Help me patch up my shorthanded 5/10 game: Starting Hands

[Bokonon]

I've got 280 hours of hands in Pokertracker at this point, and while I'm still doing reasoanbly well BB/hour wise (2.88), I know there are some holes. So I dug up some Pokertracker stats on starting hands, and took a look at what hands I play regularly that are losers. Now, because the numbers for a lot of these are kind of low (<50 hands), they aren't solid stats . . . but they are certainly suggestive that something could be wrong here. All numbers presented below are when $ was voluntarily put into the pot outside a blind. Hope you don't mind if I share -- figure this will be informative for *someone* [img]/images/graemlins/laugh.gif[/img].

A7o: Getting my ass kicked with this hand. This isn't so confusing . . . weak kicker, no straight possibilities, little chance to win with 7-high, but I'm still surprised that I'm losing 0.48BB/hand with it, even though it wins 30% of the time.

Q8s: Not a completely shoddy looking hand. Shoddy enough I played it only 29 times (my guess is usually from the button). Losing 0.46BB/hand.

JTs: ??!!! I always considered this a damn find hand, but no more, at least not for shorthanded. Maybe I keep getting top pair and can't get it go when I get outkicked. Losing 0.42BB/hand, played it 35 times.

A2o, K8o, A5o: I have no shame. I played each of these hands around 50 times. I pray it was on steals. Losing around 0.35BB/hand with them.

QTo: My baby! I love QTo, but I'm going to stop playing it if ANYONE is in from now on. Played it 121 times. Lost 0.18BB/hand with it.

T9s: Same story as JTs, really -- 0.18BB/hand.

A2s, A5s, A8s, A7s -- probably not a coincidence these are right in a row, played about 50 times each. Only losing 0.06BB/hand with A8s, so that's not a hole. 0.16BB/hand with A2s, A5s.

A8o: Only real hand left that I play a lot that has an overall negative -- 0.04BB/hand.

And that's it for the negatives I play regularly outside the blinds.

Now there are some positives to keep in mind -- I have slight plusses (0.10BB/hand) with A6s, A3s, A4s, implying that Axs where 'x' is low is around a break-even hand in shorthanded, on average.

Q9o was played 43 times, won 0.13BB/hand. Won 44% of the time I played it, too. Figure this is a fluke.

K8s was played 48 times, 0.24BB/hand. A little bizarre that it's doing so well but Q8s is one of my worst hands.

A9o is a solid winner.
K9s is a solid winner.
J9s even has done okay.
And this is irritating contradictory evidence:
A4o, played 63 times, won 49% of the time, 0.40BB/hand.
K9o, played 72 times, won 40% of the time, 0.42BB/hand.
A6o, played 71 times, won 55% of the time, 0.51BB/hand.
JTo, played 105 times, won 42% of the time, 0.68BB/hand.
I wouldn't have been surprised if those were losers, but there you are.

No surprises in any of the other winnings hands -- I will say that my winningnest hand, BB/hand is 83s. Played once. Won 7.8BB with it. Clearly I'll have to play it more.

In closing, I'm going to reverse course here . . . actually, I'm not entirely sure there are big problems with my overall starting hand selection, having gone through these stats -- at least, not outside the blinds. I'm sure I need to adjust more to the conditions of the game I'm in, but overall I don't see big holes. I thought there might be some with Axo, but if you average across all the low "xs", they seem to come out slightly ahead. Go figure.

Comments? Criticism? Questions? Any suggestions on how I might parse this more to get a little more insight?

[WillMagic]

This should be obvious, but you overrate cruddy aces. By a lot.

Start folding A8o and below, even if you are in a position to steal. You find yourself winning small pots and losing big pots with these hands even shorthanded.

Also, I think you overvalue suited cards quite a bit. Being suited is far less important shorthanded. So quit playing those suited queens.

