Re: Is This Variance?

ACS <a474581@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

On Aug 28 2006 11:12 PM, Gary Carson wrote:

On Aug 28 2006 9:00 PM, ACS wrote:

OK, *when* would a statistical trend make you re-evaluate your play?


Why wouldn't you constantly be re-evaluating your play?

Statistical trend of what?

Did you win or lose in those 186 hands? Do you realize you didn't tells us?

Do you understand that none of those other numbers matter? What matters is
whether you win or lose.

Well, I lost, but I actually thought that that didn't matter.

Of course it matters. Much more than the % hands won matters. In many
games, strategies that are likely to win money, will win fewer than the
normal number of hands. Since your goal is to win money, that part is
pretty important. Win (or loss) rate is measured in BB/Nhands, not pots
won/Nhands.

It "doesn't matter" in the sense that the results of one session is
rarely enough evidence to determine with statistical confidence that you
are a winner or loser against that lineup. You can often determine
that, but only by examining *how* you won or lost, not just by looking
at the results.

OTOH, 186 hands, depending on how much money you lost and how you
selected the hands, might be enough of a sample to give you a pretty
good idea. Enough idea to say either "slow down" or "don't worry yet"
And it's the magnitude of money lost that matters, not the % of hands
won. Poker is scored with money. That's the way the game works. If it
was scored by pots won, it would never be right to fold.

So pots won is largely irrelevant, unless you're using it to look at the
results of some specific strategy. If you're playing extremely nitty in
a very loose aggressive game and folding pretty much any draw or less
than two pair to aggressive family betting, then you'll win very few
pots (maybe only 2-3%) and be a big loser. OTOH, if you're very
selective about both preflop and flop play in a similar game, but
valuing hands correctly for the game (maximizing the pot on big draws),
you could be winning 2-3% of pots long term and be a winner in the game.

To answer your important question:

OK, *when* would a statistical trend make you re-evaluate your play?

No matter how many hands I've played, if I am losing, I start with the
assumption that I am the problem and see if I can convince myself
otherwise. Specifics to the game like "I've onlly seen AA once in 200
hands and it got beaten. I've pushed five good draws with extras in
family pots and none of them made it, then I lost a huge pot with the
nut boat to a guy with quads". These are all examples of the cards or
situation smacking you down. If this sort of thing accounts for my
losses, I don't worry.

If I can't do that, if I'm getting beat by draws coming in roughly on
schedule, getting my bluffs called, losing too much when I call on the
river, or getting dragged into putting in many bets with the second best
hand. I might still be a winner, but the results and the way I'm
getting them certainly aren't suggesting it. If I can't clearly
indentify leaks in some of my opponent's strategies and ways they've
gotten lucky against me, it's time to get out, unless the game is small
enough to be worth playing as a social or learning experience.

And be careful about the judgement on how lucky your opponents are. A
lot of people treat any draw coming in against them as "luck". Good
players manage luck, they maximize their *edge*. Sometimes that means
pushing when the odds are in your favor on a longshot result. One key
mistake that bad and mediocre players make is failing to understand when
your opponents have "gotten lucky" in a sense that will almost never
keep happening in the long run, and when they've "gotten lucky" roughly
in proportion to the amount their strategy vs. your game is expected to
get lucky. When you're losing vs. the latter, it's because they are
better than you.

Remember that the winning player in a typical poker session is almost
always luckier than the losers. The difference with the better player
is that she needs *less* luck than the bad player to get a winning
result and so will get it more often, not that she needs no luck at all.
You can't win this game without luck. The key to good play is not in
some magical ability to win without any luck at all (although
occasionally you are so good and your opponent is so bad that this is
possible). It is in maximizing your profits when you get lucky and
minimizing your losses when you don't. So are you doing that? That's
the real question.


Michael
.

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