocket aces, or, if you prefer, to simply shove pocket aces pre-flop and fold everything else) versus whatever it is you are currently doing.

Discuss.

I agree with your proposition. To me this is the value of tracking software, as it allows you to pinpoint where you are making and losing money. If you are losing money in EP, then its harsh but true that you would be better off folding every hand. It means you need to change your game in some way - probably not as drastically as only playing AA and shoving it every time - but I guess you said that to illustrate the point.

The same is true for individual hands, although you are probably not going to have a big enough sample to avoid some anomalies/variance. If you have played J4s 3 times and its your biggest winner, then clearly it's not right to conclude J4s is the best starting hand. But if you are losing with AKo or 88 over a reasonable sample then you should either start folding these every time or investigate whether you have some leaks.

Over the past 50k hands I am up $60 with AKo and down $40 with AKs. Should I stop playing AKs?

First, I think that's a terrible idea. If you ever fold As in EP because you're statistically a loser over a small sample (25K is relatively small given how many hands you'll play in your life) then you're nuts.

Second, you may have 25K hands recorded, but that's not your sample in each position. At 25K hands at 6-max tables you've only got around 4k hands in each position (give or take). That's not nearly enough of a sample to say whether or not you are winning or losing in that position. Plus it's not like you play every hand dealt so even though you've recorded 4k hands UTG, you've only played ~1k-2k at the most. I dare say if you're seeing 50% of the flops from UTG it's no wonder you're losing money.

I guess what I'm saying is if you're losing money in EP figure out why you're losing and fix it. Playing too wide a range? Insignificant sample?

Like Outlaw said, you wouldn't suggest he stop playing AKs because he's down $40 over 50k hands, right? That'd be a ludicrous suggestion.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Over the past 50k hands I am up $60 with AKo and down $40 with AKs. Should I stop playing AKs?

No. In 50,000 hands, you probably saw AKs about 150 times. That's too small a sample.

On the other hand, you were probably under the gun either about 5,500 times (if you play FR) or 8,500 times (if you play 6-max). Slightly bigger sample.

Originally Posted by thedarwinfish

I guess what I'm saying is if you're losing money in EP figure out why you're losing and fix it. Playing too wide a range? Insignificant sample?

That was the meta-point here. But the narrower point here is until you figure out how to play hands well out of position, you should be very careful about playing anything out of position. And if the sample of hands is statistically significant, any position you are losing from is a position that you would actually be better off just folding all your hands from until you know how to play from that position.

So what would you make of these stats (admittedly a very small sample)


Click for full size - Uploaded with plasq's Skitch

Argash:

Too small a sample size. And I fully expect, whatever the specifics of your game, that the cut-off number won't stay negative. It's very hard to lose money from late position.

Terrible advice but good observation.

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Terrible advice but good observation.

The "advice" wasn't the point, though. It's more of a food for thought post.

Yeah I know, but I'm also sure someone read that and loaded up stars to try it out.

Originally Posted by Outlaw

Over the past 50k hands I am up $60 with AKo and down $40 with AKs. Should I stop playing AKs?

Yes, stop playing AKs immediately. Find some hand that you flopped big with in the big blind like T4s, so you made a profit on that, and play that instead, especially in EP.

this is true, but our goal is not to make the most money given our current skill set but to advance our skill set so as to make the most money

Originally Posted by bjsaust

Yeah I know, but I'm also sure someone read that and loaded up stars to try it out.

I actually looked at my bb/100 for the last 3 months and decided I should quit poker entirely...

I'm making a profit in every position, just not enough of one.

I think it might be more interesting to compare winrates by position. Mine look like this (over 80K hands @ 50NL):

BTN: 0.14 ptBB/hand
CO: 0.08
MP: 0.05
UTG: 0.09
BB: -0.18
SB: -0.12

I think I'm probably doing OK from the blinds and UTG, but my winrates aren't big enough in position.