Realistic?: profit from all HE starting hands voluntarily played

[JinX11]

One of the exercises I perform on occasion is assess my HE performance by starting hands - this is the information available on the General Info tab of PokerTracker; in particular, I focus on those starting hands I am not playing well (i.e., losing the most BB/hand).

The goal of this exercise is straightforward: while there are number of elements that contribute to winning and losing money in Hold'em, I think it does have some merit. For instance, over the last 60K hands, the top of my worst performers list is KQs (-0.192 BB/hand) and I haven't played small pocket pairs particularly well (44 and 33: -0.151 BB/hand). Looking a little more closely, I can see that I probably cold-call a PFR a little too much with KQs and probably play small pocket pairs out of position a little too often.

Anyhow, it'd be great to be able to show a profit with every single starting hand, but this is entirely unrealistic since trash hands will lose money from blind play. However, if you only look at those hands that you voluntarily play (i.e., put money into the pot), is it expected / realistic / unlikely to show profit from each starting HE hand over the long term?

[emonrad87]

I said impossible because there are some hands that you would NEVER voluntarily put money into the pot. Thus, you would have a 0 bb/hand for those.

[manpower]

I'm not sure if that's quite what he's asking. I filtered out my hands on the blind and even after 20k hands my biggest loser is AQs, followed by KJs. Which would presumably be products of a small samble size (only 26 instances of AQs, eek!) But yes, I do think, that theoretically at least, every hand voluntarily played would be profitable. But it's probably more indicative of good play to have a few around 0 or slightly negative. Theoretically every hand with an non-negative expectation should be played.

[Reef]

This could be made extremely easy by only playing group 1 hands. I'd even go down as to say group 3 hands also.

[JinX11]

Yeah, that's true. While you'd be giving up a lot of money by doing so, if you stuck with only monster pre-flop offerings, you'd surely be able to meet the criteria I specified.

[jtr]

[ QUOTE ]
if you only look at those hands that you voluntarily play (i.e., put money into the pot), is it expected / realistic / unlikely to show profit from each starting HE hand over the long term?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's look at it the other way around. If you don't expect to win money by voluntarily putting chips in with those hands, why are you playing them at all?

Yes, sure, it will take many many many hands before your actual results are in the black for all hands you deem playable, but with sufficient patience and correct starting hand selection for your game (and for your postflop strategy) you'd get there.

[BigBaitsim (milo)]

[ QUOTE ]
[ QUOTE ]
if you only look at those hands that you voluntarily play (i.e., put money into the pot), is it expected / realistic / unlikely to show profit from each starting HE hand over the long term?

[/ QUOTE ]

Let's look at it the other way around. If you don't expect to win money by voluntarily putting chips in with those hands, why are you playing them at all?

Yes, sure, it will take many many many hands before your actual results are in the black for all hands you deem playable, but with sufficient patience and correct starting hand selection for your game (and for your postflop strategy) you'd get there.

[/ QUOTE ]

My thoughts exactly. Why would you VP$IP with ANY hand that you felt was not a winner? If your numbers are red for a hand there are four possibilities:

1) It is a junk hand
2) It is a playable hand, but you are doing something wrong
3) Your sample size is too small and variance is an issue
4) Something else I didn't think of, but someone smarter will think of.

[Sundevils21]

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My thoughts exactly. Why would you VP$IP with ANY hand that you felt was not a winner?

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because(especially from the sb) you sometimes get insane odds on hands that usually lose money in the long run, but become winners if played correctly in big multiway pots.

*you could then classify that hand as a "winner" because of the situation, but I don't think thats what you/the OP meant.

[Evan]

You're contracdicting yourself.

If a hand is only a winner from the blinds, where you're getting said "insane odds", then that's the only time you'd play it. Your vpip would be >0 and so would your bb/hand.

Hold'em is a game of positional advantages. 87s UTG is not the same hand as 87s on the button.

[stinkypete]

[ QUOTE ]
You're contracdicting yourself.

If a hand is only a winner from the blinds, where you're getting said "insane odds", then that's the only time you'd play it. Your vpip would be >0 and so would your bb/hand.

Hold'em is a game of positional advantages. 87s UTG is not the same hand as 87s on the button.

[/ QUOTE ]

this is actually incorrect.

from the BB, you should be calling raises with hands that you can expect to recover part of your BB with, but not necessarily all of it, making it a -EV hand overall if you include your blind.

eg. 4/8... you're big blind and thus already have $4 in the pot. you have some hand that will get you $6 back out of the pot on average if you call a raise. in other words, you put $4 more in to get $6. in total, you've put in $8 for a return of $6, which is -0.5BB. but calling the raise is still an EV of +0.5BB and is correct. poker tracker will tell you you're losing with that hand.

in practice, in passive games, there will be very few hands that you VP$IP with that will be in the red long term, but there should be some. in more aggressive games there will be many.