Gold from mid/hi
 

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GoT did some calculations and concluded that it's possible for a "true" 1.8/100 winner to win like 3+bb/100 or .5ish bb/100. Combine this with the fact that players are bound to change their play from the beginning of a meaningful stretch of hand to the end, and obsessing over your bb/100 rate is little more than an act in futility.
-James

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Come on. This way oversimplifies things. Just because it's possible for a 1.8 player to run at 3.0 or 0.5 doesn't mean it's likely. As the number of hands increases the level of confidence in the BB/100 number undoubtedly increases, but that does NOT mean that the number is meaningless after 25k or 50k or 100k.

In other words, to paraphrase Peter_Rus' idea, is it possible that someone running at 2BB/100 after 50,000 hands is really a losing player? Yes, possible. Is it likely? No. Stated another way, just because something isn't "statistically significant" doesn't mean it's meaningless.

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Eh, I'm getting questions now about this so I figured I'd specify. I ran 100 samples of 100k hands each for a 1.80 wr, 16.90 sd player (or 100 different players with the exact same true winrate and sd under the circumstances). Note this test would assume winrate is constant per 100 hands, i.e. no changing game conditions, no tilting, etc. Out of the 100, the highest wr was 3.47 and the lowest was 0.42, with the total wr over the 10 million hands being 1.95, meaning the player(s) was/were running hot for these 10M hands, and not just by a little, yet still one of these samples was as low as 0.42 bb/100.

On the subject of sample size, obviously 100 trials is far too few to come to any reliable conclusions. But these results made me think of variance and the long run in LHE quite differently. If two people playing the same game were to present to me their last 100k hands and one was earning 0.5 bb/100 and the other was earning 3.5 bb/100, who would I think was the better player? Obv, the 3.5 guy. But how much doubt would there be in my mind as to whether he was better or not? Apparently there should be room for some. Winrates just do not converge NECESSARILY until millions and millions of hands. For some they will, sure. Some of us will run close to our true earn for our lifetimes and will rarely or never venture to the upper amplitude of our SD. Others will run hotter than our true earn lifetime; some a little and some A LOT. Same goes with running cold. Some of us will find the very outer bounds of what our SD is capable of, and others won't even get close.

So what determines who among us will get rich and who stays stagnant or drops down? Better players will have a better chance at success of course, and success on a greater scale. But even a WCP could very conceivably end up having to drop down to lower limits while a mediocre player may rise to the big games, maybe never even realizing they're as good as they truly are. It might not even be a stretch to say this HAS happened.

So poker skills being equal, what determines who becomes and millionaire and who keeps playing 15/30? I don't know. QM? Sure. Maybe God DOES play dice with poker, I don't know. What I do know is that this (along with continuing to learn and appreciate Zen philosophies) has helped me come to realize that results, even on an extremely broad or lengthy scale, should be meaningless to me. And I don't mean meaningless in the sense of how I view the game now. I mean in the sense of how I feel I should STRIVE to view the game. We as a group have trained ourselves to not care about 200 bet swings, about 20k hand down periods. None of that comes naturally of course, but as we learned more and more about the nature of LHE we came to accept those things as just part of the package and we learned to deal with it. In the same way, I'm attempting to continually make myself immune to results, period. Not just short-term, but long-term as well. I want to approach this game theoretically and conceptually, without the hint of any wins or losses clouding my judgement. Ridding my conscious from any and all results, period; that is the goal. I'm not there yet by a long shot, but given what I think I know about this game and the philosophy and approach I feel is best for me, my goal is to be constantly progressing toward that state.

GoT

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

i have nothing to add, but good post.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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i have nothing to add, but good post.

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When I have a downswing (down 100 Bets tonight) I look at my long term graph in pokergrapher to feel better about it. From now on if I'm going to try and do without the emotional reassurence and just work on my game some more. It's all about working hard on your game.

Krishan

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Brighton rocks.

Seriously... I worship this man.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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i have nothing to add, but good post.

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When I have a downswing (down 100 Bets tonight) I look at my long term graph in pokergrapher to feel better about it. From now on if I'm going to try and do without the emotional reassurence and just work on my game some more. It's all about working hard on your game.

Krishan

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How about only checking results every 10k hands or something like that? I've been considering trying this kind of thing for a while. The only part that worries me is if my account were hacked somehow it would take a long time before I realized it.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Dan, last Friday I vowed not to look at my cashier or pokertracker for one week. I still haven't (week ends Friday). I made a bet w/ my friend that the first person to look pays the other 25. So far it has worked well. I recommend

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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Dan, last Friday I vowed not to look at my cashier or pokertracker for one week. I still haven't (week ends Friday). I made a bet w/ my friend that the first person to look pays the other 25. So far it has worked well. I recommend

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Hey Dan, lets do it! Except lets make it 50 since thats the min. transfer. it will have to be on the honor system though...

