1-2 hands per session...

[bjsaust]

x-post from my blog, thought it might be useful for some of you to think about.


Want to take a sec to chat about something thats been going through my mind lately, and thats the value of 1 or 2 hands per session. Just how much difference they can make. This came up in a chat with Swiggidy which I'll get back to towards the end of the post. First, lets set up and look at an example. On my new site, I tend to play sessions of approx 1hr at a time, and 4 tables at a time. I want to really focus on improving my poker atm. Now in that 1 hr session my average results would be +/- 2 buyins. Meaning if I make more than 2 buyins I consider it a really good session, and if I make less than 2 buyins its been a terrible one. So thats our setup, lets look at an example session, Friday evening:

84 mins -> 369 hands -> +$5.87 -> $4.19 p/h.

Basically a break even session. Now lets look at two hands from it:

1st hand: http://weaktight.com/226572

Played fine, got my money in as a 54% favorite, shorty hits a 2 outer to take the main pot (he was about 7%) of $52. If my hand had held, then instead of $5, I've made $57 for the session putting it into my "really good session" range. 1 hand.

2nd hand: http://weaktight.com/226573

Again, I think played fine. Was concerned about TJ on the turn, but I cant fold with those odds and a fair range of other hands he'd play like that. Anyway, I suckout and win about $16. If I'd lost that hand, then instead of a slightly +ve session, I've had a -ve session and walk about feeling despondant about that.

So just these two hands if results had been different could have had significant effect on my $ p/h in that session.

So how is this relevant? How can thinking about this help our game? Well back to my conversation with Swiggidy, what if instead of two hands played well and affected by variance, we looked at two hands played badly? What if we make just two mistakes per session that cost us over half a stack? Thats 1-2 buyins that can make the difference between a winning and a losing session. Or the difference between an average and a great session, or a terrible v's slightly losing session. You get the idea.

We all focus a lot on how to play our winning hands well, but we cant (especially early on while learning the game) forget that its often our mistakes that cost us the most. Working on our focus and discipline, minimizing tilt, avoiding distractions. They're all as important (or moreso) than learning the best way to play KK on an A high flop.

So my focus atm, is just to play good simple ABC poker. Nothing fancy, most of my $'s will come from raise pf - cbet, and value betting strong hands. I will be actively focusing on NOT making mistakes.

[Fnord]

It's just variance fucking with you. There is no value playing those hands better, you played big pots with big pot hands. Sometimes we fuck up a big hand, but those errors are dreadfully easy to spot.

I worry more about small, medium pots and finding value. If I have a constant stream of value comming into my stack, the rest is what it is. On good days the big pots make me lots of money. On bad days, playing poker in small pots makes the downswing hurt less.

[bjsaust]

Oh, theres no complaint in those hands. I'm comfortable with them, just using them as an illustration of how a whole session can be affected by a small sample of hands, and trying to make a point that you cant do anything about hands like that, but there are other hands you can have some control over.

We're at different points, and so are most beginners to you. Theres value in playing small/medium pots better for sure, I just want folks to bare in mind that playing great poker for 50 minutes can be ruined by 10 minutes (hell, 10 seconds) of bad play.

I think a common flaw in a lot of beginners games is losing big pots and winning small ones. Not losing (i.e., folding when beat) a few of those big pot hands can have as much or more value to their bottom line as extracting some more value from small pots.

[Fnord]

I just want folks to bare in mind that playing great poker for 50 minutes can be ruined by 10 minutes (hell, 10 seconds) of bad play.

Results oriented. Big pots happen.

[bjsaust]

I'm not sure if you're missing something, or if I am, but the results of those hands have nothing to do with the point I'm trying to make. I'm more than happy with both those hands even though I win one and lose the other.

[bjsaust]

This is more what I mean:

http://weaktight.com/226653

I convince myself that she's weak (which she is) but lose a stack with a bad hand anyway.

Then this one in the same session:

http://weaktight.com/226655

I should know better than to stack off with TPWK, especially since I have no idea what villain has, but it was probably tilt or just a brainfart, and theres another 2/3 of a stack.

Now in that session I lost two buyins over 2 hours, and those two hands are almost two buyins on their own. Thats the kind of thing I need to cut out.

[Fnord]

If you never attack weakness with your stack, you're missing out on a key weapon. She was weak, you attacked, she was too stubborn to fold and you got pipped. Oh well, REBUY!

The second hand is crap. But you knew it was right after you played it.

I worry about the mistakes that aren't right in my face.

Same shit I tell my stakehorse. Give yourself permission to play a stinker every now and then. Don't hyper-focus on them.

[bjsaust]

Oh yeah, I try not to. Generally in my session review I try to find a couple of bad hands, and a couple of good hands to focus on. If I'm averaging a stinker per session though, thats too many. Or looked at another way, if you average half a stack per stinker, thats some easy money to start putting on your bottom line by cutting them back.

[Fnord]

If I'm averaging a stinker per session though, thats too many.

Standard

Generally in my session review I try to find a couple of bad hands, and a couple of good hands to focus on.

Spend more time on smaller pot hands.

Missing spots where you could have taken it away?
Missed a value bet on the river?
After you filter out the big variance hands, are you comming out ahead when you cold-call? When you raise weak stuff from the button?

[bjsaust]

Unless its an interesting one I dont pay a lot of attention to the biggest hands (they tend to be std), but not the small ones either. Generally I'm looking at my medium size pots.

Nice thoughts, especially the last line. I havnt really focused on that broader look stuff, more just on individual hands.

[Fnord]

What are you doing differently than your opponents that makes you money in the long run? How well are you doing that?

[bjsaust]

I truly like the way you think. I need to give that question a lot more consideration when I'm a little more sober. Thanks for your thoughts Fnord.

[jyms]

What Fnord is talking about is all the 20BB-30BB pots. The W$WSF% and non showdown hands are key toa long term winrate. I have spent some time talking to a few people about this problem. Here's an example




the difference in the two graphs is that in the top one (last month)there is a ton of money being lost in non showdown hands. This includes C-bets, flop and turn calls and a ton of preflop calls and 3 bets that end up being folded. I spent a ton of time last month looking for the causes of this and may have made some significant changes for the better even though the second graph (this month) is a shorter sample. i had spent so much time looking for ways to get more value and more money on my big hands, not realizing what some of my aggression and pot building was doing to my bottom line ( pun FTW).

W$WSF% stats are very significant, since having a 35%-40% means we are losing more pots than we win after deciding to put money in pre flop. It is imparitive that we learn to control the losses since most of us know how to win with good/better hands.

[bjsaust]

Interesting, got up this morning and did a quick sort by pot size and checked through my $4-$7 type losing pots, and almost half of them are me raising multiple limpers in position PF and then b/f'ing missed flops. Of course I need to compare that to hands where I win on the flop, but I'm getting enough hands up now I really should broaden my analysis to "situations" and groups of hands, rather than purely specific hands.