Randomness thread, part two.

[Poopadoop]

I went from £50 to £500 in days, I know I can play poker, but I can't handle the brutal downswings.

What happened after you went to £500? You just quit?

[Poopadoop]

Basically, anything over about 20 - 22 bb/100 hands is a pipe dream. Even when top pros used to do those "start from a freeroll and build up a huge BR" challenges a while back, none of them were boasting winrates over about that much (IIRC).

So if you're a top pro, you can make maaaybe 25 bb/100 against blowhole-breathers. Realistically, for a non-pro, something like 15-ish is probably more likely. Honestly, you're not a top pro, nothing harsh about saying that.

Are you talking about NL or PLO?

The thing about the latter is that if you're at a FR table with two other solid players (VPIP/PFR 25/10 or thereabouts), 4 fish (50/5), a maniac (70/30) and a whale (90/0), and the fish, maniac and whale are all going to call big bets with losing hands and weak draws, you can't really help but make money by playing ABC poker.

I just don't see those kinds of lineups in NL games at low stakes. Whenever I've dabbled in NL cash games at low stakes, it's one or two fish at a FR table on average.

[OngBonga]

What happened after you went to £500? You just quit?

No, I had brutal downswing coupled with poor discipline. My tilt involved spazzing a few hands, although that was mostly just a minute or two of idiocy before I quit my session, and another tilty problem I have is spite casing out, like "oh fuck off I lost £100, let's withdraw £100 so I don't lose it all". Over Dec I cashed out £300, and I still have something like £150 left, which probably gets spent on my birthday, which is soon.

[Poopadoop]

No, I had brutal downswing coupled with poor discipline. My tilt involved spazzing a few hands, although that was mostly just a minute or two of idiocy before I quit my session, and another tilty problem I have is spite casing out, like "oh fuck off I lost £100, let's withdraw £100 so I don't lose it all". Over Dec I cashed out £300, and I still have something like £150 left, which probably gets spent on my birthday, which is soon.

I think self-control is one of the hardest parts of pokers. Once you start losing some suckouts and your bluffs aren't working, etc., the tendency is to loosen up and try to win every hand. It's a challenge to try to let it roll off you.

Speaking of which, the poker guru Savy was right. I just lost $30 in 700 hands of .05/.10 today. I better quit before I lose another 37 buyins.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Are you talking about NL or PLO?

The thing about the latter is that if you're at a FR table with two other solid players (VPIP/PFR 25/10 or thereabouts), 4 fish (50/5), a maniac (70/30) and a whale (90/0), and the fish, maniac and whale are all going to call big bets with losing hands and weak draws, you can't really help but make money by playing ABC poker.

I just don't see those kinds of lineups in NL games at low stakes. Whenever I've dabbled in NL cash games at low stakes, it's one or two fish at a FR table on average.

It was both, back in the day... PLO was only just gaining popularity on the scene, but Chris Ferguson (prior to the Full Tilt scandal) did a PLO challenge.
I'm quite certain they brought their A-game, and that means playing basic ABC poker against idiots who don't even think about your cards. That is A-game at the micros. Too many starting players watch the pros on TV making all these big plays and big bluffs and think that's the "right" way to play poker, without understanding the context of the villains.

This was far enough back that the micro stakes in NLHE were just as full of fish if not moreso than you're describing in PLO. If I was at a table with 2 other players that I was wary of... I could probably find a table with only 1 person I had to avoid. Then we're taking turns reeling in the fish and not butting heads much. When there's 3 decent players, you find yourself in stickier situations post-flop, and the EV of the table drops off pretty hard, IMO.

EDIT: and I'm not a pro and I know that much about table selection, so part of that pro A-game is going to be excellent table selection.

[Savy]

Speaking of which, the poker guru Savy was right. I just lost $30 in 700 hands of .05/.10 today. I better quit before I lose another 37 buyins.

Here is my last 50k hands or so, am I running good or bad?



The reality is that I'm running pretty well even though my all-in EV is about 12 buy ins higher than my actual green line. My true winrate in these games is probably around 4bb or so knowing what I know about the player pool and my skill level. A lot of this volume was over Christmas when the games do tend to be a bit weaker but I am unsure as to the real effect this has.

Over that 50k hands I paid about the same in rake as I won and my games have a much better rake structure (still awful clearly).

In that last 20k hands I went from ~-600bb to 2400bb which is something like 15bb/100 and there are lots of b/e stretches, losing stretches and bits where my all-in EV goes massively under and then where it catches up.

It's just such a meaningless sample. I can justify being a crusher to being a loser depending on how I want to present my graph. The only thing it tells me is I'm probably winning in my games but to a confidence level that is well within a non-stupid error. Even if it's 99% I'm winning 1/100 is huge.

But I'll take being right about Ong in my stride, was expected.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I'd say you're partially running hot with card draw over the last 10k - 20k hands. You're partially running cold in all-in situations for the past 40k.

Calculating your winrate and variance per hand when you have 50k data points is not too bad. It's trying to do so with only the BR values at the endpoints that is sketchy.
A linear best-fit line is all you need. If there's an option to pin the line to the origin, don't use it. The slope of the best fit line is your bb/hand, which you convert to bb/100 for your expected winrate. If the software tells you the variance on the slope, then taking the SQRT of that is the STDEV of your winrate (in bb/hand).

