SNE: I guess I give up // PT stats question (Warning: VERY LONG)

[Martin Aigner]

If this rather belongs to the SSLHE forum feel free to move it there!

OK, a couple of weeks before I was pretty sure I wouldn´t be able to make 1 million VPP. I knew that this would be the top level, and although I was pretty sure that the benefits would be great I simply thought I would not be able to reach that many points. In the past I used to play almost exclusively SnGs. I guess 95% of my 350k+ VPP came from SnGs.

So 1 million wouldn´t be out of reach by playing SnGs obviously, but I do live in Europe. To make that many VPPs you have to play the 210+15 and higher. You hardly can make it on the 105+9 and definetly can´t make it on the 55+5. Since I do have a full time job it´s not possible for me to play in the late nighttime (US evening), and you simply don´t find that many SnGs at that high level at the time when I can play. Especially on weekends during european daytime there are usually only 4-6 210+ SnGs going, and you have to multitable big time to make that many VPPs. For all these reasons I was sure not to be able to make 1 million VPP.

Then Stars announced the new program. To tell the truth, at the first moment I thought it sucked. I was really disapointed, since for players like me, who can realistically make something like 500k VPP/year the new benefits weren´t that great. But obviously the SNE was real nice. I calculated for some time how to be able to make it to SNE level, and I thought there would be a way to do it by focusing on cash games. Obviously the 5/10 6 max would be great for earning VPPs. And obviously I was sure that I would make some money along the way by playing as well. So here I went...

After 4 or 5 days I switched to full table games. I simply couldn´t stand the 6 max anymore. I got killed terribly. I know that I wasn´t playing optimally in any way, since I never played 6 max before and had to get used to the flow a bit. First I started by playing highly aggressively. Preflop it was raise or fold, no call (unless in SB or somebody raised my BB). Flops were hardly ever called, again I either raised or mucked. I also played very aggressively on turn and river. Results. I got KILLED. I learned that Blind stealing hardly ever worked. No matter what they had, they called me. Don´t get me wrong, I was still playing mostly hands with high card value and pocket pairs. Hands like small suited connectors I hardly ever played, and if then only on the button trying to steal the blinds. I don´t have to say that I hardly ever succeeded, and so I decided to play high cards only. Still with very bad results. (Semi-)Bluffing didn´t work out. I hardly ever hit a draw, and my opponents hit bottom pair on the turn too often. Hard to get away from these hands [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

So I changed my style. Played more passive preflop and on the flop. It turned out to be the better way for me, which meant: I lost less money in the same timeframe as I did when playing aggressively. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]

Here some stats from my 6 max tables (3/6 and 5/12)

Hands total: 17690

AA: 88 times (win 81.82%, 2.29BB/hand)
KK 77 (75.32, 1.95)
QQ: 79 (77.22, 1.54)
JJ: 77 (62.34, 0.96)
TT: 69 (69.57, 1.49)
99: 81 (56.79, 0.33)
I made money with 88-22 (0.21 - 0.05BB/hand)with the exeption of 33 (lost 0.25BB/hand)

I guess the average WIN% is pretty standard, but I definetly thought that the BB/hand would be higher (at least for the higher pairs). Whats your stats here? (Of course I know that 17k+ hands is quite a small number. I´m just curious about others stats)

Non paired hands:

AKs: 55 (56.36%, -0.26)
AKo: 183 (60.66, 0.41)
AQs 53 (50.94, 0.12)
AQo: 171 (52.63, 0.00)
AJs 56 (48.21, 0.19)
AJo: 151 (48.21, 0.19)
ATs 64 51.56, 0.00)
ATo: 157 (49.04, 0.25)
Won small amounts with A9s - A2s (between 0.43 and 0.1 BB/hand)
Lost with any other Axo exept A7o (-0.03 to -0.25BB/hand)

Losing with AKs and not making money with AQo on 6 max tables!!! Ouch.

KQs: 54 (46.3, 0.15)
KQo: 163 (44.17, 0.25)
KJs: 48 (47.92, 0.17)
KJo: 170 (41.76, 0.21)
KTs: 42 (50.0, 0.48)
KTo: 170 (34.71, 0.24)
lost money from K8s and K9o downwards (only 2 exeptions)

QJs: 55 (38.18, - 0.53)
QJo: 169 (35.5, 0.16)
QTs: 60 (36.67, -0.2)
QTo: 15 (18.67, -0.36)
Negative on all Qhigh hands exept of Q7s, Q7o and Q3s (you gotta know how to play the old Q7 [img]/images/graemlins/wink.gif[/img] )

Negative on pretty much all the other hands!!!

Total: - 3.316$, 2.22/100 hands.

