High cards and single pairs

[onnel]

I've now played 17K hands. This is not a great sample, especially considering they are my very first 17K hands ever and so not really representative of my current play, but I think still useful for the purposes of my question.

When I look at my winnings per final hand, I am a significant loser when I end up with a high card or single pair. My most common final hand is a single pair (not a great surprise, I think), comprising 44% of my final hands, and yet I have lost 39% of my total winnings with single pairs.

Numbers:

Total winnings (total from all hands 2 pair or better):
1749.55

Total lost from high cards (including non-paired blinds folded without a bet):
764.20

Total lost from one pairs:
698.53

So if I could know at the beginning of a hand that I would end up with only a high card or a single pair, I could fold the hand preflop and increase my earnings drastically. Obviously, this is impossible and yet I feel like I should be learning something from this.

I am very much a newbie, so it quite likely that I am still making very fundamental mistakes. I cannot complain too much though, I am still a net winner of 3.56 BB/100 in my first 17K hands. Hopefully I'll still be after my first 100K!

Thoughts or observations?

Onnel

[onnel]

I've reposted this to SSSH where it actually belonged. Although it is a beginners question, the answer may well be specific to shorthanded play.

Onnel

[Mustafa]

You don't say what types of games you play. One pair or less isn't going to win many hands if you play low limit games.

[AKQJ10]

[ QUOTE ]
You don't say what types of games you play.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's a problem -- so I'm going to tailor my answer to either limit hold 'em or NLHE.

First off, I like the way you're thinking about the game -- considering the value of hands not just in the abstract, but in terms of what your hand can turn into. Now go review either the preflop section of SSHE (limit) or the large-stack section of GSiHE (no-limit). In short, you want to play only the very best "top pair" hands with two big unsuited cards. Something like KTo or Q9o may look attractive because it can easily make top pair, but its value will be eroded by the second-best hands it makes. Conversely, pairs and suited connectors can make sets/full houses and straights/flushes, respectively. These are hands that can drag bigger pots, either big multi-handed pots in limit or big implied odds through players paying you off with their second-best hands in NL.

That's just a summary -- go reread the respective book for the game you want to play, and think about it with respect to this topic. I'll bet this will become clearer over time as you win huge pots with 77 or 98s because of these principles.

[onnel]

Thanks very much for the thoughful reply. As I mentioned above, I had reposted this to the small stakes short-handed forum. I wanted to provide a link to the discussion there in case it interested any other beginners:

Discussion in SSSH

Firtstly, I wasn't filtering out hands that I folded in Poker Tracker. After doing that, my pairs and high cards both turned out to be winners (though slight - 5$ total - in the case of high cards). This makes sense when considering blinds folded or flops seen but immediately folded.

Nevertheless, I think I could still be making a higher margin on my single pairs (and probably even top cards) and will do some re-reading with this as a focus.

Thanks again!

Onnel

[pzhon]

PokerTracker does some things that are very misleading, and I think you have been confused by it, as have most people who have posted similar threads in the past.

First, PokerTracker keeps track of how your hand improves after you fold. Apparently, I have lost with quads several times. I can't remember losing with quads when I have a card of that rank, and I think it would be memorable. What has happened is that I have folded something like 66 unimproved or bottom pair on a KT6 flop, and then the turn and river were 6s. So, even if you would have had one pair on the river, you might have folded with no pair, and that adds a loss to one pair category.

Second, PokerTracker gives you credit for the strength of the board. If you fold 72 on a KKQT board, PokerTracker says you had one pair. (If the river was seen to be a ten, you had two pair.) Many of the times you had "one pair," you had actually missed the board completely, but the board was paired. I suspect that most of the time you lost with two pair also came from paired boards where your hand would be better described as 3rd pair, not two pair.

Both of these factors lead people to undervalue high pairs and top pair. These are huge money-winners. See this post for typical equities of high pairs in multiway pots against random hands.

[onnel]

Great link pzhon, thanks!

It would seem that I cannot use the PT "final hand" stats listed for any really meaningful purpose. A shame really. does anyone have any suggestions to ther contrary?

Onnel