How do you know if plays are good or bad in general regardless of results?

Like, when I play cash games such as Rush Poker, I do not know if my plays were good or bad. Of course, I can't put up every single hand on cardschat and then ask if it's horrible or not. Sometimes, I tend to bypass my horrible plays because I tend to focus on villain's holdings and my bad beat. Here's one of the examples I'll demonstrate by giving example of what I mean.

I have full stack in 10NL Rush. someone is short-stack $5 in 10NL.

I am dealt Q6o utg. I raise it to 30 cents. everyone folds, short-stacker with $5 is in big blind.

Flop comes up 5 6 K rainbow. Villain checks and I bet out pot size of 65 cents. Villain calls. Pot is now $1.6

Turn comes up 8. Villain checks. I bet out $1.6, Villain goes all-in for $4.1. I make a call. Villain rolls over T5o.

River is 5. Villain wins the pot.

This was just an exaggerated example I made up to ask a question. Now, anyone would see this and immediately say "Q6o utg raise = negative bad -EV play." and also would tell me to consider folding to the shove on the turn. But I don't know if my plays were horrible or not on my own because I got more horrible players who are more horrible than me but beat me. Only way I get to know my play was horrible is if 3rd person or 3rd party poker viewer analyzed this. Like, it's soooo hard to know if you're horrible or not when your villains who are more horrible beat you through suckout. How do you know if you made a bad play or not even when your villain only beats you by a suckout while you get your money in good? Because I know that just because my villain was more horrible than me doesn't mean my play was good. I'm afraid that there are many plays like this in the past that I have probably bypassed because I'm focused on my horrible villains' plays beating me through suckouts and bad beats that I almost don't focus on my plays and just assume that I lost because I got unlucky. What questions should I be asking to myself to learn on my own whether I made a bad play or not regardless of the result? I've had one of the hands similar to this where Wes747 explained to me how horrible I was with a hand but then villains were so horrible that I couldn't realize it on my own since i got my money in good with odds heavily under my favor.

Download pokerstove (free). Jilly put up a vid in the Instructional Videos forum that describes how to use it (I haven't watched it, but I'm sure it's very good).

During session review, open pokerstove, plug in your hand, the actual hand Villain holds, and the board at the point at which you have a question. See what kind of pot equity you have.

Then, do the same, but plug in the range of hands you expect Villain to be holding rather than his actual hand. See what kind of pot equity you have.

Then, walk through the action and question whether you could have acted differently, given the board and actions to that point, in such a way that you could've improved your equity (i.e., could you have raised, should you have bet smaller, should you have folded at some point, etc.).

P.S. Q6o sucks, UTG it really sucks, -Ev play, fold to the turn raise. When everyone sucks, look for easier pots to win - the goal isn't to win every hand, it's to win the most money.

Oh yeah, check out this post: http://www.cardschat.com/f11/guide-a...s-long-171059/

TY. About the Q6o, LOL. That example was just an exaggeration to show you what i meant. Like, when you face someone who is sooooooo horrible to call oop with T5o and beat you through a suckout, it's hard to focus on your own play and see if it was bad because you're only focused on how you lost to a suckout and you got your money in good. Do you get what I mean? I have probably bypassed my bad plays unconsciously just because of the fact that I got my money in good against the villain regardless of how horrible my villains were and how horrible my moves are in general. This is one of many flaws I have that I must fix.

Yeah, I understand what you mean - lol-worthy...

Don't fall into the trap, though, of playing crappy hands just because the other guys are. They'll still be playing crappy hands when you've got reasonably good - premium hands.

Oh and ty for FPaulson's guide of analyzing plays. This goes through detailed thoughts of how widely you should think before making your decisions and how to research your plays. His guide of thought process on every street and the analysis immediately proves this hand example as very bad play regardless of how horrible my villains are. TY very much.

For me and I am just really starting to learn the "real" concepts about the game its all about reducing some risks while taking others. Reduce your risks by-

Playing solid starting hands (unless odds are too juicy against certain donks)

Play them in position and play them with conviction (if you face major resistance and have missed cut your losses and dont lose more chips)

Play them against players you think you have an edge on.

Take risks when-

There are reasons to do so (dead money, multiple people in a pot called with a lesser hand etc)

Your reads tell you that your right too (you can get players to fold etc, bubble play)

You are going to try accumulate chips (for a win and not a cash).

