I recently came across an interesting quote...

[Richie Rich]

[ QUOTE ]
you dont need any more than 10K hands to get a good figure of your winrate and you need WAY more than 50K hands to get accurate numbers for individual hands. the sample size you'd need to know if you're playing Q4o profitably, for example, is so insanely large that discussion about collecting that number of hands is nothing but solipsism.

[/ QUOTE ]
On what level is this correct? Or is it? Discuss.

[Schneids]

We've been over this many times already...

In 10,000 hand stretches I've been down, and in 10,000 hand stretches I've been around 10BB/100. The first half of the statement is woefully incorrect.

The second statement is very accurate. I know I had a 70,000 hand stretch with AQs being a loser (AKs, AJs, ATs, A9s all respectable winners). 200,000 hands later AQs wins more than AJs, as it should.

[MicroBob]

[ QUOTE ]
the sample size you'd need to know if you're playing Q4o profitably

[/ QUOTE ]

I am fairly certain you shouldn't be trying to play Q4o profitably and that it is not realistic to attempt it.


[ QUOTE ]

you dont need any more than 10K hands to get a good figure of your winrate

[/ QUOTE ]

This is incorrect.


[ QUOTE ]
you need WAY more than 50K hands to get accurate numbers for individual hands.

[/ QUOTE ]


This is correct.


[ QUOTE ]
solipsism

[/ QUOTE ]


I don't know what this means.

[Robk]

you dont need any more than 10K hands to get a good figure of your winrate

false

you need WAY more than 50K hands to get accurate numbers for individual hands

true

the sample size you'd need to know if you're playing Q4o profitably, for example, is so insanely large that discussion about collecting that number of hands is nothing but solipsism

false

[Richie Rich]

Thanks for your quick feedback, Schneids. Obviously "good" hands like AQs can show a loss over an extended period of time (ahem, AKo is one of my worst losers right now)...but do you think hands like Q4o can show a profit in the "super" long run? Say, over 500K hands?

[Schneids]

If you have 500,000 hands of HU poker, then yes it's possible depending on the skill level of your opponent.

If you're playing full table I see no way it's possible for bad hands like Q4o to be shown as profitable after 500,000 hands.

I'm not at my computer right now but I'll check my PT database and see if there are any abberations in my PT database after however many hundreds of thousands of hands I've played thus far.

[Richie Rich]

I appreciate the quick feedback from several respected 2+2'ers. This topic has been discussed and agreed by many more well-known posters in the past, so it almost seems pointless to drag this on any further. But for some reason there are still TOO MANY posters in this forum who still think 10K hands is a large enough sample to make conclusions about a player's win rate. Over the long run, it's not.

I recently had a 10K hand run, for instance, where I made $30/100. Not bad for the stakes I was at. But over the next 10K hands, I only made $10/100. And still, many other winning players have had dry spells where they only break-even over 10K or even 20K hands. I'm not expecting or hoping to go through the same drought, but it can certainly happen.

While it's true that some players can put up 10K hands in a week, whereas it takes some others several months to do so, ask yourself this simple question: "How 'big' is a 10K hand sample in your poker career?" Really! For most more-than-recreational players, it's less than 5% of the total hands that they'll play over the next TWO years.

Just a little food for thought.

[Yobz]

I have a question, and since I dont feel like starting the 34983543852398479328th post about # hands, I'll ask here:
Many people say you need many tens of thousands of hands to get winrate (even 100k+), but how many to know you are a winning player? I've been playing .5/1 for 10k hands at 5.6BB/100 (according to PT) and obviously I cannot sustain this for 100k hands, but how likely is it that I am a winning player?

[bicyclekick]

pretty likely.

[bernie]

[ QUOTE ]
you need WAY more than 50K hands to get accurate numbers for individual hands. the sample size you'd need to know if you're playing Q4o profitably, for example, is so insanely large that discussion about collecting that number of hands is nothing but solipsism.

[/ QUOTE ]

If one needs 50k hands to know if they're playing Q4o the right/most profitable way, they have a serious learning impairment to hold em and should probably take up another game.

b

[lacky]

actually a good player can probably maintain a 5 BB/100 win rate at party .5/1. There is no point to it though. Play 20k more hands. If your win rate is still above 3 move up. Play another 30k and move up if your over 2 BB/100. .5/1 is a good starting point and a good proving ground, but you are giving up money if you stay there too long.

Steve

[Shillx]

There is about a 99.96% chance you are a winning player, just for the record.

[swede123]

[ QUOTE ]
There is about a 99.96% chance you are a winning player, just for the record.

[/ QUOTE ]

Actually, it's more like a 99.95834% chance. Let's not give the man bad advice.

Cheers,

Swede

[fimbulwinter]

first off let me say that this is taken far out of context.

Richie rich is angry at me for disagreeing with him on a number of topics. these are our opinions, they differ. he's sent me private messages continuing his crusade to convince me of the need to accumulate massive numbers of hands to say anything about play.

The truth is this:

- The Quote was made in reference to NL specifically, NOT limit play which, as we all know, carries much higher varaince.

- The quote was made within the context of determining if one is a winning player and if so, roughly by how much.

- The real reason he is doing this is that some other SSNL regulars have somewhat agreed with me that you can know if you are beating a game, specifically a NL game by examining both your winrate after 10K hands AND your play. if you examine the play and see if you are making the right moves over the vast majority of choices, i personally feel that such evidence is adequate to say you are beating a game.

- He's also convinced that, because i have not suffered a massive downswing in buyins (my largest has been 4) that i am not an experienced NL player. he's an advocate (as are many regs) of (in my opinion) insanely large bankrolls for NL games, which i feel is just silly. as ciaffone says, if poker is the only way for you to eat, then get 600BB's or 30 buyins or whatever, but realistically, you can play in a game with one buyin if you're prepared to go broke. my bankroll started with two 25NL buyins and, after i cashed it all out, i started again playing again with one $100 buyin at intercasino. I now have many times what even a conservative estimate would be for a good BR at the 200NL games. yes, starting out short affected my play, but i feel that chiding people for playing out of their league is silly. people know the risks, brow beating them via an internet forum is not helping.

at this point, i have played enough poker and won enough money at a wide array of NL games that i feel strongly about my opinions. In my real life i am ostensibly an independant leader. because of this i spoke down to richie rich in previous posts, and for that i apologize. i will not, however, sit idly by while someone, out of spite, misunderstanding, or personal vendetta takes my comments out of context in an effort to make himself feel better. I stand by my opinions and those who i respect in this poker forum may or may not agree, but they at least have had the decency to consider them rather than brushing them aside as the comments of someone who is de facto wrong because he doesnt agree.

[SinCityGuy]

[ QUOTE ]
I've been playing .5/1 for 10k hands at 5.6BB/100 (according to PT) and obviously I cannot sustain this for 100k hands, but how likely is it that I am a winning player?

[/ QUOTE ]

If you have read and digested some good poker books and spent a fair amount of time in the 2+2 strategy forums, I'd say there's a 100% chance that you're a winning player at .50/1.00

[Cerril]

Neither did the original person in the quote. I wasn't really sure how believing you're the only intelligence in the universe is relevant to this discussion.

As for the rest, that's pretty much correct. 10k hands is the bare minimum, really, to make an educated guess about -whether- you're winning or not, but nothing about your actual rate.

Maybe if you add a '0' to each of those numbers you'll have a better representation

[1800GAMBLER]

So after all this big long arguement you only have the same conclusion as before.

You are right. Richie rich is an idiot.

You should have saved your time and just listened to everyone on the forum.