Value +/- 2*STDEV ~= 95% CI

All this assumes that your skill and your opponents' skills didn't change during data collection. That's not true and so there's additional variance which we haven't accounted for in that model.

[Poopadoop]

Here is my last 50k hands or so, am I running good or bad?

What's your standard deviation in bb/100? That's kinda critical to answering that question in a very basic kind of way that you don't seem to get.

It's just such a meaningless sample. I can justify being a crusher to being a loser depending on how I want to present my graph.

Well you can't really. You need to know the standard deviation per 100 hands and then you can calculate a CI. That's the critical piece of information you're missing here.

The only thing it tells me is I'm probably winning in my games but to a confidence level that is well within a non-stupid error.

Yes it tells you you're *probably* winning but that probably can range anywhere from 50.00000001% to 99.999999% depending on what your variance is.

Even if it's 99% I'm winning 1/100 is huge.

savy.jpg

Congrats, you've earned your own meme.

I don't mean to me a math nit, but 1/100 is actually very very tiny. It's pretty much the direct opposite of huge.



I mean seriously man, if you're going to try to play the expert and present arguments about what does and doesn't count as good evidence about whether someone is winning or not, you might want to at least first try to get a basic grasp on what information is important to making that determination (and also try to get your head around how small 1/100 is).

[Poopadoop]

I'd say you're partially running hot with card draw over the last 10k - 20k hands. You're partially running cold in all-in situations for the past 40k.

Calculating your winrate and variance per hand when you have 50k data points is not too bad. It's trying to do so with only the BR values at the endpoints that is sketchy.
A linear best-fit line is all you need. If there's an option to pin the line to the origin, don't use it. The slope of the best fit line is your bb/hand, which you convert to bb/100 for your expected winrate. If the software tells you the variance on the slope, then taking the SQRT of that is the STDEV of your winrate (in bb/hand).

Value +/- 2*STDEV ~= 95% CI

All this assumes that your skill and your opponents' skills didn't change during data collection. That's not true and so there's additional variance which we haven't accounted for in that model.

PT will tell you the std dev. You don't need to do all this.

But at least you know enough to realize the stdev matters.

[Poopadoop]

Fwiw, I'm not actually convinced parametric stats are appropriate for these kind of data ,where the peak (0 bb lost when folding) is huge, there's another couple modes around folding the blinds, and fat tails where you win or lose a big pot. But it probably works well enough (not sure what alternative one would use, but I'm sure they exist).

Also, the whole concept of a CI is always problematic even under the normal distribution for various reasons.

[MadMojoMonkey]

No, I agree, but I don't have any good alternatives to talking about villain tendencies as Bernoulli trials. I dug into that rabbit hole a while ago and I couldn't find any other models that seemed to fit. Reflecting on that, it's just about as murky to model your own behaviors as Bernoulli trials, either... but what can you do?

I think it plays out fairly reliably under a couple of assumptions: your behaviors may be more complicated than random events, but if we assume consistency of your choices under various stimuli, which are themselves random events, then we can look past your decisions being non-random. Then they are simply adjunct consequences to random events, to which the Bernoulli assumption holds.
At least it doesn't break due to coupling in any form, as each hand is an individual trial... however everything within a hand is strongly coupled, so using Bernoulli trials on post-flop decisions is sketchy until you have an enormous data set, at which point you can start to look at the coupled events as individual sequences, which start to look more Bernoulli again. This still hasn't addressed table dynamics. At micro-stakes, this may not matter much, but as the skillset of the villains increases, the hands now become coupled to prior hands.... this is madness to get around, IMO.

Not sure if any/all of that is sensible, but it's what I recall after the rabbit hole I went through.

That and that I like the Wilson Score Interval for finding CI's on poker stuff... which I did not suggest in the prior post to simply take 2*STDEV for the + and - ranges of the CI. 2*STDEV is quick and easy, and while less reliable, not really much so.

[Savy]

My standard deviation is 75. Well it isn't but that's what PT4 says over that sample.

[Savy]

I mean seriously man, if you're going to try to play the expert and present arguments about what does and doesn't count as good evidence about whether someone is winning or not, you might want to at least first try to get a basic grasp on what information is important to making that determination (and also try to get your head around how small 1/100 is).

It's context. When there are thousands and thousands of people posting their graphs it's very easy to come across graphs from losing players which show they are winning, at pretty good rates too.

1/100 times someone will post graphs like that (well made up number) they are losing. The reality is the % that they are losing given posted graphs tends to be much higher. 90% confidence interval is nothing. But you wouldn't get that as you're a psychologist and 90% confidence interval is about as gold standard as you get right.

Don't try to be a smart arse you aren't good enough or funny enough to pass it off.

[Poopadoop]

It's context. When there are thousands and thousands of people posting their graphs it's very easy to come across graphs from losing players which show they are winning, at pretty good rates too.

