Typical Stats

[Festus22]

As I'm sure you already know, I play pretty much exclusively Party $0.5/1. I keep session results and over 80% of my individual sessions fall into these ranges:

% Flops Seen: 24 - 30%
% Pots Won of Total Hands Played: 4 - 6%
% of Showdowns Won: 55 - 75%
% Won if Flop Seen: 14 - 20%

I've managed to be a fairly consistent winner but is there anything from the above that jump out as a problem area? I think one is my overall winning %. I've seen players here reporting 7 - 9%. Does this mean I'm folding too early? Not "buying" enough pots by aggressive betting? I can't imagine anyone playing 25% of the total hands is showing down the best hand 9% of the total hands dealt so they've got to be stealing a few.

[Lost Wages]

Festus,

Are you using Pokertracker? If so you would have the exact numbers for the "one big session" of 100,000 hands or whatever you have played. Trying to draw conclusions from "80% of my sessions fall into this range" is a little difficult. How did the other 20% affect you total average? Anyway based on what information I do have I would conclude:

1) You are a smidge loose preflop. Sessions where I saw 28%-30% of flops would definately fall into the "other 20%" of sessions, i.e. would be atypically loose.

2) You are too tight postflop. Winning 55-75% (a 65% average) of your showdowns is way too high. Huh? Too high?! Yes, you are folding too many marginal winning hands. Combined with the 5% Pots Won of Total Hands Played you are folding too much postflop.

Lost Wages

[Festus22]

Wow, you blew my mind with your #2 statement. Don't I want to be carrying the best hand into the river (or at least the best draw)? Good grief, I even have 4 sessions of 200+ hands where my showdown winning % was 100! I thought that was great since it showed I wasn't giving anything away by calling down losing hands. I thought those were just about perfect sessions. Can you explain a bit more your reasoning and what percentages you feel are desireable?

[ElSapo]

He means you are likely folding a lot of winners in post-flop play. 100% showdown win is far too high, I agree. About twice what it ought to be, I suspect.

[DarkKnight]

[ QUOTE ]
Wow, you blew my mind with your #2 statement. Don't I want to be carrying the best hand into the river (or at least the best draw)? Good grief, I even have 4 sessions of 200+ hands where my showdown winning % was 100! I thought that was great since it showed I wasn't giving anything away by calling down losing hands. I thought those were just about perfect sessions. Can you explain a bit more your reasoning and what percentages you feel are desireable?

[/ QUOTE ]

My stats

W% WSF ~30%
W% at SD 56%
Went to SD 29%

What I think you're doing is trading Win% for $$'s.

As an example, on the river you fold a hand that you
estimate has a 25% chance to win. If the pot is more
that 4 BB's the call is +EV even though you will win
< 50%.

What are some example of folds you are making ?

[Gar Pike]

Would you rather win 100% of 100 hands or 50% of 250?

I think that's what they're saying, that in order to win the marginal ones, you have to show down more hands that will not be winners.

[Ed Miller]

Well, at a ten-handed table, your share of pots won is 10%. As a tight player, your number should be lower. 4-6% seems reasonable... maybe a tad low. 9% is almost certainly too high. I would guess that optimal play would yield maybe 5-7%.

When I was playing online and using Poker Tracker, my flops seen % was around 22% I think; certainly no more than 24%. So actually, now that I think about it, you may have a problem. The looser you play, the more your pots won % should be. If you have a high flops seen % and a low pots won %, it probably means you are folding too much after the flop.

[Ed Miller]

Say you counted how often you won the showdown when you bet on the river, headsup, last to act. That is, you are headsup, last to act, and you bet the river. Your opponent calls you. How often do you win the showdown in this situation? What if that number were 100%? Would you consider your play optimal? If that is not optimal, then what is the optimal number, and why?

[Festus22]

Yeah, that's a good point. I think I see what you're getting at. You're obviously going to win or lose the hand at that point. Period. If you exclude the scenario that your opponent will fold a better hand to your bet, then I'd say something like 60% to be profitable. I think you need to be more than 50/50 because of the possibility of a check-raise.

