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Old 11-14-2007, 11:07 AM
pzhon pzhon is offline
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Join Date: Mar 2004
Posts: 4,515
Default Re: starting hands only with + ev

The PokerRoom data is very valuable. However, poker is not just a game of reading the strength of your own hand. You also need to consider the strength of your opponents' hands, given the betting action.

ATo shows a profit from the button, but you will lose money if you play it after a raise and reraise in front of you.

K9o is a losing hand on the button, but you should have a profitable raise if everyone folds in front of you. K9o plays poorly after several players limp in, but it does well against the garbage hands in the blinds. K9o wins a significant amount of money on the button 3-handed.

Also, when you are in the blinds, you can't break even by not playing. You don't get to take your blinds back, so the point of comparison is losing 0.50 BB in the big blind, and about 0.25 BB in the small blind. This is most relevant when you are in the small blind, since in the small blind you don't get a free flop even in an unraised pot. Hands like A2o lose more money from the small blind than the cost of the blind, so players on average would have been better off folding it every time. You should be very selective about when you play A2o from the small blind.

Another important factor is that Pokerroom averages the results of all players. Most players lose. You are probably going to be a better than average player very soon, if you aren't already. That means you may be able to play some hands profitably where an average player would lose.

As someone else noted, PokerRoom's stats are from limit. If you are playing NL, then you want to make a lot of changes. For example, you should play tighter in early position in NL than in limit.
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