Thursday morning reflections (low content)

[chief444]

I think I'm finally starting to get some things we see every day about this game through my thick skull.

1) My variance is like 17.2 BB/100. It sucks sometimes. It's great other times. It doesn't matter. I'm no more an expert player on a really good night than I am a bad player on a really bad night. I lost about 150 BB in the last two days. It's the fourth time online I've had a big downswing and the first time I truly don't care.

2) Sfer I think said it well yesterday as have others (Clarkmeister) that one reason this forum hasn't been as good lately is that very boring, mundane, standard hand or stats posts get 50 replies while anything worth discussing goes straight to page 3 with one or two responses. I decided not to respond any more to posts that aren't really that interesting to me because I've gotten into the habit of posting too much quantity and not nearly enough quality (and I'm sure this falls under the former). But I'm no better than anyone when it comes to this. Of course we'll see if I get bored in another two hours and start posting responses left and right.

3) I commend Jordan for the job he did gathering stats of winning players to create one spreadsheet showing averages. Now hopefully we can use it. I think if anyone has any questions on their PT stats it should be specific and not just one screenshot saying "how does this look?". They've been posted and discussed enough that if anyone has any sincere questions or concerns they should at least take the time to compare to what has been accumulated before posting rather than leave the comparsison up to others. Then, if there are any specific concerns they can be addressed...i.e. "my VP$IP in the SB is 9% lower than the average...in an unraised pot with 2-3 limpers do you complete the following hands: xx,xx,xx,...? If UTG raises and two coldcall do you call with 78s,QTs,xx,xx...?". Or at least a put a little more thought and effort into it since we now have a pretty good set of data that is I think it's safe to say representative of what the general forum opinion will be anyway.

4) I'm glad sthief didn't stop posting and is still "wasting too much of his time" on 2+2.

5) I miss when people used to bet and raise for value and not only to protect their hands. Both are important, but recently the former seems to have been forgotten. Of course they're often one in the same but not always.

6) I think Nate made a great point in the AT hand post that a lot of people here (myself included) should be playing more aggressively on the river. I know I had two hands last night where I missed a draw but would have picked up the pot if I only had the stones to put in one lousy bet in the end.

7) I'd bet money that more than half of the posters here never once during an online session think about the range of hands of an opponent and run through the combinations they beat compared to the combinations they don't beat when making a decision. I'm talking about putting some quick numbers behind the decision...not just maybe he has AK,AQ or AA...etc. I mean thinking quickly I beat X combinations of AK and AQ and lost to Y combinations of AA. X/Y=Z therefore I should....

I'll shut up now.