Using this personally I have stopped getting myself in so much trouble playing trash in a decent position or playing two face cards in early position. Playing sngs I have profited every year I have played, not a great amount but profit is better than the alternitive, I think for newer players which you sort of are right? You should be reducing your risk playing tight smart poker. I know this is a bit off-topic from studying your hands etc but if you do this now get a solid foundation down and become a player in profit you can start bringing in more and more different plays. I think this applies for cash games too but I have nfi in them.

Here's one hand I like to post and it just happened. My friend was watching me and tells me this was a very bad move.

Full Tilt No-Limit Hold'em, 3.3 Tournament, 60/120 Blinds (8 handed) - Full-Tilt Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

MP1 (t7880)
MP2 (t14905)
CO (t2995)
Button (t8880)
Hero (SB) (t2940)
BB (t2120)
UTG (t2670)
UTG+1 (t2250)

Hero's M: 16.33

Preflop: Hero is SB with 3, A
6 folds, Hero bets t2940 (All-In), BB calls t2000 (All-In)

Flop: (t4240) K, A, 9 (2 players, 2 all-in)

Turn: (t4240) 9 (2 players, 2 all-in)

River: (t4240) Q (2 players, 2 all-in)

Total pot: t4240

Results:
Hero had 3, A (two pair, Aces and nines).
BB had 9, K (full house, nines over Kings).
Outcome: BB won t4240

My friend tells me that me shoving there was a very bad move. I don't know how that is bad when i got villains calling with K9 and makes two pairs. He tells me that shoving over 20bb where i'm like 55% and have little fold equity = big mistake. I can't see this myself because my villain is horrible calling all-in bets with K9. This is one of the examples of what i'm trying to show. I do not know how to see this as a flaw. Can anybody help me what questions I should be asking myself in analyzing my plays and know if I made a mistake or not in this situation? I tried using F Paulson's guide but lot of his analysis were during post-flop. This situation was pre-flop.

Why flip for stacks when you're in pretty good shape (M=16) against a bad player who will happily donk off his chips to you later? You got your money in as a favorite, granted - but against a bad player, there's no point, he'll pay off later. I don't mind raising pf in this spot fwiw, just not shoving

FE is important because it increases the overall value of the play - you're not flipping anymore if you have FE.

Good or horrible play is relative to the competition. I suppose there is some standard of great play (Phil Ivey, Doyle Brunson, etc), but the practical question is really this: Are you consistently beating the field you are playing?

If you are playing .02NL Rush and not beating it, you probably aren't good enough to take anyone's money in a cash game. That's the starting point. You need to work on your game until you can beat the easiest level. Then you move up and play the next level until you can beat it and so forth. Each move up you'll get better, and sometimes you'll even know consciously what improved. Other times it will be less tangible. For example, you'll just develop a better feel for when to fold a good hand, though you may not know in words exactly is what different. You just grow as a player.

So my point is, don't worry whether you are "good" or "bad" in some abstract sense, just worry whether you are beating the immediate competition. If you can get to where you can beat 10NL consistently, you are a good player.

Now if when you win you don't know why you won, then that's a problem. Because the answer is probably luck or variance. But if you study the game and learn, you'll know what changes you are making and why, and whether they are working or not.

I have problems pretty similar to yours I guess, OP.

Some nights, even when I'm winning, I feel like it's due to variance and not real skill. Like, "Oh, I hit my flush on the same card that he hit his straight and I won 150bb's off the poor guy." situations.

When I win (or lose) just one hand like that it usually results in the entire session being an up (or down) session and I can't help but think, "Did I really do anything right (or wrong) or did a few hands like that just make the whole night what it was?"

It also makes me wonder...is making money in Poker all about just taking cash from dumb fish? Once you get to any point where most everyone is a "good" player and not doing totally dumb things, what determines the winner? Most of the time when you watch pros and upper levels players play, it seems like it usually just comes down to coolers or one player being totally card-dead for an extended period, etc etc.

I try not to think too much about those kinds of things. =O

People often look at their hands and whine that they only lose because of bad beats. They shove with A/K's losing to someone who calls with 5/6s, then they tear their hair out when they lose.

When you risk your life on a 60:40 play like this (really 58% to 42%) yeah you got your money in good, but it might have been a bad situation to risk your tournament life with.

You win two 60:40 situations in a row less than half the time, and tournaments are all about surviving. Yes you have to be willing to die in order to live, but shoving too much is an unnecessary risk. You don't live by playing Russian Roulette.
You want to use your advantage over a long span, with minimal risk.

If you risk your life on a 60:40 you get 4x your chips about .36% of the time. That means you are eliminated about 2/3 of the time.