1/100 times someone will post graphs like that (well made up number) they are losing. The reality is the % that they are losing given posted graphs tends to be much higher. 90% confidence interval is nothing. But you wouldn't get that as you're a psychologist and 90% confidence interval is about as gold standard as you get right.

Don't try to be a smart arse you aren't good enough or funny enough to pass it off.

You really have no idea what you're talking about. The funny part is that you think you do.

[Savy]

You really have no idea what you're talking about. The funny part is that you think you do.

Why don't I?

[Poopadoop]

No, I agree, but I don't have any good alternatives to talking about villain tendencies as Bernoulli trials. I dug into that rabbit hole a while ago and I couldn't find any other models that seemed to fit. Reflecting on that, it's just about as murky to model your own behaviors as Bernoulli trials, either... but what can you do?

I think it plays out fairly reliably under a couple of assumptions: your behaviors may be more complicated than random events, but if we assume consistency of your choices under various stimuli, which are themselves random events, then we can look past your decisions being non-random. Then they are simply adjunct consequences to random events, to which the Bernoulli assumption holds.
At least it doesn't break due to coupling in any form, as each hand is an individual trial... however everything within a hand is strongly coupled, so using Bernoulli trials on post-flop decisions is sketchy until you have an enormous data set, at which point you can start to look at the coupled events as individual sequences, which start to look more Bernoulli again. This still hasn't addressed table dynamics. At micro-stakes, this may not matter much, but as the skillset of the villains increases, the hands now become coupled to prior hands.... this is madness to get around, IMO.

Not sure if any/all of that is sensible, but it's what I recall after the rabbit hole I went through.

That and that I like the Wilson Score Interval for finding CI's on poker stuff... which I did not suggest in the prior post to simply take 2*STDEV for the + and - ranges of the CI. 2*STDEV is quick and easy, and while less reliable, not really much so.

I was thinking one could do a bootstrap. Take your distribution of results for each hand over a (say) 100k sample, draw 100k random samples from it treating each outcome as equally probable, find the winrate in that sample, repeat the process however many times you want (like, in the thousands at least), then construct a CI using the resulting sample winrates. It would probably take a year for a PC to do it though.

[Poopadoop]

Why don't I?

Because you're just repeating what you've heard everyone on 2p2 say about sample size and variance without really understanding why they matter. As far as I can tell, you don't really understand variance in the first place.

Also, because you say stupid shit like '1/100 is huge'.

[Savy]

Because you're just repeating what you've heard everyone on 2p2 say about sample size and variance without really understanding why they matter. As far as I can tell, you don't really understand variance in the first place.

Also, because you say stupid shit like '1/100 is huge'.

Yeah of course not, thanks. Insightful as always.

[OngBonga]

You really have no idea what you're talking about. The funny part is that you think you do.

We're all guilty of this at times, you and I included. But yeah, savy too. I knew that when he dismissed my comments about his 86 hand in the SM or whatever big game he played. He was super confident that I was wrong to just call flop.

But I'll take being right about Ong in my stride, was expected

Thanks for motivating me to keep trying. This is exactly what I need. I appreciate this a lot.

[Poopadoop]

Yeah of course not, thanks. Insightful as always.

No thank you for giving me the best stats lesson I've had on here since banana left.

[MadMojoMonkey]

My standard deviation is 75. Well it isn't but that's what PT4 says over that sample.

-1 (missing units) I'm assuming you mean 75 bb/100 hands.

That's not the STDEV in your winrate, though, is it? That's the STDEV in your BR, right?

[Poopadoop]

Tilting reg who just got baited into stacking off drawing dead in the last pot makes a loose raise with QQ66 UTG. Solid guy in CO sitting 200 bb deep who knows UTG could be spazzing makes a loose 3 bet with KKQ8. I call the 3bet cold on button with AAJ7 ds, hoping everything that happens next will happen. Fishy fish fish in BB looks down at JJ32 and figures he's got a chance and calls. Tilting reg jams what's left of his stack, knowing he's prolly way behind but fuck it. Solid guy thinks for about a tenth of a second, then tries to shut me out with a 5 bet. I insta-repot to all in. Fishy fishy fish still likes his JJ32 and calls. Solid guy decides he's not that solid after all and calls with his crushed Kings.

Yeah, these guys aren't spewing at all.

[OngBonga]

Let's see if I can estimate equities in PLO.
AAJ7 gotta be 40%
KKQ8 25%
QQ66 25%
JJ23 10%

It helps a lot that both QQ and JJ are blocked.

QQ66 UTG is a clear open, although I'm guessing that he didn't reload to full stack if he's jamming over a 3b that he should be flatting. If he's full stacked, jamming is awful. Calling the 3b is fine to setmine QQ, assuming there's chips left behind for implied odds; further I'd tread very carefully if I hit a set of sixes, treating it somewhat like top pair good kicker in NLHE.
KKQ8 is a reasonable 3b vs this guy if it's obvious he's tilting. I'm calling the jam if I have 3:1 pot odds, otherwise I'm folding.
Your cold call is an excellent play, I think if we 4b here our hand is face up. I'd prefer to 4b TJQKds than AAxx ds.
JJ32 is a ridiculously easy fold.

