I'm better against pros. Is this possible?

Looking back over my sessions, it has occurred to me that I just don't do that well at like 9:00 on a Friday night, despite all the blatant errors. Of course, I always just assumed I am a morning person, and tried to tweak my sleeping patterns, instead of the time I play.


But the evidence is just too large, I rarely lose a session against early-afternoon/grind-it-out rocks - the kind of people who I assume build pyramids against the late-night loosies. I do better in the Tommy Angelo hours.


It seems like, against the loosies, your only real adjustment is to tighten up, and then jack it up when you hit. You can't put a read on them, and so it becomes a game of war.


I know it may sound dumb for me to be coming to this realization this late in the game. But I always assumed I was getting lucky against the pros, and unlucky against the fish whereas, in reality, I was "making" my 1 bb/hr against the fish, only it felt unlucky compared to pros whom I could read like a book with half the volatility.


Maybe this isn't that different from Sklansky's realization that he didn't do as well against wacky Gardena draw players, who by chance bluffed approximately the right amount.


You could say I have been losing confidently against tourists, and winning nervously against regulars, like I was getting away with something. But then, as Dynasty has pointed out, I don't actually play poker.


eLROY

When you say against the regulars, I would hope they are in fact not mostly pros.


IME there are many weak players that play regularly during the day and the game can be quite good. Especially if the game is fairly passive for the most part except for perhaps one or two other good players.


Also there are some good players that come in after work and play in those games.


The main difference is probably the wildness which is highly overarted by many for creating good games.


D.

Assume you can see an opponent's hole cards. Would you rather play him heads up or with 5 others in the pot? Many rocky players play so transparently that it's almost as if you can see their hole cards, and so you can destroy them heads up, assuming you can avoid their big pairs. Heads up against a 15-30 pro, very often I'm going to pick up a big bet or the whole pot (or I'm going to escape early), simply by getting inside his head and outplaying him. With multiway action, on the other hand, you can still be forced to fold when you know you have one player beat, and you can be forced to call when you know one player beats you.


Tighter games also get more hands per hour. Blackjack players frequently pass up much higher EV per hand games for higher hands per hour games, and so should poker players.


And of course there is lower variance in a tighter game. In one crazy game I can lose more in one night than I would ever lose over any period of time in a tighter game. That makes a loose game psychologically rough, even if your bankroll is not an issue. However, this fact may be causing both you and I to undervalue crazy games.


I do like the loose games that are off in the extreme, like with 5-way caps preflop being fairly common. Well, they're boring, but I can sit there and wait for big pairs just as well as any rock if I have to, and I think my EV is good in such a game.


What isn't so good are the loose games that don't have much preflop raising but are aggressive in a smart way postflop. There I'm forced to play a lot of suited hands preflop and to jam with strong draws postflop, and that happens to be exactly how my opponents are playing.


My very favorite game consists of one or at most two players who are seeing 50%+ of flops and the rest are passive rocks, with everybody playing piss poor heads up. Call, check-call, check-call, check-fold, thanks for playing, try again. Add a few more fish to this game and I have to make the best hand to win a pot!


Another way in which your observation may be true is if you are misplaying the loose games, of course, but I intend no offense.

One thing I have noticed, playing heads up, is that if I think a little longer on every round of every hand, I can maybe make or save a fractional bet on every fifth hand, or something, and still lose money by it.


It really seems like, if I do have a positive EV, I can quickly cut it in half doing this. There comes a point where my incremental expectation for a particular play is smaller than my per-hand expectation, or my per-play expectation, or something.


Meaning, the more good decisions I can make, rather than the better decisions I can make, the more money I can make. I can use the same amount of time to make two 20-cent decisions, or 1 30-cent decision. I often consider this in ring games, whether my own delay is costing me money, but I don't think so.


Also, it seems almost impossible to get to know your opponents sometimes in these multiway games. I would rather be the fish for a round, and raise every hand to get heads up against face cards with 79o, just so I can know every player and make better pre-flop calling and raising decisions every hand going forward.


This will sound completely ridiculous to Dynasty, I know, but I really feel totally rudderless, and like every round and every blind is wasted, until I've been heads-up with almost every player at the table at least once. Course, if people don't notice this and think I'm "changing gears," then half the fun is gone:)


Course, maybe I just don't like the multiway games because nobody pays any attention to me:(


eLROY

And again there is a blackjack analogy. It's better to play fast than to know 60 strategy adjustments while taking a fraction of a second longer to make each decision.

This will sound completely ridiculous to Dynasty


Why would you say this? Just yesterday, I coughed when the turn action got to me in a 10-20 game at the Mirage. It caused me to delay my action on that hand by about 2.4 seconds. Instantly, I said to myself "That cough just cost me $0.065". I recovered the immediate loss by playing an extra round before going home.


However, I got home later than I expected and ended up falling asleep late. As a result, I didn't get my usual 9.2 hours of sleep and my play this afternoon suffered because of it. I estimate that last night's cough cost me an additional 3.1 big bets today in my 10-20 stud game.


Now I have to sleep 10.1 hours tonight and play an extra 3 hours tomorrow to settle my accounts.

'2.4 seconds. Instantly, I said to myself "That cough just cost me $0.065". '


'Now I have to sleep 10.1 hours tonight and play an extra 3 hours tomorrow to settle my accounts.'


well, you started off good but, unfortunately, you got lazy and ended up rounding to the nearest integer.


as penance you should really have to watch 10 next generation star treks involving Data.


brad

as penance you should really have to watch 10 next generation star treks involving Data.


I love the Data episodes. The episode "Brothers" in which he meets his creator, Noonien Soong, is particularly good. However, the Worf episodes are usually slightly better.

As punishment, you should have to watch all the Wesley Crusher episodes (except the one with Ashley Judd as she is so adorable). That should take the starch out of you.


As a side note, I have the last 2 new 'Farscape' episodes on tape. Do you want them?

"And of course there is lower variance in a tighter game. In one crazy game I can lose more in one night than I would ever lose over any period of time in a tighter game."


You might want to recheck your calculations regarding this claim.


Tom Weideman

The "over any period of time" claim may be too strong if intepreted as "you get to pick any two points in time after the fact to minimize my results." A better way to phrase it would be that I could lose a whole tight game bankroll in one night of a crazy game.