Where does profit come from?

[Aisthesis]

Interesting point. I was guessing mine at over 50%, but it's actually 49.62%.

Theoretically, though, shouldn't somewhere around maybe 40% be near optimal?

I mean, it's completely impossible (I think) to filter all of this to get what you're really looking for, but it seems like you're good for the call (in theory) if you win 1/3 of the time upon calling a pot-sized bet.

Of course, there are those pots where it just gets checked all the way to the river, so those are completely irrelevant, since it's just luck there who won it.

Also, in the more normal case where there's some kind of action, you can put your opponent on some kind of hand (and you obviously know your own), so significantly better than the 33% should be the case for winning players.

But I think you bring up an important point: If you're only calling the river when you win 100%, then you're playing way too tight.

Anyhow, I guess I'm also focussing on a particular situation which also doesn't capture all the W$SD situations--namely, where you're calling (or raising) an actual river bet. If it's all-in on some earlier street, then that's also a very different scenario (and on those you really should be significantly better than 50% at least in HU situations).

Well, unfortunately, I see no way to filter these things, but I think it's important to distinguish between various scenarios on W$SD:

1) All-in on flop. Here, I think you should be significantly above 50%.

2) You called a river bet. Here, you really should probably be somewhat below 50%, although I'm not sure how much.

3) You called pot-sized turn bet, but the river was checked. Well, you only need to win this 1/3 of the time for your call to have been good. Then again, if you rivered the nuts, you presumably bet...

[pete fabrizio]

i can't really put a figure on the "optimal" win% for river calls, and it would depend a ton on your type of opponent. however, I'd expect it to be significantly higher than 33%, as those are the worst possible odds you should be taking, and a lot of times you're a huge favorite to be good but raising still isn't profitable.

as for flop all-ins, if you semi-bluff a lot you may tend to be taking the worst of it, especially if you're playing against nits. the pots where you got your opponent to fold while he still had good equity won't be accounted for in the w$s stat.

[Aisthesis]

On the semi-bluffing, that would seem to me to be this:

Filter for "raised flop," take total profit, then subtract the amount you get if it went to showdown. That should be the amount you won on raises if it was folded (but also includes cases where you folded at some point). Anyhow, as stated in the other thread, my stats for raised flops are nearly nothing. Where I made almost all profit was from when I bet.

[pete fabrizio]

that's not going to tell you much since you don't know whether your opponent made good folds or bad ones.

[iggymcfly]

Well, I couldn't find any way to separate all hands that saw a showdown from hands that didn't. The only thing useful I could do was look at my HU hands which are a pretty small sample (just over 1,000 hands). I did find there though that my winnings w/o showdown were miniscule compared to my showdown winnings. Around 5% of the overall total. Which leads me back to the same intuitive feeling I had earlier, that the mistakes your opponents make in big pots will end up making up a very large portion of your profit since they're so costly compared to smaller mistakes you might see and still come up on a fairly regular basis.

[southerndog]

Hi, couple of comments. (I'm a 6 max guy)

1.) 50 plo is VERY beatable, and VERY profitable. I actually splashed around A LOT at these stakes. I built up juicy pots preflop, and basically tried to make good decisions from there.

2.) I played any set very aggressively. I found so many times my opponents were psyched to get it in on [censored] draws.

3.) Pete's right. A lot of the money in this game is made in reading hands and sensing when your opponent is weak, etc. The big pots play themselves. Set over set, monster set vs. top set, etc. In small stakes though, I pretty much look to showdown the best hand.

4.) 50 buyins, good lord. I only have like 20 buyins in my broll.. I hope that doesn't happen to me.

gl.

[pete fabrizio]

[ QUOTE ]
Well, I couldn't find any way to separate all hands that saw a showdown from hands that didn't. The only thing useful I could do was look at my HU hands which are a pretty small sample (just over 1,000 hands). I did find there though that my winnings w/o showdown were miniscule compared to my showdown winnings. Around 5% of the overall total. Which leads me back to the same intuitive feeling I had earlier, that the mistakes your opponents make in big pots will end up making up a very large portion of your profit since they're so costly compared to smaller mistakes you might see and still come up on a fairly regular basis.

[/ QUOTE ]

interesting. i don't have a very large heads-up database either so it's tough to compare.

[jbird]

I think we are overthinking this a bit -- at the lower stakes with mostly calling stations, most of your profit is going to come from big pots that get shown down when you have the best of it.

As you move up to the nosebleeds, most of the pots that get all in to showdown are flips and 60/40's, and much more of the profit comes from non-showdown hand reading and creative plays.

In the mid-stakes its a bit of both. Whoever can do both very well will make a nice profit.

[Hiiiiiiii]

Thank you for all the helpful comments. I reviewed a lot of my hands especially those after I lost a big pot or two. I saw that I started to open hands that I normally wouldn't and played them aggressively. Although it didn't feel like it at the time, this is tilt.

However, I didn't lose very much playing these hands. Most of my loses came from playing strong hands and hitting monster draws and losing to a much weaker hand. My opponents were calling me down very light because of those times that I was playing crap hands, but isn't this what we want?

Here is a fun little hand...



Seat 1: Hero ($259.85)
Seat 2: a ($151.75), is sitting out
Seat 3: b ($46)
Seat 4: c ($166)
Seat 5: d ($141.70)
Seat 6: e ($256.30)
e posts the small blind of $0.50
d posts the big blind of $1
The button is in seat #4
*** HOLE CARDS ***
Dealt to Hero [Kd 9c Td Qs]
Hero raises to $3.50
a folds
b folds
e calls $3
d folds
*** FLOP *** [9d 4s 8s]
e checks
Hero bets $8
e calls $8
*** TURN *** [9d 4s 8s] [2c]
e checks
Hero bets $24
e calls $24
*** RIVER *** [9d 4s 8s 2c] [7h]
e has 15 seconds left to act

e checks
Hero bets $72
e calls $72
*** SHOW DOWN ***
Hero shows [Kd 9c Td Qs] a pair of Nines
e shows [Js 7d Jh 2h] two pair, Sevens and Twos
e wins the pot ($213) with two pair, Sevens and Twos
*** SUMMARY ***
Total pot $216 | Rake $3
Board: [9d 4s 8s 2c 7h]


Seat 1: Hero showed [Kd 9c Td Qs] and lost with a pair of Nines



Seat 5: e (small blind) showed [Js 7d Jh 2h] and won ($213) with two pair, Sevens and Twos




All of our profits come from our opponents mistakes but sometimes there mistakes are why they profit.

[Aisthesis]

That's a really good example of spewing imo. I kind of figured that was what was happening.

Yes, good hand PF. Yes, I'd bet the flop with TP and at least some outs to some kind of winning hand. After that, I start treading very softly. That's really not the board you were looking for, and 99 isn't going to win this at showdown.