Haven't played PLO for a while.

[Poopadoop]

yea, close enough on the equities.

The stack sizes were somewhat relevant I suppose, but I don't think they change anyone's preferred play that much. UTG was pretty short with about 15bb, CO 200bb, BB about 45bb, and on btn I had everyone covered.

The hand just before I had minraised in CO with a crappy AAxx ns 135bb deep, BB (now tilty UTG) called with AJxx 155bb deep, I bet small on AJ7 flop, he c/r'd me pot, I repotted, he called, and called off the rest of my stack on 8 turn and bd fd 5 river. So he looked a bit silly there.

Next hand gets dealt and he insta-raises UTG.

UTG: [6c 6s Qs Qd] raises $0.60 to $0.85
HJ: folds
CO:[Ks 8s Kd Qh] raises $0.60 to $1.45
Hero: [Ad Jc 7s Ac] calls $1.45
SB: folds
BB: [Jh 3h 2c Jd] calls $1.20
UTG: raises $1.91 to $3.36 and is all-in
CO: raises $9.72 to $13.08
Hero: raises $31.07 to $44.15
BB: calls $10.05 and is all-in
CO: calls $31.07 and is all-in

QQ66 UTG is a loose/bad open at any time imo. Assuming competent opposition (not necessarily a safe assumption at these stakes but one I use by default anyways), you're only going to end up playing (usually OOP) against hands that are basically even with you (cold callers with AKJT ss or AKTT ds, or occasionally a hand like T987ds). All of these hands will be pretty easy to play correctly against a big pair postflop. Or, you'll get 3bet by hands that usually have you smoked (KKxx, AAxx), but also sometimes by hands that don't have you smoked like AKQJ ds, but the entirety of the 3b range will have you in pretty bad shape. And if you're shallow like this guy was, then you get 3bet, you'll be pot-committed for the rest of your stack and end up gii pretty bad almost always.

The 66 in your hand is a handicap if anything because it doesn't work with the QQ, which makes the hand harder to flop to, and if you hit bottom or middle set it's going to be hard to gii with anything that doesn't have you crushed or is flipping (less so if you're shallow, but you're still only going to flop a six 1/8 times, so it balances out imo). Make that hand QQJJ it's an easy open (because of straight possibilities and because you're blocking broadway rundowns), maybe QQTT too. QQ99 I'd probably fold unless it was ds. Even then it wouldn't be a fist-pump raise or anything. Any of those hands should be an insta-fold against a 3bet unless villain is 3 betting quite a lot, or you're both very deep.

3-balling the tilty shallow-stack guy with KKQ8 with a deep btn, SB and BB behind you is a bit meh imo. Your side cards are pretty shabby. It's a bit tricky 'cause you don't want other people tagging along (except possibly the tard in BB), but at the same time your hand isn't THAT good and it could be crushed if anyone has AAxx. In fact, CO minraised the first time, which made me think he would prolly fold if I 4bet right away. All in all my default would be to cold call with that hand in CO, fold to any reasonable 3bet, hope to see a flop IP and go in on pretty much any non-A flop against UTG.

Make his hand AKKx (blocking AAxx combos) or KKQJ or KK65 ds and I like a 3bet a lot more. As is, he can either cold call, or 3bet small and fold to a four bet from anyone other than UTG or maybe tard in BB. I assume that was his original plan.

Once UTG shoves, CO's clearout 5bet play makes some sense, but once I shove over that his hand has to go in the muck unless he thinks I'm a total spaz, because at that point he has to invest 1/2 of his stack in a side pot with me, 1/4 in the pot with three people, and another in a pot with four people, and the one guy in all of those pots is the one who likely has him crushed. This is where I think you really need to ask yourself what cold calls my min-3bet then shoves over my 5 bet. But that's advanced thinking for these stakes I guess.

And yea, obv. BB was a loltard.

Edit: Oh, and tilty guy ended up flopping the case Q to win the main pot. Omaha.

BUT, I ended up winning the two big side pots. Nice little profit.

[Jack Sawyer]

POKAH IN DA COMMUNE

[Poopadoop]

You're still alive Jack!

[OngBonga]

With 15bb, yeah I'd throw QQ66 away. Or maybe I'd l/f if the table was allowing limps through with enough frequency, but I don't really like to limp, and I definitely don't like to sit there short stacked in a cash game. Full stacked though, a set of queens is worth trying to spike. And yes, a set of sixes is not something to gii with, but it's a fine hand to pick off bluffs with. But again, we need to be deeper to have any justification, ie 100bb deep minimum.

Fold to 3b? In PLO? Don't be ridiculous. As a general rule to thumb, if you're not calling a 3b, then don't open it. I do not have a r/f-to-3b range in PLO.

Stacking KK 200bb deep is highly optimistic. I'd be nervous in NLHE, let alone PLO.

[OngBonga]

JACK IN DA COMMUNE

[OngBonga]

If I tried to steal blinds with quads in hand, I still wouldn't fold to a 3b. I'd want to bluff post flop.

Especially if I had deuces.

