Interesting stats observation

[sweetjazz]

I just had a nice 553 hand session of 5/10 full on Party. I looked at my stats for the session and I was surprised by them.

I ran good for the session, so it wasn't surprising that my Won $ WSF was an unusually high 46.03. However, I was surprised to see that my Went to SD was 45.24 and my Won $ At SD was 42.11. Normally these stats would indicate that I was playing quite poorly, throwing away several bets on calldowns when I was obviously beat. So I went through my hands, and I really couldn't find any such hands in this session. (I found a few questionable calls, but nothing out of the ordinary.)

However, I did discover an explanation for my stats, consistent with the fact that I played moderately well today and ran fairly well.

FWIW, I think this gives an example of how obsessing over stats, particularly over small samples, is very misleading.

[sweetjazz]

I don't know when I'll be on again, so I'll include my interpretation of the stats for those interested.

The unusual stats are due to the extreme passivity of my opponents. They missed value bets left and right. Often I had a reason to continue past the flop with a weak hand that was clearly drawing, and the person with the best hand often checked behind the river and sometimes on the turn as well. So I ended up going to SD often with hands I wouldn't have called a river bet with, increasing my Went to SD and decreasing my Won $ at SD. And while I would have folded many of the hands, I might easily have paid off one or two of the missed value bets, particularly those on the turn if I had the odds to peel. Also, I managed to win one pot when I had just enough odds to peel the flop and would have folded on the turn to a bet that never came, and I improved to the best hand on the river. Lastly, I won far too many pots uncontested after the flop. Players were either calling raises with hands they shouldn't have or simply didn't understand when it was correct to try to steal a pot from a PFR or, most likely, both.

It was interesting how many theoretical BBs were lost by my opponents because of their passivity. So even though several of the tables I played at had a VPIP overall around 22%, they were still quite profitable in my opinion, because several of the tight players were too tight and passive, so that the presence of just one or two slightly too loose (and passive) players gave a significant edge to someone who adjusted to the table conditions.

I definitely ran good, but there was also a lot of bets left on the table by my weak opposition, which increased the rate at which I could win against that set of opponents long-term.

[Harv72b]

I love the W$SD & WTSD stats, as everyone knows. But over the month of September, my WTSD is a lofty 37.40%, while my W$SD is what appears to be a weak 57.04%. This is, of course, because I've been running incredibly well this month.

You always need to be careful when interpreting stats from a small sample. I'm far from a math whiz, but even I know that--and it can't be stressed enough on this forum, so thanks for the post. And I liked your analysis on why your numbers appear a little off; good job with that. /images/graemlins/smile.gif

F'in hurricanes. /images/graemlins/mad.gif