How useful is W$SD as an indicator of solid play? (subject edited)

[Floyd Moseby]

I realize that it's kind of a bland question, and it's begging for an "It depends" answer, but I'd be curious to know how much the regulars pay attention to this particular stat.

I have always been in the 48-53% general range over the course of my play, and I'm not really beating the limits I have played for much more than 1.5-2 BB/100 hands. I know that it's entirely possible to play perfect poker and yet lose a large % of your showdowns over the short run, but what kind of general assumptions (if any) are out there about W$SD in correlation to BB/100?

If it means anything, I'm more interested in full ring play than short handed.

Thanks for whatever responses this gets.

[rmarotti]

I think WSD is much more helpful than W$SD.

[SeaEagle]

W$SD is a very dicey number, IMO. Personally, I'm convinced that for me, keeping the number between 55 and 60 has a pretty strong correlation to a high win rate. But I'm not sure if it's a causual relationship or not - i.e. it may be that when I'm running hot my W$SD just happens to be in that range.

At any rate, if it gets much over 60, it's a safe assumption that you're folding too much (or a hell of a hand reader) and if it gets much under 50, you're probably calling down too much.

[Floyd Moseby]

Has anyone done any hard statistical analysis of this? I agree that I have seen 50-60% as the 'zone' I want to be in, but I don't know what that is based on. I'm not trying to start arguments, I'm just asking if anyone has any insight into WHY that is the zone to be in. Obviously you don't want to be losing more than half of your showdowns, that I understand.

Also, can I assume that the limit being played would have some influence on a suggested range for your W$SD to be in? At micro- to small stakes, the chance your opponent bets the river with nothing or something beatable would seem to be greater than at middle or higher stakes. If I'm wrong in assuming that, please correct me.

Maybe I'm just hoping that some psycho has done all this statistical work that I'm too lazy or unwilling to do?

[Octopus]

Without answering your question: [img]/images/graemlins/smile.gif[/img]

Poker tracker also has, on the 'more'detail' section, a breakout of %win at showdown when betting/raising and %win when calling. I have seen little discussion on the former and none on the later. If you are going to think about this stat much, you probably want to think about this breakdown.

Other than that, I direct you to CalMeIshmael's very useful stats post which reports that the average among 2+2 respondants was in the low 50s.