[Poopadoop]

The problem is position is way WAY more important in PLO than in NL. So you should be playing really tight in EP and the blinds because you're likely to be OOP if anyone plays with you. And if someone 3bets you AND has position on you, you can't do well with hands like QQ66 that don't flop good often. It's not like NL where the 3bettor Cbets nearly 100% of the time and is willing to jam with TPTK or better when you flop a set. They're going to check behind flops with a lot of their draws, or just TP and no draws, and you won't know where you stand. They're also going to bet their entire range on a 774r or 932 board and you'll have to fold because it's too likely they have AAxx or KKJT or w/e and you're crushed.

If you're on CO or Btn then yeah mix it up, and don't usually fold to a 3bet from the blinds unless they're extremely tight and pretty shallow.

[Savy]

We're all guilty of this at times, you and I included. But yeah, savy too. I knew that when he dismissed my comments about his 86 hand in the SM or whatever big game he played. He was super confident that I was wrong to just call flop.

Ong I like you and everything but you're really clueless when it comes to this. You advocated folding pre which is awful and then you advocated calling and weren't able to back it up at all. Shoving is a really easy EV calc to model and it's very easy to show it's +EV. The other person who posted in the thread said calling was probably better and explained why which I took on board.

-1 (missing units) I'm assuming you mean 75 bb/100 hands.

That's not the STDEV in your winrate, though, is it? That's the STDEV in your BR, right?

Sorry I assumed you were used to PT4, it's the only stat it gives, but yes 75bb/100 and BR that on your winrate would be insane and make no sense.

Yeah, these guys aren't spewing at all.

I don't play PLO so can't comment on hands because I don't know opening ranges, hand rankings etc but I never siad people don't spew I said they won't be spewing as much as you think they are and you personally will be spewing a lot more than you think you are. This is true of basically everyone. People who have moved up and done well at the stakes and games you are playing never touched winrates like your claimed one and over time the games have got worse and the rake has got worse. It isn't rocket science.

Fold to 3b? In PLO? Don't be ridiculous. As a general rule to thumb, if you're not calling a 3b, then don't open it. I do not have a r/f-to-3b range in PLO.

Looking at some suggested ranges on upswing shows this to be completely wrong. It also suggests limping stats in a lot of spots too though so I assume this isn't something you do either. Shit looks complicated.

It's not like NL where the 3bettor Cbets nearly 100% of the time and is willing to jam with TPTK or better when you flop a set.

When was the last time you played NL because no one c-bets nearly 100% of the time in 3bet pots as a general rule and in a 3bet pot 100bb deep the SPR is low enough that folding really strong overpairs and strong TPTK hands would be a big mistake unless you're playing in 2010 when people only x/r two pair or better on the flop. It's a case of people are so straight up it's easy to play against them or folding is really bad.

[Savy]

Also I'm getting busy with work and unfortunately no one really posts enough for this forum to be of any value to me currently so I'll probably delete all this shit off my computer to get me out of the habit of checking what's up when I open the internet. I'm aiming to play a bit more poker too so wasting time on here is just a bad use of time.

Ong find a job you like and do it you'll much prefer life.

MMM keep doing what you like to do it's nice to see people passionate about shit and doing it.

[Poopadoop]

I don't play PLO so can't comment on hands because I don't know opening ranges, hand rankings etc but I'm going to comment anyways on how you and your opponents are probably playing

fyp

This is true of basically everyone. People who have moved up and done well at the stakes and games you are playing never touched winrates like your claimed one and over time the games have got worse and the rake has got worse. It isn't rocket science.

Sorry you don't know what you're talking about again. Maybe the thing would be to just stop talking.

Actually 30bb/100 in PLO is not out of bounds. So 18bb/100 is definitely plausible.

When was the last time you played NL because no one c-bets nearly 100% of the time in 3bet pots as a general rule and in a 3bet pot 100bb deep the SPR is low enough that folding really strong overpairs and strong TPTK hands would be a big mistake unless you're playing in 2010 when people only x/r two pair or better on the flop. It's a case of people are so straight up it's easy to play against them or folding is really bad.

yea my bad, I shouldn't use explanations based on NL. People look stupid talking about a game they don't play.

[OngBonga]

weren't able to back it up at all.

I gave detailed thoughts as to why calling was good. And while I advocated folding pre, I was also quite clear that I wasn't sure about pre flop.

Shoving is a really easy EV calc to model and it's very easy to show it's +EV.

You can only show it's +ev by overestimating your fold equity. Try the calculation with zero fold equity.

Looking at some suggested ranges on upswing shows this to be completely wrong.

It's a good job I don't play PLO then.

[OngBonga]

And the 68s... folding pre certainly is not awful. For that to be true, calling must be pretty damn +ev. How many bbs do we win on average with this hand? How does this impact on our chances of making the money? It's not nearly clear. You're using the word "awful" to mean "a slight mistake at worst". To use a chess term, it would be an inaccuracy, not a blunder. Shoving an oesd on flop with fold equity only against hands you're currently flipping with when you have great pot odds to call, that's a blunder.

[dwarfman3]

Basically, anything over about 20 - 22 bb/100 hands is a pipe dream. Even when top pros used to do those "start from a freeroll and build up a huge BR" challenges a while back, none of them were boasting winrates over about that much (IIRC).

