[AlanBostick]

I am conducting a serious review of my results in stud/8 using Poker Tracker. I have 46,000 hands under my belt -- I wish I had more, but this is enough for a start.

One of the things that has surprised me right away is how poorly baby straight-flush starters have performed for me. Ray Zee compares them to rolled-up trips in terms of their strength; and yet roll-ups are returning me an order of magnitude more in big bets per hand. Roll-ups of all ranks yield 2.23 BB/hand on average, whereas baby straight flush starters with no gaps yield 0.60 BB/hand.

I've been treating straight-flush hands like the Holy Grail, jamming with them on third street and playing them fast on later streets. It would seem that, while small straight flush starters can win some big pots, they often win or split small ones, and in addition, because I have been playing them so strongly, I have to peel when I catch bad, and the pot gets big enough that I have to call down with mediocre finishers. I wind up losing significant amounts in the hands that I lose. Straight flush starters tempt me into violating stud/8's cardinal rule: get away from your hand when you catch bad.

Ray Zee says in his book that straight and flush starters like to see multiway pots for cheap, because of their significant implied odds when a couple of hands get there on the later streets and the betting gets jammed. I have been playing straight flush hands like they are the holy grail, front-loading the pot, tying me to it. Maybe I should be a lot less aggressive with these hands.

I notice that my results with suited baby one-gappers are better than with no-gappers, perhaps because I am less in love with them. I haven't gone over my data on two-gappers yet.

Ray Zee writes that the real strength of strong two-way starters like these are the implied odds on the later streets when they hit something strong and can jam. Implied odds hands are hands that want to start out for cheap. And when you start out for cheap, it is easier to give it up when you catch bad. In practice I have been doing exactly the opposite: Playing these hands hard early, winning a bunch of small pots, losing some big ones, and not scooping enough to make up for the losses more than a bit.