How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

In post after post, its common for someone to ask about stats and w/r's after just a few thousand hands. General answer is at least 10K hand sample. Then ofcourse, comes the 10K checkup posts.

The reason I'm asking, is because after 11K hands at 2/4, I'm losing money. After 2-3K hands, I wasn't worried. 5-6K, it started to bother me. After 11K...well I'm a bit baffled.

I have 70K+ total hands in PT. Around 25K at .50/1 with a "very good" wr. About 35K at 1/2 with a "solid" wr. A few thousand more winning hands from Pacific and UB at the same limits, not in PT. And then ofcourse the Party 2/4 hands. Even with the 2/4 hands my overall wr at all limits is still solid.

So, how likely is it that I'd go on an immediate losing streak trying to move to the 2/4 limit? How concerned do I need to be?

Its EXTREMELY frustrating reading posts like "if you can beat Party 1/2 for a significant amount, 2/4 will be no problem".

What the hell am I missing in the transition? And more importantly, how concerned should I be about losing after 11k hands?

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

10K isn't that significant. I'm not doing very well after my first 10K at 2/4 either, and I PWNED .5/1 and 1/2 for like 30K hands.

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

I started at 1/2 6-max and did really well. What i would recommend is what i did and that was play 1/2 until i had $1500 in my account, and then take a shot at 5/10 6-max. This is the so-called "schneids plan" and it worked well for me and a few others. However, if you don't do well at 5/10 at first, you should go back to 1/2 if you get down to 900 and rebuild because you know you can beat that game. I think that the 6-max games are where the money's at. I don't know much about the 2/4 6-max at stars, may want to look into that if you don't want to make the jump to 5/10. I think it's worth the shot given the security that you can beat the 1/2 game. As far as the 10k hands, i wouldn't worry about it, i'd say you can evaluate yourself at around 30k and retool if needed.

It is not significant
 

225K is a sample size where you can judge you results more accurately.

Re: It is not significant
 

225K hands!!!! What if your play changes during the time you played 225k hands. Would that make the measurement meaningless? In other words, you are no longer taking a snapshot of your play.

Re: It is not significant
 

If your play changes during the course of collecting data THEN of course it affects the data.

What are you going to tell me next?
That the sky is blue and grass is green?

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

The fact is that there's no real good benchmark sample. Any sample large enough at the same level, and either your play and/or the texture of the game will have significantly changed.

Be cautious, play within your means, drop down to recuperate if necessary, and keep improving. Eventually, if you were solid at .5/1 and 1/2, you'll turn it around at 2/4. But always realize you have holes to plug up, and never put too much stock in your specific winrate.

If you're playing tight-aggressive, and constantly working on your game, then you'll be a winner at 2/4 inevitably.

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

You might want to check out Homer's variance thread.

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

Play less hands, study more.

If you dont know if you are beating a limit after 10K hands you dont know what you are doing.

Surely you know why you are better than the players you are against? If you dont then you have problems.

I dont worry too much about luck/variance when it comes to stats.

If you are getting rivered frequently then you are having a bad run, if you seem to catch gutshots and flushes everytime you are getting lucky.

Check the frequency of high PPs to determine how good your cards have been. Getting a certain PP is 220:1 from what I remember so if you have only got AA-JJ around 30 times each out of 10k hands then you have been on a bad run as far as the cards go.

These are your big winners so they make a lot of difference.

I get worried if I start a new limit and am losing after the first few thousand, 5-6k is a big worry.

Post some hands and read more, you obviously havent adapted to $2/$4 very well.

Re: How Significant Is The \"Benchmark\" of 10,000 Hands?
 

[ QUOTE ]

Post some hands and read more, you obviously havent adapted to $2/$4 very well.

[/ QUOTE ]

Well, I can't argue with that. So you feel like 10k+ hands is enough to get feel if you can beat a certain level?

The games are pretty soft. I don't see much difference in play from the lower levels.

I suppose if I just look at my last 4k hands, I'm doing all right...but thats a pretty small sample.

I guess my main concern is how likely is it that a winning player would go through 10k+ hands losing money. And if I need to stress over it as much as I seem to be doing?