What makes us winners at poker? Well, myself and Noel have been talking about this and
we've come up with a few reasons. One of the things that Noel has said is that a lot of the big pots we win/lose are when one big hand runs into another big hand. Surely these even out though and are pretty much neutral EV? Well, I agree that a lot of these situations are neutral EV. I think that the majority of our profits actually comes from other areas of our play.
I know that when I'm running well I rarely lose medium-big pots. I'll lose 100BB sometimes - normally when I make a bad read, run a big hand into a bigger one, or get unlucky - but the other pots I lose are rarely more than 25BBs. I just do not lose many medium sized pots. I think this is a major reason that we are consistent winners. I haven't asked the other guys in UF2B, but I suspect that their databases will show similar findings.
I've been reading Professional No Limit Holdem recently (which I recommend everybody purchases), and one of the ideas mentioned is that of deciding whether you are committed or not at various points throughout the hand. If you decide that you are not committed, they suggest that you shouldn't be putting more than 30% of your stack into the middle. This is an idea that I feel I've been using myself - albeit without the formailty of having it in writing. I tend to throw away a lot of one pair hands to resistance when I know that I'm not willing to call another bet or bets.
Another reason that we succeed is because we play consistently well. I know for a fact that I'm nowhere near one of the best players around, and I'm probably not even one of the best at my limit. However, I feel pretty confident in saying that I bet I'm one of the most consistent. I play to a very consistent level of play day in, day out. Part of this is due to the fact that I'm very emotionally stable, another part is due to the fact that I don't play drunk/tired/upset/frustrated/etc. The best player in the world might be able to hit 10BB/100 over 20k hands. If he also hits 0BB/100 over another 20k hands he still only makes 5BB/100 over those 40k hands.
A further reason is that I play a ton of hands at each level. I was saying to Noel that I feel ready to take a shot at the $400s on Friday and Saturday nights when there's some really good games running. I also have the bankroll to do it. There's no way I will though because I'm extremely disciplined and wish to prove myself to be a solid winner at the $200s before I try. It's the same with Noel - he's easily good enough to be playing the $200s right now, but he's chosen to prove himself at the $100s over a large sample of hands. I think this benefits us for when we move up in terms of having confidence that we can beat the level below, as well as acquiring a lot more poker knowledge at an easier level which will, in turn, make the step up easier.
Lastly, I think a major factor that separates solid winners from others is the amount of study they do. In my opinion, studying and analysing the game is more important than actually playing. Every single player who plays is going to be getting better at poker - even the fish. If you don't work hard to get better yourself, they will catch up to you, or even overtake you. Keep working hard on your game, analyse your hands, post on forums, read books and articles, watch Cardrunners videos (and watch them actively), and you'll stay one step ahead of the rest.
There are plenty of other reasons that we win and some others don't. The most obvious one, and this is what I lived by when I played limit, is that we make more with our winning hands, and lose less with our losing hands.
Maximise your profits, minimise your losses.
- DODGYKEN
Friday, September 7, 2007
Why do we win at poker?
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2 comments:
If you have all your hands in poker tracker it shouldn't be too hard to pull some hard numbers on this kind of thing. There's a table in the PT database that lists each hand and what everyone won or lost on that hand so compiling the data would be fairly easy...assuming you know how to use Access.
I think you are absolutely correct in saying that when playing well winners don't lose the medium-big pots. I haven't looked at the hard data but my sense is that this is absolutely correct for me and my game.
I don't think, though, that this necessarily means that's where the profit comes from though of course it plays a part.
I think it really depends on who you're playing. At the lower levels or when playing with idiots I think you can win just by not losing big pots without big hands. In these cases the big pots aren't neutral EV because you're not willing to lose them without a big hand and your opponent is.
Sometime this weekend I think I am going to compare my good stretches to my bad stretches and see what kind of pots the profits and losses come from.
I would be very interested to see a comparison between a winning 25NL player and a wining 200NL player. Knowing where the differences in profit come from would give an idea of what parts of the game to work on at which levels et cetera and so forth.
This is another really interesting post Martin and Noel .I am pretty sure that there may be a few more questions from me...but the first is " Do you think , or are , the majority of big hands where we win are the ones that we call or are they the ones where we get called . I would guess that its the ones where we are called , which suggests that maybe we should take a lot more care on the hands where we are calling big . Is that correct
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