Talking about Winrates

[QTip]

I just got done reading through JoshD's thread his stats and not being that good at a given winrate, and this is what I'm thinking:

I just started reading "The Psychology of Poker", and this is a statement that Alan Schoonmaker (self-admittingly not a great poker player) had to say.

"Most poker writers could probably beat me, het I'm a long term winner, while more skilled players - including some experts - often go broke. Why? Because I'm honest about my abilities and select games carefully, while they deny there limitations, and keep trying to beat better players or the wrong kinds of games."

I thought this was a great paragraph, and it sounded like he was talking about me.

Josh posted his winrate at 3/6 and said "I'm not that good." I think saying that is ridiculous. I don't think any of us can look at our winrate, compare it to someone else's or what is the standard "norm" and say "I'm not this good, or better than them" or whatever.

We've all heard it before. "You can best the 10th best player in the world, but if you're playing with the top 9 players, you're going to lose in the long run."

We don't all play with the same opponents and some of us spend more time on game selection than others. I may be at 3.5 bb/100, but another poster here, better than I am, may be running at 2.0. So, what? I'm better than he is. No. If he was playing in my games, he'd probably be running at 4+. What it could mean is that I'm either more skilled or disciplined to find the games that fit me best and play in those.

So, I think we've overdoing comparing winrates or saying "I'm not that good" or whatever when we don't know anything about the opponents in the games being played.

[Nick Royale]

[ QUOTE ]
"Most poker writers could probably beat me, het I'm a long term winner, while more skilled players - including some experts - often go broke. Why? Because I'm honest about my abilities and select games carefully, while they deny there limitations, and keep trying to beat better players or the wrong kinds of games."

[/ QUOTE ]
I think I'm at the opposite side. I'm afraid of finding my limitation and that's also very -EV.

[DMBFan23]

I think it partially means that theres more to poker than knowing when to bet/raise. Tommy has written about this, where (paraphrasing) a good, tiltless player can be just as successful as a worldclass player who is prone to megatilt (hyperbole, I'm not even sure how many of those players there are because I dont know any WCPs).

sometimes I kind of relish playing a table of decent players, it's kind of like in Star Wars 3 when yoda says to Palpatine "If so powerful you have become, then why leave?"

that sometimes leads me to think "hmm a lot of players would have paid off there. boo this man"

[meep_42]

Personally, I take that all into account when discussing the nebulous concept of "winrate."

Putting yourself in a position to be a winner is a large component to actually being a winner.

If I played with the rockiest rocks this side of Gibraltar, even were I the best player at the table, my winrate wouldn't approach what it would at a Saturday night game at Bellagio or MGM -- but that's -my- fault for choosing that game, especially in the era of the internet - where geography means very little.

Anyhow.

-d

[QTip]

Right. So, I'm saying we can't look at someone's BB/100 and say "You can't sustain that 4bb/100" or "That will go down because you're not that good.", when we have no knowledge of the types of opponents against which someone is playing.

[Evan]

[ QUOTE ]
Right. So, I'm saying we can't look at someone's BB/100 and say "You can't sustain that 4bb/100" or "That will go down because you're not that good.", when we have no knowledge of the types of opponents against which someone is playing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Why not? I just looked at JoshuaD's post and his rate at 3/6 is 4.46 BB/100. I will say that he cannot sustain that because he is not that good. If anyone thinks that I can't say that with any certainty, I'd be more than willing to lay odds on bets.

Win rates do not take the form of an unbounded distribution. 4.46 BB/100, at least in the Party 3/6, is above the upper bound of true win rates imo. I am very confident in this.

[CallMeIshmael]

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We don't all play with the same opponents and some of us spend more time on game selection than others. I may be at 3.5 bb/100, but another poster here, better than I am, may be running at 2.0. So, what? I'm better than he is. No. If he was playing in my games, he'd probably be running at 4+. What it could mean is that I'm either more skilled or disciplined to find the games that fit me best and play in those.

[/ QUOTE ]

I was thinking about this recently.

Over the past week or so, Ive gone light on table selection (apart from leaving the most obviously bad situations) in an effort to increase my hands/hour.

Im running really well right now, so I cant make any statements about how the experiment is fairing.

But, there definitely is a tradeoff there.


Also.. Owen, are you having an affair with a philosophy professor or something? [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

You are quickly becoming the Tommy Angelo of the SS forum. (which I love, btw... I was just making the observation)

[CallMeIshmael]

[ QUOTE ]
4.46 BB/100, at least in the Party 3/6, is above the upper bound of true win rates imo. I am very confident in this.

[/ QUOTE ]

I disagree with this (on a technicality).

About a month ago, I dropped to 0.50/1.00, as I increased tables... and, I beat that at over 5BB/100 over 20k hands, and I dont even think I ran that well. Im pretty sure that 6bb/100 is sustainable in that game for an expert 1 tabler.

I think it is safe to say that there exists someone who is better vs the average 3/6 player than I am vs the average 0.50/1.00 player.

Certainly there exists someone who could 1 table party 3/6 for > 5BB/100. Though, they could probably also be killing much higher games.

So, I agree, that there probably doesnt exist a player who could beat 3/6 for that winrate, and ACTUALLY would take the time to do it.

[Evan]

Although I suppose its unlikely to happen for the reasons you pointed out, I would definitely take a bet for a significant amount of money that no one could sustain 5 BB/100 at Party 3/6 for a specified number of hands. I'll also bet that you cannot sustain 5 BB/100 at .5/1. This really has nothing to do with how good of a player you are; it has everything to do with rake structures and the limitations on the magnitude of mistakes possible in limit hold'em (assuming someone is not intentionally playing poorly by doing things like folding the nuts on the river). If you're interested, let me know.

[brazilio]

There was a post some time ago in the micros for .5/1 where a 10-tabler had posted 4BB/100 numbers over 150k hands or so. I imagine sustaining 5BB/100 wouldn't be too much of a stretch, although I think it's impossible to maintain that at 3/6.