[raistlinx]

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What is your STD DEV for your sample size?

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Right, I'm going to run some checks on my hand history tonight and see.

Honestly, not everyone's sitting there with PT, HUD and number coming out of their ears when they play poker.

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I understand that. But you claimed to be the math guy and yet you are making claims (granted "conservative") on the validity of win rates given a small sample size without having done the math to determine how large a sample size you actually needed. This is not how math is done.

Since you are new to poker why don;t you start by asking some established posters what kind of a STD DEV they observe and then calculate how many hands you need to be within your chosen confidence interval on your win rate?

As a base line, assuming a STDDEV of 40ptBB/100 hands you need something like 614,000 hands to be 95% confident your true winrate is with in 1ptBB/100 of the observed winrate.

So honestly, 2,000 hands tells you absolutely nothing.

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I said I was a mathematician to give some context to the situation, not because I wanted to be mathematical in this thread. I could have asked what a typical S.D. was and gone away and done some calculations, but instead I asked for opinions. The I was amazed how conservative they were!

Anyway, do you think 40ptBB/100 IS a common standard deviation?

Over 2000 hands that would make the standard error in the mean WR 8.9ptBB/100. But say over those 2k hands I have been winning at $5/hr, which I make around 40ptBB/100 at 10NL (60 hand per hour). Then all of a sudden our confidence interval is about 20-60ptBB/100 (or $2.50 - $7.50).

So you see why I say I am beating this game for $3/hour?

btw, what makes you think I am new to poker? The only thing I am new to is thinking about poker as income.

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But the point is 2,000 hands is not enough to even start doing these calculations. If I said I played 10 hands and was beating the game for 40ptBB/100 wouldn't you laugh?

Honestly, 2,000 hands isn't any more significant than 10.

PS: you are completely ignoring the effects of some 6-10 BI downswings on your win rate, which is where you are going wrong in your thinking.