If you have a skill advantage over the competition you want to survive so that you can use that skill. If you risk 1/3 of your stack on a 60:40 you only improve your stack by 78% that .36% of the time. But 100% of the time you are still around if you lose one.
That is, if you have 1,500 chips and bet 1/3 of your chips and win the first 60:40 but then lose the second 60:40 you still have 1,333 chips. You're still alive and well and healthy.
If you lose your first 60:40 you're at 1,000 which is still plenty of chips early in the game.

55/45 fwiw

equity win tie pots won pots tied
Hand 0: 54.787% 54.55% 00.24% 934096 4028.00 { As3h }
Hand 1: 45.213% 44.98% 00.24% 770152 4028.00 { Kc9c }

Again, dumb is relative. To answer your question, yes, making money at poker is all about beating players who aren't as good as you. Just like being a great football player is about being better than most of the rest. It's relative.

The guys on the High Stakes Poker show aren't expecting to in the long run make money off the show. Because just about everyone they play on it is great. They are looking for exposure and to have a little fun, and if they get lucky, great. Of course, there are occasionally fish on the show, at least relative to them, but not to me.

But no pro is going to get rich playing a bunch of guys who are just as good or better than him or her. Likewise neither are you or I. You have to be better than the field. That's one reason a player can think, "I think I'm a pretty good player, but I don't make money." Well, you probably are, but so are the people you are playing.

It seems more like there's just good players who take it seriously and there's just fish who come in to play roulette and have fun.

The good players want to take the money from the fishy guys and just avoid anyone who rates anything above "terrible" because they know darn well that no player in the world - not Brunson, Hellmuth, Ivey or anyone else - has a large enough edge to actually beat someone who's halfway decent with any consistency.

There's a reason why the "pros" actually don't win things like the WSOP ME more than once a blue moon at best, there's a reason why there's tons of articles written about table selection and just avoiding any competent players altogether.

Bleh...I just guess that after really analyzing my winning and losing stats in PokerTracker I've had a serious crisis of confidence in the reality of skill in poker. Sure, I'm up a good amount of money, but really looking at where I won it, it sure wasn't because I did anything special.

Same with my losing stats. Yeah, there's some boneheaded plays in there that I need to not repeat, but most of my losses come from the same stuff my wins come from. Big coolers, AA vs. KK/QQ/AK luck stuff, huge suckouts, etc.

What makes the difference between the winning and losing stats? The occasional total donk that just hands me his money, pretty much.

That doesn't feel like any accomplishment to me. And it's very disheartening to think about.

Thanks for the info guys...Will take some time and patience to work through it.

And that is EXACTLY why professionals take table selection so seriously. It is a big part of the game for pros. Don't just sit down and hope there's a donk or hope one shows up. Finding the right table(s) is the first step to making money in any session. If you just sit at whatever table is available, then you're throwing your ability to maximize your earnings to the wind.

horrible hand vs. horrible hand= only one winning horrible hand. That's like both of you playing horseshoes-whoever gets closest wins. The idea is to get it in good. You're playing 10NL-everyone calls way too much. You will see all kinds of crap hands playing, hoping to hit the flop. Save your money and get it in with a good hand when you can crush those horrible hand. That's when you start winning.

There was this questionable play I've made where I've lost because I got unlucky regardless of how bad it was.

No-Limit Hold'em Tournament, 15/30 Blinds (9 handed) - Hold'em Manager Converter Tool from FlopTurnRiver.com

Button (t2985)
Hero (SB) (t2970)
BB (t3000)
UTG (t3000)
UTG+1 (t3000)
MP1 (t2115)
MP2 (t3000)
MP3 (t2790)
CO (t4140)

Hero's M: 66.00

Preflop: Hero is SB with A, K
1 fold, UTG+1 calls t30, MP1 bets t60, 4 folds, Hero raises t2955 (All-In), 1 fold, UTG+1 calls t2940, 1 fold

Flop: (t6030) 8, 10, J (2 players, 1 all-in)

Turn: (t6030) 9 (2 players, 1 all-in)

River: (t6030) 8 (2 players, 1 all-in)

Total pot: t6030

Results:
Hero had A, K (one pair, eights).
UTG+1 had 10, A (two pair, tens and eights).
Outcome: UTG+1 won t6030

I lost 7 $3.3 KO sngs in a row week ago. 4 of them, I was knocked out holding AK. I was so frustrated, I was telling my friend about it. Here's a convo we had.

