Although I've been playing poker for decades, I've only recently been approaching it in a studious manner. Which is why I post this here. I've been experimenting with how to apply the S&M hand groups to preflop play in the low-limit games on Paradise and have had a long patch of what I think is bad cards.


Last night my plan was to play Group 3 or better from early position, 4 from the middle and 5 from late(with a couple positional plays with looser hands in late position). This is tighter than I normally play. Although this is too small of a sample to draw any real conclusions from, I kept track of 100 hands and came up this:


I called 18 hands preflop, including free rides on the BB. Voluntarily playing about 15% of hands seems really low, so my QUESTION is: Is this just a string of bad cards, or is to be expected to see an average of Group 4 hands only 15% of the time.


Of those 18 "playable" hands, only seemed 6 worth betting on after the flop, of which I won 4. At the end of the session I was down 13 big bets. My second question is similar to the first: Is having only a third of my "playable" hands worth postflop play reasonable, or am I playing too tight/passive? Playing only 6% of hands seems like a losing proposition considering blinds and the rake, even I were to squeeze every last drop out of my winners. Thanks.