[King Yao]

Data:

A: 1,900 hands +1.49 BB/100
B: 2,600 hands +3.44 BB/100
C: 1,400 hands -3.29 BB/100
D: 2,200 hands +5.73 BB/100
E: 9,300 hands +4.81 BB/100
F: 1,000 hands -7.43 BB/100

Total: 18,000 hands +3.21 BB/100

(hand totals may be off because I rounded)

A & B are the same limit. C & D are the same limit. E & F are the same limit.

If we believe that 18K hands is enough to say that I am a +1.50 to +4.00 BB/100 player, then what can we say about the results in C & F? If you were shown those results only, and they had 1400 and 1000 hands respectively, you probably would have thought I was a very poor player. But given the full evidence, you probably wouldn’t come to that conclusion.

My overall VPIP is 41.5 (this may be higher than normal because I have played a decent amount of heads-up and 3 player games). But the VPIP for those two losing limits is 34.1 and 34.8, significantly lower. Maybe this shows I was unlucky with good starting hands in these two limits. Or maybe it means I played more 6-handed games in these limits.

The other interesting number is that in F, I had a Won $ at SD % of only 43.9%, while the overall is 51.6%. Maybe this also reflects that I was very unlucky with the board as well in that limit.

If you only saw the results for C & F, maybe you could guess I was unlucky with bad starting cards (but without the overall VPIP, maybe that’s tough to tell), and unlucky in F with Won $ at SD %. However, it would be tough to conclude that with 15K more hands, the overall BB/100 would be such a big difference. So what does this mean? Does this mean that 1K hands is worthless? Maybe.

Can it be then extrapolated that looking at the results 100 hands of KTo UTG in a 6-handed game is even more worthless? If so, how many hands would we need to really tell if that is a good raisable hand or not? 1000? Maybe, but what if KTo was as unlucky as I was in C & F? 5000 hands? Maybe, but I’m not sure I can get that in an entire lifetime of playing every second of my waking hours.

Now what do you do if you see another players stats of 50 hands at -10 BB/100 with a VPIP of 50. Is that worth anything without actually watching him play? Is it possible just watching him play 5 hands will give you more information about the quality of his play than 50 hands worth of stats? Or even 200 hands worth of stats?

Thoughts?