Sounds like I should post hands that I fold or check-down post flop.

[Ed Miller]

Well in TOP, Sklansky says that you should bet the river if you think that there is a 55% chance that, when called, you will have the best hand. The extra 5% is checkraise insurance. So 55% is obviously the lower bound on the optimal number.

But 55% is also not the optimal number. Why not?

[Lost Wages]

Festus,

Consider a player who plays 100,000 hands and has a 100% showdown winning %. What can we conclude? He is either:

a) Psychic, or
b) He only plays the nuts

Since most showdowns are won without the nuts he is playing too tight and is folding too many winners.

It is easy to have a high winning percentage, just fold if there is any chance you won't win. But remember, postflop the pot is laying you odds.

Think about the river. If the pot is 10BB and it costs you 1BB to see a showdown then you only have to win 10% of the time to make money.

Of course you are not making all of your folds on the river, but the same principle applies to folding on the turn. If it's heads-up, there is 6BB in the pot and your opponent bets, then you are getting 4:1 odds to see your hand through to a showdown assuming he will bet again on the river. Since there is some chance he will check the river your odds are actually better. If you are folding in this situation with better than a 20% chance of winning then you are not making as much money as you could. I think you can see that this extends to the flop though of course your odds are further reduced.

I can't give you a mathematical formula to determine your optimal showdown winning percentage. I can only tell you that from experience it should be in the low 50's.

Lost Wages

[Festus22]

You're betting one to win one, hence 1:1 odds. If nothing else can happen other than he calls, you have to be right 51% of the time to make the play profitable. I can't see any other number making sense.

If he can check-raise, you need to be right more often and I agree that an extra 5% seems reasonable.

If he can fold, then you need to right even less since you could buy the pot with an inferior hand. If he'll fold 10% of the time, then take 50% even money + 5% check-raise insurance - 10% folding chance = 45%. So if you're right 46% of the time, you show a profit if the above percentages are accurate.

What else could there be?

[Ed Miller]

Say you win exactly 55% of all hands where you bet the river (last to act, headsup) and your opponent calls. Well, certainly there were some hands where you bet the nuts and your opponent called, right? That is, in some situations, you were guaranteed to win if your opponent called. Other situations, no doubt you were virtually (if not absolutely) guaranteed to win if your opponent called.

If every time you bet the river, you were exactly a 55% favorite to win, then your magic number of Showdowns won % when called on the river would be also 55%. But you aren't exactly a 55% favorite to win every time you bet the river... that is merely the minimum you have to be to make a bet profitable. Sometimes you are a 100% favorite (because you have the nuts)... sometimes you are a 90% favorite.

Thus, if your magic number of showdowns won when called on the river is only 55%, that means that, to offset those times when you are virtually guaranteed to win, you must also be betting the river in unprofitable spots... that is, when your chance of winning when called is less than 55%.

Therefore, 55% is too low for a "showdowns won when called on the river %". But 100% is too high. 100% means that you are missing value bets... maybe you only bet the nuts (or close to it) on the river. So the optimal number needs to be in between. I'd guess that it is in the 70-75% range. If your number is higher than that, it means you aren't value betting enough. If it is lower, it means that you are value betting too much.

You can go through the same process when you analyze your numbers. If you win 100% of your showdowns, that means that you are not calling enough with marginal hands. There are situations where you have to make crying calls in poker. You are pretty sure you are beaten, but you need to call anyway because the pot is laying you too good a price not to call. You will lose most of those situations... and that is natural. If you simply fold in those spots, your showdowns won % will go up, but you will be making errors that will cost you lots of money.

If your showdowns won % is too high, it indicates that you are playing too tight, especially on the turn and river (potentially a very big leak). If your showdowns won % is too low, it indicates that you are calling too much in hopeless situations. As for what is optimal... I'm not sure. I came to my conclusion about you folding too much by comparing your flops seen % with your pots won %.