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

i find honor system works well, b/c for me the EV of making this bet is WAY beyond 25 bucks.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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How about only checking results every 10k hands or something like that? I've been considering trying this kind of thing for a while. The only part that worries me is if my account were hacked somehow it would take a long time before I realized it.

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If your account gets hacked, your money will be gone before you can do anything, even if you look at your balance all the time.

I did this for a while (not look at my balance) and it really was nice, I definately would recommend it.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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Dan, last Friday I vowed not to look at my cashier or pokertracker for one week. I still haven't (week ends Friday). I made a bet w/ my friend that the first person to look pays the other 25. So far it has worked well. I recommend

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Hey Dan, lets do it! Except lets make it 50 since thats the min. transfer. it will have to be on the honor system though...

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I'd consider doing it too

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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i find honor system works well, b/c for me the EV of making this bet is WAY beyond 25 bucks.

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yeah thats waht I was thinking.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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Dan, last Friday I vowed not to look at my cashier or pokertracker for one week. I still haven't (week ends Friday). I made a bet w/ my friend that the first person to look pays the other 25. So far it has worked well. I recommend

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Hey Dan, lets do it! Except lets make it 50 since thats the min. transfer. it will have to be on the honor system though...

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I'd consider doing it too

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lets do it. I think im up right now and am super tempted to look, but I havent yet. Id be ready to start right now.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

I'm down. I had been planning something like this for a while but couldn't think of anyone to do it with. Now how does the whole thing work?

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Holy crap this is good stuff. Thanks krishan.

It's reasurring to read as well...I tinker with the sample size calculator every so often just to make sure i'm not crazy. I've played what felt like the best poker of my life for the last week and I'm breakeven - I look at my 0.4 BB/100 over 50k hands to make myself feel better(I'm a winner! yay! It's still $50/hr with rakeback!)

I feel like I'm that "cold" player GoT talks about... I've seen some absurd stuff happen for an absurd # of hands (sub-48% W$@SD over 17k hands, breakeven for 40k), but I'm still trucking and my game keeps getting better. It's the dedictation to improving oneself that is important - the results are immaterial as long as we keep learning.

Surf

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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I'm down. I had been planning something like this for a while but couldn't think of anyone to do it with. Now how does the whole thing work?

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Hey Entity, I'll do this with you bro. (Or sthief, nlsoldier, et al, whoever!)

A good way is this - go into PT and open the "general tab." Now, we can adjust the size of the summary stats - it's actually possible to make $won/lost and BB/100 so small that we can't see the numbers! So, click on the edge of the field and slide the little line over until you can't see the numbers/colors...

Voila! Now we can check how many hands we've played in a given day / week and not see our results. This is imporant for me because i've got daily hand goals, so I need to make sure I exceed them.

If you're interested I'd be happy to start the bet with a 1 week, no-looking-at-results challenge. We could do 2 as well...exchange PMs and then we're off... $25 or $50 is a good sum since it's little compared to the EV of tilt-free play for a week.

I guess if we break down and look we pay the other the set amount. Maybe after breaking once the $ amt goes up by $5 or something, to discourage further weakness?

Surf

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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I'm down. I had been planning something like this for a while but couldn't think of anyone to do it with. Now how does the whole thing work?

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Hey Entity, I'll do this with you bro. (Or sthief, nlsoldier, et al, whoever!)

A good way is this - go into PT and open the "general tab." Now, we can adjust the size of the summary stats - it's actually possible to make $won/lost and BB/100 so small that we can't see the numbers! So, click on the edge of the field and slide the little line over until you can't see the numbers/colors...

Voila! Now we can check how many hands we've played in a given day / week and not see our results. This is imporant for me because i've got daily hand goals, so I need to make sure I exceed them.

If you're interested I'd be happy to start the bet with a 1 week, no-looking-at-results challenge. We could do 2 as well...exchange PMs and then we're off... $25 or $50 is a good sum since it's little compared to the EV of tilt-free play for a week.

I guess if we break down and look we pay the other the set amount. Maybe after breaking once the $ amt goes up by $5 or something, to discourage further weakness?

Surf

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It's a deal. Once a week for now, sound good?

I'll configure my PT in the morning so I can see hands, stats, VPIP, etc., but not results.

Rob

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

I was all excited to do this but then I folded the winner in a 20BB pot and now im in a bad mood [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

I did this for 2 weeks once, it was hard as hell.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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I did this for 2 weeks once, it was hard as hell.

