Median Best Holdem Starting Hand

[Aisthesis]

99 sounds about right for a 10 player table. I think the difficulty is going to be selecting the ranking system, because that's very much going to depend on the context. On the Landrum system, just counting through, I get AJo as including hand #99.

I notice the ranking system you cite definitely differs from my more intuitive rankings, which gave me the ATo for 9 players. I notice 77 is put higher than AJs there, fairly large suited bonus, etc.

I actually already find it useful just to keep in the back of my mind in various situations. But I think that in order to nail it down further, one would need to enumerate precisely the situation we're talking about, then do the ranking of hands on that basis.

In light of stack-sizes in tournament play, one might also consider other percentages than just the 50% mark (and this method makes that fairly straightforward despite the fact that we're dealing with large numbers).

Do you know how well the Landrum list correlates with Sklansky-Karlsson? At the moment, I'm in a rush and don't have time to call them up and compare.

Hopefully some discussion will get started on where one can go with these things. I'm thinking there are several (particularly, late) tournament situations to which it's likely applicable, but I'm a little hazy still as to how to define them precisely.

[Ed Miller]

Interesting that J5s is on the bubble heads up.

I guess I agree that in a 3 player game the Bubble would be the hand ranked in the top 70% like you say. I'm not suggesting you think this but for others reading here, that's not the same as the hand that wins 70% of the time against a random hand when taken to showdown.

Ok, PairTheBoard, since you are going martyr on me with your, "The best ideas always ridiculed by the man," stuff...

What exactly is this "bubble" that you are talking about? For instance, if J5s is on the bubble, surely J2s is below the bubble. What conclusions about HOW TO PLAY J2s do you draw from that?

[Ed Miller]

You refernce "pzhon" Bozeman. What is that?

"pzhon" is a dude who posted in your thread.

[astroglide]

why is anybody responding to this?

[PairTheBoard]

Some of us are just trying to understand something that I'm sure is already obvious to you astroglide.

PairTheBoard

[Ed Miller]

why is anybody responding to this?

Because he isn't trolling. He got close with his melodramatic "You guys can pretend it was your idea all along," speech, though.

[Ed Miller]

Most people reading this are going to skeptical about your idea, but that's not (quite) the same as dismissing it.

I'm dismissing it. Poker is played with MONEY. The Sklansky-Karlsson rankings, you will notice, are squarely focused around MONEY. His "idea" makes no mention of it. Thus, any results he might come up with are meaningless.

I planned to be diplomatic and walk him through it, but lost patience.

[PairTheBoard]

I was repeating the "on the bubble" phrase introduced by a previous poster. In this context it's just another way of saying Median Best Hand.

Suppose you are heads up in a tournament and first to act. The blinds are getting big tending to be pot committing if you play. You are first to act. You look at your hand. Isn't this the first most natural question you're going to ask yourself. "Is my hand better than what I can expect his to be for Showdown purposes?" Now you know. If your hand is better than J5s in the rankings at that link, the answer is yes. How you use that information is up to you.

In fact, isn't this a natural question to ask every time you play a hand? "Is my hand better than what I can expect my opponents to have for purposes of the kind of tactics likely to be involved in playing it?"


Playing at a Full Table there are many instances where all the early position players Fold around to you. You know that the more latter position you are in, the lower your raising standards are when this happens. Most players go by feel in this situation. Wouldn't it be helpful to see exactly how the Median Best Hand of your remaining opponents weakens in this situation as your position varies? There are many opinions about what your raising requirments should be but by looking at a Median Best Hand Measure you can see something that is quantifiable and free from opinions. Of course there are other factors involved, but many of them can also be considered by looking at various hand ranking systems taylored for the extra factors.

PairTheBoard

[Ed Miller]

Isn't this the first most natural question you're going to ask yourself. "Is my hand better than what I can expect his to be for Showdown purposes?"

NO, IT ISN'T! That's my point. The question I ask is, "Will this hand show a profit if I play it?" That is a 100% completely different question than, "Is this hand better than average?"

[CrackerZack]

You need to find a better poker game. In the games I play, as long as your hand is in the top 3, you make loads of loot. Better than average rules!