[sweetjazz]

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I for one have never responded to DERB threads and am not really surprised by his results -- though the magnitude of his success is shocking only in that he is running slightly hot. Notice I say slightly, since he's def a winning player IMO.

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I find the DERB thread interesting, because there are clearly benefits of playing hands aggressively. Many of the hands he is adding may well be slightly profitable and even the ones that are not are probably just barely not profitable. The one thing that surprises me is that people say he raises a lot in EP with quite weak hands; this only makes sense to me if he has a lot of fold equity postflop from this kind of play. Maybe some inexperienced and/or weak players haven't observed these loose standards.

But the other thing that surprises me is that some of his plays, taken in isolation, look horribly bad. Calldowns with A-high when the action indicates that opponent has solid values, almost certainly TPTK or better. Do you think it is likely that these plays are made because DERB (1) has a read that the other player might be playing back with nothing b/c of DERB's image and/or LAG-induced tilt, (2) DERB is trying to encourage a reckless image with a very loose call, or (3) neither of these reasons?

Would you be bold enough to suggest an estimated range for DERB's true winrate?

Can you estimate what affect reducing his VPIP to 25% (but keeping the same postflop style) would do to his true winrate?

Same question with 20% instead of 25%?

Does anyone think DERB is a bigger winner because of the extra hands he is playing than if he weren't playing those hands?