A lot of this information could be better if we knew what position you were in when you played the hands, but those are the first things i noticed. I play a lot of 3/6 shorthanded, and it's probably my most profitable game. I play just as tight as I would at a full table (with a few exceptions, like playing QJo and KJo more liberally,) but I play much more aggressively. I think that if you continue this loose play with bad aces, you might not stay in the black that long.

Just some thoughts,
Will

Will

[ZeeJustin]

[ QUOTE ]
Start folding A8o and below, even if you are in a position to steal. You find yourself winning small pots and losing big pots with these hands even shorthanded.

[/ QUOTE ]

I haven't read all of either of the 2 posts so far, but I know this much. If you listen to the above advice you will lose a lot of money. You better open-raise with any ace in the cut off or on the button every chance you get.

[WillMagic]

Maybe it's just personal experience, and maybe it's just that I'm bad at playing ace/crappy, but when I reduced the number of times I played these hands my win rate went UP. My raises started getting more respect, and I wasn't dealing with the heads-up situation against the big blind anymore. I actually think the big blind can have a sizable advantage in this situation, for a number of reasons. He's getting 3.5 to 1 odds on his call, so it's correct for him to call with 60-70% of hands or more, which means you can't put him on a hand. The BB, however, can put you on something relatively decent, so he can check-raise you on tons of flops, and you will be in trouble.

Also, when you start raising Ax, people will notice you have loose raising standards and start to three-bet you, which can be disastrous.

Maybe my advice was too conservative. But I think reducing the amount you play Ax is extremely helpful, even shorthanded and in late position.

Will

[Joe Tall]

Yo Bokonon,

Hate to say it bro, but it you are asking about starting hands; you shouldn't be playing 5/10, I would think.

I think you'd be able to answer most of your own questions.

Peace,
JT

[Bokonon]

[ QUOTE ]
Yo Bokonon,

Hate to say it bro, but it you are asking about starting hands; you shouldn't be playing 5/10, I would think.

I think you'd be able to answer most of your own questions.

Peace,
JT

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm a bit puzzled. I've played almost 300 hours and I'm up a few grand, so whether or not I'm asking about starting hands it seems like I have to know a *little* bit about what I'm doing. And actually, if you read my entire post you'll find that as far as hands played outside blinds, maybe I *don't* have any obvious holes, with the possible exception of weak offsuit aces. My hope was to get some opinions on the borderline hands -- the weak aces, K9 and Q9o, Q8s and T9s.

Is there some magical time at which one automatically knows exactly what starting hands to play in each position, the lack of much published on the matter notwithstanding?

[Jim Easton]

[ QUOTE ]
(my guess is usually from the button).

[/ QUOTE ]

Why guess? Go to the position stats table and look.

[sam h]

that A8s is a loser but A6o is a solid winner?

either you chase every backdoor flush draw when you don't have odds to do so (possible) or your data set is waaaaay to small to draw any kind of useful inference from (much more likely).

[Bokonon]

I considered that, of course, as a big reason for the discrepancy. I'll have to check where I was playing the hands from, though -- I might play A7o UTG more, and maybe that's getting me into trouble. What I'd like to do is group hands in some reasonable way and then look at the stats for the combination (i.e., group A7o through A2o) and look at them as a whole -- the question is, besides the weak unsuited and suited aces, what kind of groups can I come up with?

[Ulysses]

[ QUOTE ]
I've played almost 300 hours and I'm up a few grand, so whether or not I'm asking about starting hands it seems like I have to know a *little* bit about what I'm doing.

[/ QUOTE ]

Nobody said you don't know a *little* bit. Whether you know more than a little or are just running good is another question.

[ QUOTE ]
My hope was to get some opinions on the borderline hands -- the weak aces, K9 and Q9o, Q8s and T9s.

[/ QUOTE ]

Generally, they suck.

[ QUOTE ]
Is there some magical time at which one automatically knows exactly what starting hands to play in each position, the lack of much published on the matter notwithstanding?

[/ QUOTE ]

Huh? I thought that was the area about which the most info had been published.