How does only looking at showdown hands bias your sample?

[elmitchbo]

the search function is rather weak and hard to use.

what exactly do you mean by hand reading?

[poincaraux]

[ QUOTE ]
the search function is rather weak and hard to use.

what exactly do you mean by hand reading?

[/ QUOTE ]
I'm trying to start simple here. I'd like to ask questions like: Joe Internet Poker min-raised UTG. It's folded around to me in the BB. What's a likely distribution of hands for Joe?

As I play more and more, I'll get a better idea of this just from playing and paying attention. Then again, my intuition might easily lead me astray .. I might selective remember a subset of hands, etc. It would be nice to get some sort of a check on my intuition by looking at a bunch of mined hands. Of course, most of the information I'd be able to use would come from showdown hands, and I want to know how that will bias my results.

Thanks,

-poincaraux

I think you are going to miss a lot of hands that were chasing draws and folded when they didn't hit the river, PPs that are scared off by overcards, and so on.

People *usually* (I say that while cringing....) show down at least something on the river- so your sample may leave out a lot of drawing hands that people play a lot pre-flop but don't show down.