Finding new leaks - my losingest hands

[tiltaholic]

Hello all.

I just wanted to give a shoutout to you micros for helping my game immensely as I pass another poker milestone (10k hands at 1/2 - thank you empire reload).

So, I would like to take this time of self-reflection to ponder ways to improve my game even more. I am inspired by bison's "big picture and small mistakes" and ed's "what's my biggest leak" posts and, acting under the assumption that 10k hands is enough to see large problems, i am listing my 7 losingest hands because they surprise me.

as free time permits i will be replaying all of these hands to see if any patterns emerge or if i just got bitchslapped by variance. my primary question is to sollicit constructive and creative methods to determine whether i am chronically misplaying these hands as i think i am. if you were me, what would you do?

and the hands are:
7. A2s (maybe unlucky)
6. KJs (wtf?)
5. JTs (i probably overvalue this hand)
4. K5s (probably a holdover from when i played Kxs at .5/1)
3. K7s (likewise)
2. QTs (?)
and the most losingest hand-
1. A8s (wtf again?)

-t

[jrz1972]

Over 12k hands or so at .5/1, I've noticed that AXs is a pretty consistent money-loswer for me as well. I have no idea why. I know better than to overplay TPNK with this hand, I know to pump flush draws, etc, yet I can't get this hand into the +EV territory. So I guess I'm glad to see somebody else in the same spot.

[jacks321]

Axs is also a loser for me over about 15,000 hands. It seems that the times i win with this hand don't make up for the amount of times I end up folding on the flop.

[aron]

Just curios about what people think would be a good way to adjust loosing Axs.
To stop playing them unless you are in small blind or unless virtually the whole table has limped before you on the button?

-aron

[jacks321]

Inspired by your post I decided to take a at my losingest hands and see how they compared. The ones that surprised me in my top 10 were:

1. 99
2. 88
4. AQo
5. A9s
6. 33

the other 5 weren't surprising. But it appears that medium pocket pairs are a big leak for me.

[Wario]

You really don't have enough hands. Although 10k is a big number each hand's individual sample size will be very small.

You should be winning with all these hands if you are playing them correctly. Review a large number of hand histories for +EV hands that you are losing lots with and see if it's just bad luck.

After 10k hands at .50/1 I was losing with AKs at (.40BB/h). It's just variance.

[jaxUp]

A2s is a flush drawing hand almost exclusively. My guess is you play it in pots with too few callers.
KJs: you are possibly having a combination bad run and/or too many gutshots or BDFDs. Probably just running bad.
JTs: many micro limit players overvalue this hand. Again, best played against a large field.
QTs: see above.
A8s: Your kicker is rarely good if the ace hits. Play from lp with lots of limpers.

Good idea to look at these hands. Interesting post.

[Aaron W.]

Are you looking at them *AFTER* filtering out the hands where you did not VPIP?

10000 is nothing for this sort of individual hand analysis. If you're nice and tight preflop, you've got 2000 actual hands to look at, which is roughtly 1.5 times seeing each of the 1326 individual hands. This comes to about:
- 9 times seeing each PP
- 6 times seeing each suited hand
- 18 times seeing each offsuit hand

Now factor in position... and situation (was it raised?)... and table ocnditions... You get the idea?

[Shillx]

This thread is pretty disturbing. A lot of you advocate real weak-tight play with Axs. I almost never play them, but they are winners for me. Flopping a pair of aces with a low kicker is a strong hand. Folding just because you don't get a flush draw is crazy. Something like A6s with a pair of aces and a backdoor flush draw is a good hand. Making laydowns with top pair becuase you are afraid of your kicker is what drives these hands into the red region.

I'm getting my ass kicked with small pairs (almost never play them) and QJs (a hand I love to play). It's doing (.26) for me with 41000 total hands logged. /images/graemlins/cool.gif

Brad

[GrunchCan]

A2s is a flush drawing hand almost exclusively.

This is just so wrong, it's practically right again.

A2s gets as much or more value from it's top-pair strength than from it's flush strength.

[GrunchCan]

Gawd, there are so many posts like this, and each one is a bear trap.

You can't find post-flop leaks by looking at stats. At least, not unless you have 100K hands or more.

Post hands. It's the only way to find leaks.

[tiltaholic]

hey grunch

i respect your posts and all that jazz, and you know a lot more than me...but: [ QUOTE ]
You can't find post-flop leaks by looking at stats.

[/ QUOTE ] is just false and misleading.

though i understand where you are coming from and wholeheartedly agree that hand posts are usually more enlightening across the board. i will post some hands as i review them, hopefully.

the purpose of my post was to stimulate thought, self-reflect (as a way of forcing me to look at my hands), and to get people to think about either:

-which hands might surprise them in a similar fashion
-that pokertracker stats can be used in different ways other than autorating others and winrating oneself
-that one's game may not be encapsulated by ones vpip, pfr, total agg, and wtsd every 10k hands...
-etc.

thanks to all that have responded so far, it appears i have to do work today, so i'll try to post some more thoughts in response later tonight...

-t

[GrunchCan]

Well, maybe I was a little too absolute in my condemnation, but I really, really think stats are overvalued. I see a lot of people talking about stats like they hold The Key to better play. But that attitude results in people playing for stats, and not the other way around.

One stat that I think is valuable as a kind of leak detector is W$SD. If it's too low, you probably take marginal hands too far. If it's too high, you might fold too much at the end.

But even W$SD can't tell you what your leak is. It can only tell you where to start looking - in this case, at your river play of marginal hands. Helpful, but not definitive.

[GrunchCan]

I'm getting my ass kicked with small pairs

For cnfzzd's january challenge I'm playing all small PP from UTG. Just a week ago I was very conspiciously ranting that everyone should muck 22-66 UTG. Now I'm really working on playing them, and I can tell you they are much more valuable than I first thought.

[Shillx]

Yeah but small pairs can't win the bad beat jackpot, so you are in effect costing yourself .05 BB everytime you win with them. It makes the smallest pairs just about unplayable from EP at an unknown table.

I agree that they should be played at a normal table.

Brad

[tiltaholic]

yeah. i agree.
i posted earlier about getting "trouted" by someone who autorated me on about 30 hands worth of stats.

regarding stats posts in general, it's always easy to ask easy questions...especially when PT and GT provide so much "data".

-t

[GrunchCan]

bad beat jackpot

I hadn't even considered that. That probably does change thier value considerably.

[meep_42]

[ QUOTE ]
This is just so wrong, it's practically right again.

[/ QUOTE ]

I just wanted to tell you before I stole this line for myself.

/images/graemlins/laugh.gif

-d

[GrunchCan]

I get 1 SB for each use. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

[tiltaholic]

hey jacks-
do you mean - collectively all of them (all xs) are losing?
if so, something might be amiss.
if its just a few of them, it likely just signifies variance. many times, one hit or missed flush makes all the difference, as 10k hands is a short time.
-t