Question for David Sklansky or other probability/poker theory experts

[soon2bepro]

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So you are losing at Party and winning other places. Try playing a different site. Just try it. Why not?

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Because I can't find any reasonable explanation for that. I don't pride myself in making irrational decisions.

The games at party are much softer, I have a very good unmentionable deal since I'm in a team of affiliates, there's plenty of tables, and the software is good enough. All of my friends and most of the sound people I've talked with agree in all of this, too. And they're proving it by making a killing in party as opposed to other sites.

[soon2bepro]

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Someone earlier mentioned a std. dev. of about 50 BB/100 should be common.

A TAG player pushing good edges and avoiding too many coin flips will have a low std. dev.

A player pushing very single edge > 50%, even if in theory that should be +EV, will have an extremely high std. dev.


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I don't play totally LAG, but my usual style is more of a LAG than a TAG player. Opposition calls for it.

26.38/17.76/2.26 over 200k hands
23.96/16.13/2.02 over only the last 50k hands
23.86/15.39/1.56 over only the last 19k hands

So my post flop agg factor has been dropping. Hmmm.

[wizexel22]

Soon2bepro,

Haha, damn, ok I guess you can't be impressed with my observation skills. Yeah, my post was pretty useless if you are playing online. I only play live games as I think I have an advantage there, but my technical skills are not yet fine tuned enough for the online game. I tried it for a while and won money, but I cashed out after a month or so cuz I just found it harder than the live games.

Honestly, I don't know what to say, and I'm not really qualified to answer, but I just answered your question cuz I THOUGHT I went through something similar and your question intrigued me.

Some other ideas I'll just throw out there. Do you think maybe you are being TOO aggressive at times? Which isn't necessarily bad. But when I went through my losing streak, I felt like I was playing decent poker. I made correct reads and was crazy aggressive against draws. But due to bad luck, instead of being a huge winner those nights, I'd be a huge loser. If I had a made hand against a draw, if I could've only won a couple I'd break even. Instead, it seemed I'd lose every one and because I was trying to punish the drawer so hard, it ended up costing me big. My philosophy back then was to play big pots and put people to tough decisions for those big pots (which also means at times I was faced with very tough decisions also). I was probably too cocky and thought in the end I would outplay people in terms of those big pots. I would go all in for thousands of dollars trying to punish draws but due to a long streak of getting sucked out on, and instead of having a big bank roll to start playing $100/200 limit (the game I was trying to get into at the time) I found myself broke and back at the $4/8L and $100NL tables. (BTW, the 3 biggest pots I've played in my life, I lost them all to 2-outers....which really sucks.)

Since then I've tried to play more "small ball" poker. I try to manage the pot better and pick up pots here and there...and there is usually a couple bad players at every table and so my goal is to just increase my stack enough and hopefully hit at least one "home run" a night. I feel like this small ball approach limits the "luck factor" more as your opponent can't just get lucky on two or three gigantic pots...and this allows you more opportunity to outplay your opponents and experience less swings. So since my "losing streak"...I've won about 20 sessions in a row. Most of them being just modest winnings. On nights where I can get a couple "home runs" I win big...but on nights I take bad beats, I have still left with a small amount of money also.

Another thought might be....(and you can correct me on this)..is that I felt like the online game was MUCH looser than live games. The LAG style seems to be mainstream now online, whereas there are still a great deal of very tight players in live games. So I wonder with so many online players adapting to this LAG style in the recent past (which I think is the reason the online players are having great success particularly in live tournaments) maybe tightening up more would benefit. I am naturally a tight player but have been getting looser and looser to open up my game, however, I find myself tightening up again more now just because I am running into more and more loose players again.

Again, I'm not the most qualified guy (compared to most on this site, I'm a relative newbie to poker), but I think your problem is an interesting one, and I'm curious what a pro would say.

Oh, and can you tell me what those numbers (ie. 26/17/2) mean? I see those numbers here and in poker magazines all the time but they assume I already know what those numbers mean....but I don't. =)

[soon2bepro]

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Some other ideas I'll just throw out there. Do you think maybe you are being TOO aggressive at times? Which isn't necessarily bad. But when I went through my losing streak, I felt like I was playing decent poker. I made correct reads and was crazy aggressive against draws. But due to bad luck, instead of being a huge winner those nights, I'd be a huge loser. If I had a made hand against a draw, if I could've only won a couple I'd break even. Instead, it seemed I'd lose every one and because I was trying to punish the drawer so hard, it ended up costing me big.