So if you're a top pro, you can make maaaybe 25 bb/100 against blowhole-breathers. Realistically, for a non-pro, something like 15-ish is probably more likely. Honestly, you're not a top pro, nothing harsh about saying that.

If your estimated rake is ~12 bb/100 hands, and your winrate is expected to be ~15 bb/100, then your gross winrate is going to be less than 5 bb/100 hands. Anything too far in excess of that is just not sustainable.

My two cents on this - I would consider somebody winning (over a proper sample size) at 5 BB/100 in any cash game higher than 0.05/0.10 to be absolutely crushing the game. 5 BB/100 in today's environment is a very, very strong winrate. Going significantly better than that in the long term is not possible for anyone less than a world class player.

[Poopadoop]

I would tend to agree against sentient opposition. That's not who I'm playing with however.

I open KQT5 in HJ mostly because of the 15/5 meganit in CO, 85/10 beluga whale on btn, and 55/10 fish in SB. Nit folds, beluga calls with K855. SB fish folds, maybe he only got dealt three cards that hand i dunno. Decent BB 3bets with what I can only assume is lolAAxx. I call because I have a suit and some connectedness and because I know beluga is gonna call behind me and has a good chance of doing something stupid.

Flop is KKQ giving me the nuts. BB checks, I bet half pot, and beluga forgets there's four kings in a deck and raises me pot with bare trips and no redraw to the nuts. BB folds and I reraise all in. Beluga instacalls drawing dead.

One hand, 180bb profit.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Most of a plant's mass is Carbon. It sequesters that Carbon from CO2 in the air.
So plants are made of air (mostly).

[OngBonga]

You lie. Most of a plant's mass is water. There's no carbon in water.

[MadMojoMonkey]

It's a tricky statement to make. I tried to be tricksy with mah werds to get the sentence "plants are made of air." to sound plausible... which it is.

I could argue that when the plant dies and dries out, the water weight is gone, but then... we're talking about dead plants and not plants... but the point still holds that the "stuff" we'd colloquially consider the plant is made of air... even if the water comes from the ground.

[Jack Sawyer]

[Jack Sawyer]

So, the government is still shut down?

[MadMojoMonkey]

Yep. What a shitshow.

I'm emotionally torn about the gov't workers being asked (made) to work without pay. On the one hand, I think they're not helping by doing their jobs for free, disguising the true impact of this abuse of authority. On the other hand... I admire their patriotism and willingness to work toward the common good despite ridiculous circumstances.

I'm half shocked that there aren't marches and demonstrations around the country at this point. If Americans can't unite together to say that we didn't elect any one of them to NOT do their jobs for a month, then what the hell? Their jobs are to find compromises and move forward. This BS has already cost us more than DT wanted for the damned wall in the first place.

I no longer give a flying fuck about the wall. Let him have it. It'll fall in less than 10 years and wont do a damn thing he wants it to do. Maybe we need a wall in our history to show us how fucking unamerican a wall is. At this point I don't care. I was against wasting money on something that wont be effective, but that ship has long since sailed.

[Poopadoop]

Imho, there is no way he should be getting $5b to waste on a Wall. Fuck him.

He also once asked NASA to build a ship to take a man to Mars. They told him to GFH too.

[MadMojoMonkey]

Me, neither, but he is our elected president and he did campaign on the wall and his supporters want it.
They won.
We're all getting screwed by this shutdown. It's costing us billions.
It's already cost us more than he wants for the wall.
He fucking won.
The wall is the cheapest way to move forward.
Give him the stupid, ineffective wall, and let it go down as one of America's great failures. Right up there with putting American citizens of Asian heritage in American concentration camps during WWII.

[CoccoBill]

I caught myself arguing with idiots on facebook. Must be because there's far fewer of them here now. Alarming.

[OngBonga]

Sorry I've been a bit lazy and disinterested of recent.

[CoccoBill]

No worries mate, take your time <3

[oskar]

I think giving any amount of funding towards the wall would be a big mistake. No, of course it's not going to get built. They probably won't even be able to spend the money. They won't even be done with planning until long after Trump's term is up, should he get that far against all odds. I think it's a question of precedent. If he can get away with it now, you can be sure he'll do the same thing for the 2020 budget. As far as I followed it, the first meeting he had with Pelosi and Schumer after the shutdown ended in under a minute. If he's not even negotiating, why would you give him even an inch.

It looks like the shutdown will end in a catastrophe, as will this whole presidency, but I honestly think that's what is needed.

[oskar]

Is there anyone in the world who actually likes green bell peppers? They never sell single green bell peppers, do they? They only exist in triple packs. So I can buy the bell peppers I want, or I can buy a 3-pack that costs about as much as a single bell pepper, but it'll have a green one which they basically blackmail me into using unless I want to throw food out.

[CoccoBill]

I think FDA regulations say fajitas must have them.

[Poopadoop]

Is there anyone in the world who actually likes green bell peppers?

They're good in certain spicy dishes, but as far as sitting down and eating one not something I would do.