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It depends. I did it while overbankrolled at the 5/10 for almost a month, it was easy and comfortable. I did it at 10/20 for a week and found out I was on a 200BB downswing, that wasn't fun to see that big red number.

Surf

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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It's a deal. Once a week for now, sound good?

I'll configure my PT in the morning so I can see hands, stats, VPIP, etc., but not results.

Rob

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Awesome. Wednesday the 21st to Wednesday the 28th. $25 or $50? *Sets up pokertracker*

Surf

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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It's a deal. Once a week for now, sound good?

I'll configure my PT in the morning so I can see hands, stats, VPIP, etc., but not results.

Rob

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Awesome. Wednesday the 21st to Wednesday the 28th. $25 or $50? *Sets up pokertracker*

Surf

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Let's do $25. I'm running really bad right now. [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

I'll setup PT in the morning to double check for this.

Rob

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Excellent post.

I think we would do well to borrow a saying that has served Alcoholics Anonymous so well for so long, only maybe we should append it a little:

"One day (hand) at a time."

While we're at it, we might as well add

"I'm not okay (at poker), you're not okay, but that's okay."
"Act (play) as if."

and

"Life (poker) is difficult."

Cliche as they may be, they also contain a lot of truth that a lot of people choose to ignore daily here and elsewhere.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

why not just the losers pay 50 to a pot that gets split up amongst the winners

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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why not just the losers pay 50 to a pot that gets split up amongst the winners

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id be game for that

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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why not just the losers pay 50 to a pot that gets split up amongst the winners

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Too much for a lazy ass like me to keep track of. Surf and I already agreed to do it as a buddy system, but if he wants to switch and y'all want to do it that way, I'm game as well.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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why not just the losers pay 50 to a pot that gets split up amongst the winners

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Too much for a lazy ass like me to keep track of. Surf and I already agreed to do it as a buddy system, but if he wants to switch and y'all want to do it that way, I'm game as well.

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me me and sthief could just be buddies [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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why not just the losers pay 50 to a pot that gets split up amongst the winners

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Too much for a lazy ass like me to keep track of. Surf and I already agreed to do it as a buddy system, but if he wants to switch and y'all want to do it that way, I'm game as well.

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me me and sthief could just be buddies [img]/images/graemlins/blush.gif[/img]

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I'll be buddies with more than 1 person - more money to lose so it'll keep me on-task.

Surf

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Sweet. I'm in.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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Sweet. I'm in.

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do you just want to be my buddy or do you want a 3way with sthief?

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

3-way seems good. More chance of someone screwing up.

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How do you not look at your account balance when buying into tables?

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

You gotta squint and make your vision blurry while you do it.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Does anyone think that PT has become counterproductive to them from an analysis standpoint? Certainly, it's great from a data mining standpoint when used in conjuction with a HUD. Aside from that, it's the center of our poker sins because so many of us spend so much time looking over the numbers, which really don't help us improve. For beginners, the numbers might be helpful in identifying possible leaks, but when was the last time PT helped a solid 5/10+ player find a leak?

Lately I've been wondering if Pat could make a shell app that would just import hand histories into the db. That way I would be less tempted to open the ring game statistics to see how green or red my numbers are.

Anyway, the longest time I have gone without looking at PT is 3 days. 20 minutes is my norm and that needs to be changed.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

wow, deep. maybe we should actually spend less time working on our game and more time appeasing the poker gods? i know i'd rather be the lucky guy with a killer winrate than the great player who just can't move up.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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A good way is this - go into PT and open the "general tab." Now, we can adjust the size of the summary stats - it's actually possible to make $won/lost and BB/100 so small that we can't see the numbers! So, click on the edge of the field and slide the little line over until you can't see the numbers/colors...


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I never knew the mechanics of how to do this. Thanks a ton!

Krishan

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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Brighton rocks.

Seriously... I worship this man.

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You should learn to spell his name correctly before you proclaim undying love for him.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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A good way is this - go into PT and open the "general tab." Now, we can adjust the size of the summary stats - it's actually possible to make $won/lost and BB/100 so small that we can't see the numbers! So, click on the edge of the field and slide the little line over until you can't see the numbers/colors...


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I never knew the mechanics of how to do this. Thanks a ton!

Krishan

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Oh, yeah!! I'm loving it. Nothing but black numbers.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

this is my mentallity and what i strive for... in print.

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

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I did this for a while (not look at my balance) and it really was nice, I definately would recommend it.

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Why did you stop? [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img]

Re: Gold from mid/hi
 

Yes, this is a great idea. Everyone who looks at their pokertracker results or cashier over the next week should transfer me $25.