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Again, you want them to call with bad odds. If they then proceed to draw out on you then tough luck, but that's poker.

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Since then I've tried to play more "small ball" poker. I try to manage the pot better and pick up pots here and there...

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Actually, smallball poker is the most aggressive form of poker. You take stabs at small pots, but rarely call a bet from someone else.


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(which I think is the reason the online players are having great success particularly in live tournaments)

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The reason online players are winning in live tournaments is because there are so many of them. Take the WSOP. How many of the players won an online satellite to get there? 90%+? Im not sure, but somewhere close to that.

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Oh, and can you tell me what those numbers (ie. 26/17/2) mean?

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Sure.

The first number means Voluntarily put money in pot %. So what this means is with what percentage of hands you end up voluntarily choosing to put money somewhere in the hand (blinds don't count as voluntary).

The second number means PF raise %, it means with what percentage of all the preflop hands you're raising. So if you have 26/26, that means you raise pre flop with every hand you choose to play. If it's 26/13, you raise with half of them. (calling a raise doesn't count as raising, re-raising does)

And the third number is the post-flop aggression factor. This is calculated as: number of times you made a bet or raise divided by the number of times you made a call. So if you have a 2 post flop agg factor, this means that for every call you make after the flop, you make two bets or raises. This number is much more relevant in limit than in NL, as in NL small and huge bets can screw your statistics, but it's still useful to know.

[wizexel22]

"Again, you want them to call with bad odds. If they then proceed to draw out on you then tough luck, but that's poker."

Yeah, in theory that is true. But I'm just saying instead of laying bad odds, I would lay terrible odds for them. Which in theory is great too, cuz their calls are now HUGE mistakes. But I'm just saying, I went through a run of SO MANY bad beats, that I got extra hurt by my run of bad luck. So my style was to always build big pots and then I would lose these huge pots. Its almost like betting if a guy will hit a home run that game...and lets say the guy averages 1HR per 5 games. Well, in the long run if you continue to bet a friend but he is playing with bad odds (say you lay him 3 to 1), you will eventually win money. (Say you bet $100 a game for all 162 games.) Now let's say instead, theres another guy that hits a homerun 1 time in 10 games. And you get those same 3 to 1 odds. With such great odds you bet $10,000 which is a tenth of your entire life savings. You lose (costing you $30,000). You randomly do this 2 more times and you lose! You just lost your life savings.

I know this is wrong. And that when you have an edge you want as much $ in the pot as possible. And that's just poker. And that in the long run you'll win. But I went through SUCH a long streak of bad beats that getting all my money in on those hands really killed me.

Anyways, your case is just really weird and intriguing. I don't know what the deal is. Hope you respond if you ever "find the answer" cuz I'm curious! Good luck though!

[BobK]

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Say, I was playing against a total pay station last night. 6 handed game. His numbers after about 300 hands were 92/1.2/1.86, though his real post flop aggression factor was more like 0.03, since almost every bet he made was a min 1 blind bet, no matter the size of the pot. He rarely bet large and didn't particularly do it with his made hands, in fact he did it more with bluffs than made hands. He had no concept of pot odds, he just looked at how large the bet was regardless of the size of the pot. Especially PF. And he had a very wrong idea of what a winning hand was. He was calling large river bets with K high or bottom pair.

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Was he an overall winner calling with those hands against you?

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I saw other players at the table weren't adapting. 3 of them were playing very TAG, and for most of the time the other one was a very loose-passive guy who was pretty bad.


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These foolish non-adapters were the ones that took him for 800bb while you were losing 150bb to him. Do I have that right?

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So I adapted by playing 52/38/1 (real agg factor was more like 4.5). I was limping in with a lot of crap hands like 95o from the button and any 2 from the SB. If I had any A, any two J or higher, KT, or any pair, I would raise to somewhere between 5 and 14 big blinds, knowing the pay station would call no matter what I raised.

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So, you intentionally made the pots large at the beginning while playing mediocre hands. All the while knowing you were going to get played with. Do I have that right?

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I also made several plays to try and get the pot heads up with him. Once I managed it, If I got any pair I would overbet the flop, then if I had anything better than mid pair with a decent kicker, I'd keep betting until showdown, though usually smaller (he wouldn't call "big" amounts so easily).

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So, you started by making the pot big and then betting small, thereby giving him correct drawing odds. Do I have that right?