We can buy them singly here. At least until Brexit happens.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I can't taste any consistent difference in different colored bell peppers. A good one of any color is crisp and sweet and juicy and just a little bit tangy. I put them in salads all the time.

If you can't buy your fruit and/or veg in singles, I wouldn't do it. I want to inspect each item. I want one that is heavy for its size, indicating more water weight, indicating less time from when it was on a living plant and/or a more healthy plant to begin with. I also want to smell it. It should smell like what it is. If it doesn't, it will be a bland fruit/veg. I don't care about blemishes. More often than not, the blemish is superficial and if it's indicative of rot, the thing will smell like it's rotting.

If you buy green bell peppers following these rules, I bet they're as good as the other colors. That or you have more refined taste than I.

[Poopadoop]

I can't taste any consistent difference in different colored bell peppers. A good one of any color is crisp and sweet and juicy and just a little bit tangy. I put them in salads all the time.

They definitely all taste different. You are taste-challenged if you can't tell the difference.

They go from green and unripe (more bitter, more of the hotness comes out) to yellow and semi-ripe (most bland) to red and ripe (sweeter) to dark red and overripe (can't say what flavour this is - fermented-ish?)

[OngBonga]

They all taste like shit.

[MadMojoMonkey]

They definitely all taste different. You are taste-challenged if you can't tell the difference.

They go from green and unripe (more bitter, more of the hotness comes out) to yellow and semi-ripe (most bland) to red and ripe (sweeter) to dark red and overripe (can't say what flavour this is - fermented-ish?)

You know these are different plants, right? A green bell pepper is not an under-ripe red bell pepper.

[oskar]

it literally is
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell_pepper#Colors

More BS from the corrupt bell pepper companies.

[Poopadoop]

You know these are different plants, right? A green bell pepper is not an under-ripe red bell pepper.

I thought so as well. Then I was shown the light.

[MadMojoMonkey]

TIL

I mean...
No shit, huh? My bad. I take it back. Green peppers are clearly inferior and I will change my pepper eating ways.

[boost]

Me, neither, but he is our elected president and he did campaign on the wall and his supporters want it.
They won.
We're all getting screwed by this shutdown. It's costing us billions.
It's already cost us more than he wants for the wall.
He fucking won.
The wall is the cheapest way to move forward.
Give him the stupid, ineffective wall, and let it go down as one of America's great failures. Right up there with putting American citizens of Asian heritage in American concentration camps during WWII.

I agree that it's frustrating, but I'm surprised this is your conclusion. This event wasn't in a vacuum. I really am not trying to make a Hitler analogy here, but... you are advocating for appeasement. Appeasement is a band-aid smeared with raw AIDS.

[boost]

TIL

I mean...
No shit, huh? My bad. I take it back. Green peppers are clearly inferior and I will change my pepper eating ways.

You had me going for a second and I've seen peppers change colors as they ripen.

[Poopadoop]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-47022374

TL/DR: Chinese students speak Chinese loudly in common area at a uni, programme director asks them nicely to stop, internet goes "AARARRRGHGHGGH, Racist!"

This is the kind of thing I could see myself getting done for. Well, not really because I would never send an email that could be remotely construed as racist by even the most paranoid person. But seriously, talk about taking something out of context and getting outraged over nothing.

If anything, the people who sent her the emails saying they wouldn't supervise these students for speaking Chinese loudly are the ones who should get in shit.

[MadMojoMonkey]

I agree that it's frustrating, but I'm surprised this is your conclusion. This event wasn't in a vacuum. I really am not trying to make a Hitler analogy here, but... you are advocating for appeasement. Appeasement is a band-aid smeared with raw AIDS.

My relief to hear that the shutdown was halted (albeit temporarily) shortly after I posted that cannot be overstated.

DT is bad, but let's not dilute what real evil looked like.

We're a politically divided country. We always have been. Any look at American history that indicates otherwise is whitewash. This is who we are.
I don't want the stupid wall. I've been adamantly against it on this forum for years.
Nonetheless... I don't want to see good people getting screwed because I disagree with some politics. Gov't workers were applying for Food Stamps and Unemployment and being left waiting because there were no gov't workers to process those claims. That's fucked up. Those people are patriots with families. Treating them like that is abysmal.

[boost]

Right, but you're for some reason just accepting that Trump's position is immovable, and therefore those who disagree with him when the stakes get high should cave.

I agree that the situation the government workers were put in is terrible, but I don't get how you get from here to "therefore the democrats should give in."

It sucks that the world spent decades on the brink of all out nuclear war directly following the nightmare that was WWII-- but it's asinine to suggest that the west should have just gone ahead and dismantled their nuclear arsenals and capitulated to the USSR. It's nonsense to believe that because the stakes have gotten high you have a moral obligation to surrender.

[MadMojoMonkey]

You sound like you're talking about the collapse of the political left. That's not in the cards.
It's just a stupid, ineffectual wall. Just another 51/49 split in what Americans want for America.

To the extent that it's bad for the country, I am against it.
To the extent that the President is a democratically elected leader who's doing what he promised to do in his campaign and which his supporters still want... well... it gets pretty hard for me.
When I'm put in a position to support the entire leadership of my nation playing a game of chicken when what's on the line is the food in good people's kid's bellies, then I suddenly don't give a shit about a wall. I just want those people's kids to eat.

