Winning Player

[BottlesOf]

It does to me, what's the problem?

[imported_excel]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm not surprised that these stats are obtainable. However that doesn't mean it's an optimal way to play. My guess is that people don't adjust or adjust too late. Against more perceptive opposition, eg. higher limits, he would most likely be in big trouble.

[/ QUOTE ]

I never said it was optimal, and no offense but were not talking higher limits, were talking the limits he is playing at,

[imported_excel]

I didnt mention "optimal" I just pointed out a winning player,

Many players would lose to this guy and just assume he would end up a long term loser.

If you learn anything from this its the fact these types of players can win.

[imported_excel]

he may make more money playing less hands,

however, the way he plays now it is "IMPOSSIBLE" for you to have any read of his cards,

When he does get lucky hes going to reap maximum benefit.

[imported_excel]

[ QUOTE ]
His winrate is 2.4/100?

I am assuming you picked the prettiest diamond in the rough to post his stats. I guarentee you at least 5 people on this board have a higher winrate over double the sample size of this player. You harp on and on saying this is profitable. It's all well and good you can prove he is profitable (which I am not arguing) but nobody is going to believe this play is optimal.

[/ QUOTE ]

Winrate is very good considering he is 4 tabling.

The fact hes 4 tabling and can play for 8-12 sometimes longer hours shows he has the confidence in his play,

Yet again I highlight, I never mentioned "optimal",

You say double the sample size, I rarely see sample sizes over 80k,

If you can guarantee only 5, thats not many is it?

[rory]

With a STD of $700/100 and 80k hands, there is a 90% chance that this guy's win rate is accurate to within +/- 1.75 BB. I suspect this guy is just one of the few guys with such a high variance style who happens to be running good.

We talk about large sample sizes, but even 80k is not enough to have an accurate win rate with such a large standard deviation. With a standard deviation of this size, to be 90% confident we are within 1 BB of our true win rate, it will take 240k hands. To be 90% confident we are within 0.5 BB of our win rate, he will have to play over 1 million hands.

If you take a typical HUSH poster, they have a standard deviation of 15 BB. With a standard deviation of 15 BB, we will be 90% confident our win rate is within 1 BB after playing 50k hands. We will be 90% confident our win rate is within 0.5 BB after 200k hands.

This is why people advocate the more tighter styles as the road to becoming a winning player-- we have enough stats between all of us to prove that this is a way to win. Since our standard deviations are lower, we can make other strategy changes and see the effects with 50k hands, not hundreds of thousands of hands.

So, excel, everyone sort of disses you, which is fine. But the one interesting thing your posts bring up is that we have to consider optimizing our poker as not moving up this single peak. The poker landscape is a complicated, multidimensional one filled with local optima and valleys and troughs. For instance, in order to beat the Party games, you basically just have to not play badly and play against opponents who do. There are very few really tough games out there, you don't play enough against the same people to get fancy and try all kinds of moves, you just have to play solid, good, ABC poker. That is not optimum, but I think it is pretty close to optimum to beat those games. However once you move away from the Party games, move up or something, like Schneids and BK, you actually have to learn how to play good poker, and how to play against other people who play good poker. This requires a new exploration of the fitness landscape of poker strategy, because the straightforward not-bad solid ABC style that beats the Party games will not cut it anymore.

I think for all of the aspiring new pros out there, we should keep some things in mind. Poker seems like it has been a largely untapped place to make a lot of money fairly easily, because there are so many bad players. But like the stock market, once a source of untapped revenue has been found, people will flood to it and exploit it until the revenue is dried up. There will be just as many bad players, but there will be so many more good players that there are not enough bad players to go around. To survive, long term, playing poker, we will have to explore a new place on the fitness landscape of poker, one that is designed to exploit and beat other players who have only learned how to beat bad players.

This is why multitabling, while profitable for the time being, I think will be ultimately severely damaging to the long-term profitability of the multitablers. While the multitablers are maximizing their short term profit, people who roll up a bunch of money, move up, learn to beat the good players and survive are investing in their future ability to beat the games.

At the very least, I think the people who can already beat the games should take a portion of their week and devote it to getting better. Really devote it. That may mean really deeply reading a book and taking notes. Or single tabling. Or going through the archives. Hiring one of the good teachers. Playing in some bigger, tougher games. Really committing to getting better. Because I think, eventually, the guys who spent so much time getting better are going to get, and the guys who became complacent and lazy are going to get broke. In that way I really appreciate excel's posts. He is really casting his net wide across the sea of possible poker strategies to find the absolute best one. We all should be doing that. In a more open-minded, calculated, thoughtful and constructive way than excel, of course, but he definitely has the right idea. He is definitely right that we have on the HUSH forum, as a whole, blinded ourselves to possible more-optimal poker strategies.

[kiddo]

[ QUOTE ]
It does to me, what's the problem?

[/ QUOTE ]

Poster said this guy was a better postflopplayer then all of us:

[ QUOTE ]
are any of us that good? definitely not.

[/ QUOTE ] .

In what way does it make sense to say we got nothing to learn from this guy? Poker is all about postflopplay. Preflop is the easy part.

[Michael Davis]

Good post, rory. One thing I would say is that choosing to crazy multitable right now does not inhibit your opportunity to improve your game now or later: you can study the tougher games, keep up with 2+2, and have conversations with better players.

-Michael

[imported_excel]

Good post Rory.

Please note I highlight one exteme player who I think is a long term winner.

yes I see players 60vpip, high prf, but I dont think they are long term winners.

However, I do see many players 30-40 vpips pfr 20-25, so I think if a player who plays 50 vpip and 40pfr, then surely many of these other players are also long term winners.

We all have to admit playing a 35 vpip 25 pfr is not an easy player to play against, yes they are playing marginal hands, but when you also get a good hand and go against them, you maybe prone to making them pay and overplaying your hand, not being able to place them on a hand in which they may well be infront.

Also some of the better players may well stay out the way of some players way, e.g 22 vpip pfr 14

Your ability to protect your blinds will be fully tested, and if the LAG is in the blinds your ability to steal will be restricted, both ways they are testing and possibly restricting your play, they are dictating the pace and the play, they are taking control and possibly the chips.

[imported_excel]

I think people maybe surprised by the players aggression factors.

I would imagine that most players would assume his post flop aggression would be higher.

To me he has good judgement of when hes ahead and when hes not, he'll do the betting to find out.

What do others think?