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If I didn't flop a pair I would check it and call if the odds were good enough (which they almost always were).

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You made the pot large to begin with by raising mediocre hands, so you could call with nothing on the flop. Do I have that right?

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Until I did hit a pair, then started betting. A lot of times I'd bet ace high for value on the flop, too.

[/ QUOTE ]Then you let the guy know where you were at by betting out when you caught something. Is that right?

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Hand after hand I kept confirming my play was correct, only hand after hand I kept getting sucked out.

[/ QUOTE ]You confirmed this how? By paying him off hand after hand?

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He would call 1.5 times the pot with an inside straight and get it. Or call 2 times the pot at flop with a bad overcard, then call again a 3/4 pot bet at turn, and get it by the river. Etc, etc, etc. Of course I would win many pots, but he kept sucking out on me in most of them.

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Suckouts happen, but from what you said above about betting small after the flop because otherwise he wouldn't call, I wonder about your perception of the odds you were really laying him in most of the situations.

If I were you I'd hold off a couple weeks on turning pro. I think you might have a leak someplace.

[soon2bepro]

BobK, you're a total jerk. You think you know how to play and talk about how stupid my play and it's all simply because you don't understand it. You make me sick.

However I will control myself and explain to you why my play was right.

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Was he an overall winner calling with those hands against you?

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He won some of my money, but not by outplaying me. I think I made that clear.

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These foolish non-adapters were the ones that took him for 800bb while you were losing 150bb to him. Do I have that right?

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Again, you're not getting that I had way more advantage than them over him, I just got very unlucky.

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So, you intentionally made the pots large at the beginning while playing mediocre hands. All the while knowing you were going to get played with. Do I have that right?

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I intentionally made pots larger while I had the best hand, and while I knew that I would completely control the betting from then on, giving me huge implied odds, yes. I don't know what you mean by getting played with. He wasn't a tricky player. I said multiple times he rarely bet any significant amount.

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So, you started by making the pot big and then betting small, thereby giving him correct drawing odds. Do I have that right?

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No, you don't have it right. I'd bet 1.5 times the pot @ flop. Then I'd bet 0.75 times the pot at turn. Then I'd bet half the pot at river. If the board was drawy, I'd bet even more. I simply bet smaller later on because I knew that's how I'd get him to pay me with total garbage. And I would only bet smaller than that if a large percentage of our stacks were already in, so I wasn't laying him good odds.

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If I didn't flop a pair I would check it and call if the odds were good enough (which they almost always were).

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You made the pot large to begin with by raising mediocre hands, so you could call with nothing on the flop. Do I have that right?

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You're not reading what I said. His bets were almost always a min 1bb bet. It didn't make a difference how large the pot was. In fact the larger the pot, the more likely I'd have the correct odds to call.

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Until I did hit a pair, then started betting. A lot of times I'd bet ace high for value on the flop, too.

[/ QUOTE ]Then you let the guy know where you were at by betting out when you caught something. Is that right?

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That's correct, I was giving my hand away. But again you're overlooking the fact that this particular opponent didn't think about what I had. It's not really giving your hand away if your opponent won't notice or won't alter his play because of it.

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Hand after hand I kept confirming my play was correct, only hand after hand I kept getting sucked out.

[/ QUOTE ]You confirmed this how? By paying him off hand after hand?

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Yes, by paying off his 1bb bets in 120bb pots... Sometimes paying off a bet larger than that, up to 1/3 of the pot by the river, he almost never bet more than that if the pot was that large. Or checking it down... Or having him call my 1/4 pot bet with a made straight, or whatever.

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Suckouts happen, but from what you said above about betting small after the flop because otherwise he wouldn't call, I wonder about your perception of the odds you were really laying him in most of the situations.

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Again, I wasn't betting "small". You're not reading what I said.

[BobK]

I see. You feel you've been playing very well, and only want people to commiserate with your 125,000 hand run of bad luck.

Far be it from me to make further queries in an effort to get you to think.

[soon2bepro]

I'm fine with criticism, but you're very wrong in mostly everything you said, and you're being a real jerk about it too.

[Tiger_Kid]

It sounds to me a bit like you weren't trying much to feel out what he had on each hand. I realize this is very difficult to do, especially online, but if you don't know what you're betting into, how do you know you're making the right play?
You can generalize and say that on average making this play is correct, but it doesn't allow for you to adjust per hand.