Reps didn't want the ACA. Dems got it.
Dems don't want the wall...

It's nice to pretend one political party has the moral high ground, but the reality is that neither does.
I believe in democratic rule, not tyranny of those I choose to side with.

If the Dems can't convince the American people why the wall is bad, then they need to suck up the defeat, put their big kid pants on and get back to the job they are elected to do.

For the record: the entire world knew TSA was phoning it in for a month and no airline disasters. Can we de-fund the waste of money that is the TSA, please?

[boost]

You make some weird moves to arrive at your position. The democratic house majority was also elected with some pretty clear marching orders. Further they were elected more recently and ostensibly via some number of voters who have changed their mind.

Whether it was by the democrats or not, the American people are convinced building the wall is bad. At least a majority of them are. The polling is clear. Trump's approval has been unusually stable, but took a pretty big beating during the stand off. Further, polling specifically targeting where people are on funding the wall shows that Americans oppose doing so.

I'm just at a loss for why you're bending over backwards here to put the blame on the democrats.

There was a compromise. Congress was ready to pass it. Trump changed his mind at midnight making the shutdown inevitable. Even so, the democrats have been willing to sign on to additional funding for border security. That's what this is supposed to be about. But there's the inconvenient fact that a physical wall doesn't actually enhance border security in any meaningful way.

I'm happy to call out democratic partisan tom-foolery when I see it, but this just isn't a case of that.

[MadMojoMonkey]

The root of my blame is in the fact that elected officials are playing a game of chicken when real hardship is the result of playing that game.
I was no less against the Reps stonewalling the Obama administration.
They are elected to compromise and move us forward. Refusing to compromise should never be an option.

Shutting down the government should never be an option. It should be treason.

EDIT: I'm not taking sides with the Dems, really. I'm against the entirety of this from both sides. My position is to compromise and when the dollar sign on not compromise becomes higher than your worst case scenario in a compromise, then I feel pretty encouraged to point my blamey finger at the Dems at that point.

[CoccoBill]

It'll also set the precedent, that all you need to do is to threaten shutdown to get anything to pass.

[MadMojoMonkey]

That would be threatening treason, IMO.

[CoccoBill]

You seem to be putting morals over practicality then, even when supporting a seemingly practical solution.

[MadMojoMonkey]

What could possibly be moral about shutting down the government, asking millions of people to work without pay, while undercutting their ability to access the public programs that are designed to mitigate this exact kind of hardship? How can the most practical solution to national security be to shut down the national government? C'mon, man.

There's nothing moral or practical about this. It's a pissing match.

Tell me, really... aside from the cost... what's the real problem with the wall? Nothing. We're already a laughing-stock on the world stage. It's not going to have any tangible affect on who is and isn't in the country... it's a bad symbol and nothing more.

Symbols are important, but not worth making a child go without a meal over.

[boost]

T: I'm worried about border security, we should build a wall
Ds: We appreciate your concern even if we don't share it fully, but we propose we do pretty much anything else since a wall won't actually improve border security in any meaningful way
T: I want a wall
Ds: No, yeah, absolutely anything else

MMM: Democrats refuse to compromise!

[boost]

MMM, hundreds of thousands, not millions, but aside from hyperbole, maybe lay off the tired "would someone think of the children!" tact.

You've been alleviated of your poor reasoning for why the democrats are to blame on several points, yet you cling to the claim.

There was a compromise reached in December, essentially the same compromise that put a temporary end to the shutdown. Trump did a 180 at the last minute ensuring a shutdown.

[MadMojoMonkey]

T: I'm worried about border security, we should build a wall
Ds: We appreciate your concern even if we don't share it fully, but we propose we do pretty much anything else since a wall won't actually improve border security in any meaningful way
T: I want a wall
Ds: No, yeah, absolutely anything else

MMM: Politicians refuse to compromise!

FYP

You forgot to mention how not building the wall has now cost us more than actually building the wall.

[MadMojoMonkey]

MMM, hundreds of thousands, not millions, but aside from hyperbole, maybe lay off the tired "would someone think of the children!" tact.

You've been alleviated of your poor reasoning for why the democrats are to blame on several points, yet you cling to the claim.

There was a compromise reached in December, essentially the same compromise that put a temporary end to the shutdown. Trump did a 180 at the last minute ensuring a shutdown.

Step off that high horse, kimosabe.

Families were out of work and out of money over this puffed-up nonsense. Food Stamps and Unemployment claims were going unprocessed because those people were unemployed, too. Forgive me if I think that treating American citizens like disposable trash is wrong for politicians. Forgive me if the notion of an adult going without a meal is less traumatic in my mind than the idea of a toddler going without a meal. I'm not asking you to care about the things I care about. I'm telling you what I care about and how it informs my position.

If you disagree with me, that's fine. No need to think of me as an immoral person for my opinions.

If you want to address some point I've actually made, I'll keep on the subject. If you're just going to insist that either political party has a moral high ground and that I'm somehow taking a side for or against either party, then we're really done here.