Well, again, 17k hands are way to less to know whether I should be able to beat that game. I felt insanly unlucky while playing, but I obviously also know that I didn´t really know how exactly to play properly. So I decided to switch to full table LHE ring games. I only 8 tabled the 6 max, but I 10-12 tabled the full table games (I´m used to 16 table the SnGs, so 10 tabling wasn´t too tough to get uesed to). I`ve been winning in 3/6 - 10/20 online LHE for the last 6 years (but as mentioned before I played very little for the lase 2-3 years due to being able to make more $ in SnGs) and live 10/20 - 30/60. So i thought I should be able to beat these games while 10-tabling easily and still make some nice VPPs. The new plan was to get used to the game while at least 10-tabling (when I used to play LHE ring more frequently years ago, I only did 3 tables max), and then move up to the 10/20.

Since there aren´t 10 5/10 tables going all the time (when I can play), i played 3/6 as well. So my below mentioned stats are:

2.871 hands at 10/20
11.866 hands at 5/10
12.590 hands at 3/6

AA: 107 (81.31 win%, 2.06 BB/hand)
KK: 134 (67.16, 0.75)
QQ: 135 (63.7, 0.56)
JJ: 124 (69.35, 1.31)
TT: 131 (52.67, 0.84)
99: 111 (45.05, -0,1)
88: 120: 36.67 (0.17)
77-22 pretty much breaking even with 0.1 to 0.0 BB/hand.

These stats are horrendous, right?

AKs: 76 (60.53, 0.25)
AKo: 255 (54.9, 0.39)
AQs: 83 (66.27, 1.02)
AQo: 246 (55.69, 0.39)
losing money with AJo and A8 and worse.

KQs: 78 (37.18, 0.15)
KQo: 227 (29.96, 0.25)
KJs: 94 (37.23, 0.15)
KJo: 260 (15.77, -0.13)
Losing money on pretty much every K high hand KJo and below.

Q high hands: Losing on every Q high hand exept for Q9o, Q8s, Q8o.

J high hands: Won with JTs, JTo, J9s and J8s, lost with the others.

Lost with virtually all T high hands and lower (exeptions: T9s, 97s, 86s, 75s)

Summary: - 2.153$, 1.09 BB/hands. the only level I won money at was at the 10/20 (0.35 BB/hands)

So I guess this all shows: I suck at LHE, both at full tables and 6 max when 10tabling. Or maybe I was just very unlucky (I definetly felt so [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img] )

Some other stats, and I really would like to know what you think of them, since it might give me some insight whether I really was just unlucky or simply played badly. I did the auto rate player (using the default rules given from PT)

PT tells me I´m Semi-Loose-Aggressive/Aggressive. Anything wrong with that? Actually I would have thought I would be tight aggressive, but obvioulsly I don´t fit into that category. Do you guys use the same (default) rules from PT or did you change them?) What´s your rating from PT?

Vol. put $ in the Pot: 17.25
Vol. put $ in from SB: 29.48
Folded SB to steal: 82.37
Folded BB to steal: 52.74
ATT. to steal blinds: 30.26
Won $ WSF%: 36.95

Went to SD%: 31.93
Won $ at SD%: 56.38
PF raise %: 9.26

Summary of 12 days trying to make SNE level: 5.4k$ lost. 31k VPP earned. 3 winning sessions. 14 losing sessions. Biggest winning session: $350. Biggest losing session: 1k+. 12 days of keeping playing while getting sucked out and not hitting 15outs draws. 12 days of more or less frustration.

I think that´s the biggest problem here. I´ve been playing poker for more than 10 years now, and I do know about the swings. I´ve had my share of good runs as well as I had the bad ones. I thought I could handle the swings mentally rather well. But I also knew that I wouldn´t want to become a pro (although I made more money playing poker than in my job ever since 2002), because the long losing streaks would be way tougher when poker was your only income. Actually, when I ran extraordinarily bad in the past, I usually quit for some time (2 weeks - 2 months). When I came back I played better and managed to be less influenced by bad beats.

Trying to qualify for SNE makes me sort of a full time pro. OK, I still have my regulary job, but I have to play lots of hours a day/week to manage to make the 1 million VPP. I simply can´t afford the luxary of taking one or two months off. This is something I might not be able to get used to. I guess this experience just gives me more respect to all of you full time pros.

I don´t say that I already completly give up after 12 days. I might just go back to some SnGs for a couple of days. Trying to get some confidence. I just hope that I don´t get killed in these as well. And if it works out, I might go for SNE again in a couple of days. But I know that it would be a VERY tough year [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Any comments welcome.

Best regards

Martin Aigner

[tautomer]

I guess try playing fewer tables and see if that helps any.

[mbpoker]

I doubt that SNE is designed for semi-pros. Especially if you have to play the games which are not your best.

[TheScientist]

Thinking you could just jump into 3/6 and 5/10 LHE games and win right away was overly optimistic (to put it lightly). If I had to guess I'd say this is not variance, but more likely this is a reflection of your actual skill. These games are in no way comparable to those you would find at a casino, and are no where near as soft as they were a few years ago online.
I'd stick with your SNGs for now, and start learning limit during slow times when there arent many SNGs of your level going on.

[SoCalRugger]

I think completely changing your playing habits just to increase your VPP hourly rate is a recipe for disaster.