Friend: Dude, you asked for it. Why did you shove all-in pre-flop early stage with AKo when you got over 100 big blinds?
Me: Because I took it for granted that some idiot will call me with an inferior hand and I'm putting my money in with a BETTER HAND. and i DID.
Friend: You don't get it do you? Why risk your neck with AKo in early stage?
Me: Why not? If your villain is willing to call with horrible hands, why not go all-in? MTT is about aggression and accumulating chips. I got unlucky. If this was Sunday Brawl $216 tournament where I'll be isolating myself and only get called by KK/AA, then yes, it's bad. But I took it for granted that horrible players will call with ATC and they DID. So I got what i wanted.
Friend: I'm not even a tournament player but I know that going all-in with AK early stage is stupid.
Me: ok. me going all-in with AKo is stupid? what about the villain then? Calling off his whole stack with AT hearts is not? Dude, I got my money in good and got unlucky. Don't be result oriented. I should've won that pot. End of story. I'm already having a bad day, now I'm getting criticized for something where I put my money in as favorite?
Friend: I don't give a rats ass about the villain. Yes, his decision was more horrible than yours. But yours was horrible as well. That's what I'm trying to tell you. If I go all-in with T2o pre-flop and somebody calls with 93o, it doesn't make my play good. Open a Pokerstove and input AK against a random vs input QQ+ against a random hand.

It turns out that AK is 2:1 favorite against random hand while QQ is 4:1 favorite against random hand.

Friend: Now ask yourself. Why risk 34% on a line in early stage of the deepstack tournament when you have enough skills and enough stack to play good poker and accumulate chips with solid post-flop skills.

SavagePenguin, who is a very good player and who I ask advice for from time to time, agrees with his view and shows me that it was horrible to donk-shove AKo pre-flop deepstack on second hand.

What am I suppose to do to learn these things on my own? How should I be analyzing my plays? What questions should I be asking myself regardless of me getting my money in good? Whenever I put my money in good, I just assume I lost because I got unlucky and move on. But I believe this is a major mistake and a leak which I should learn how to look into. It just disgusts me when I lose to players who are more horrible than me.

Very. When I lost money in 25NL and 50NL, at least I dont' feel too bad because I've made bad plays or lost coin-flips. Even bad beats there were understandable. Such as my flopped set getting cracked by 2-outer on the river because they have overpair. But 10NL and lower, $5 buy-in sngs/tourneys and lower, it feels like I'm playing such a perfect poker and I'm just losing because I'm unlucky. But if I lost 7 $3.3 90-player KO sngs in a row, there must be something wrong.

Just a "fwiw" comment - are we afraid to play postflop? In both the A3o and AKo hands, we're deep enough to play postflop, not getting why we'd want to shove pf.

This is what i should be asking myself. I dunno why I'm afraid to play postflop when I got AK/AA/KK/QQ. Because everytime I raise, villain always outflop me with some bs hand and I have hard time getting away from them because i run into miraculous hidden two pairs, sneaky sets, trips, etc. I just got fed up to the point where I decided to just shove pre-flop or make ridiculously oversized bet, which I still get called by inferior hands. Unfortunately, I lose like that also, which made me move down, reanalyze, and try to fix my game. But even when I go through my hem, I don't even know how to analyze my situations because villains are horrible, such as few of my examples listed above. I don't even know what questions I should be asking or what approach I should be taking. Because I've always thought that if you put your money in ahead, then you're fine. Sorry for making this complicated. Poker has been hectic for me lately. I just feel like I have a horrible mindset which makes me bypass all my mistakes, such as these hands just because of the fact that i got my money in good.

ok, what you are not being told and I dont know why people are missing this. if we assume that the field we play at has essentially a 7-10% calling range for shoves. we are correct to shove pending that:
1. we are comfortable with our play no matter what
2. Have infinite patience
3. have an infinite BR
because even though you just played 5k hands or whatever in your life (even if you played 250k) the variance graph you play on is inifinite so you can lose even a thousand times and that will be fine because a 1000 times is 25% of 4000 likely hands that you may play in the future or you will never get to play because you quit or whatever.
considering that you are not a logical person completely and as a testament to that we'll take the fact that you tilted after only 9 tournaments (which is nothing obviously.) I think you don't want to wager your tourny life solely on statistical probabilities.

That's exactly what I was getting at. It's all about just finding people who aren't taking the game very seriously and grabbing their money because you know there's no consistant way to do it in a "competitive" environment.

Poker just isn't the game for anyone with a real competitive mindset, in my opinion.

They're there to keep visibility and make sure they keep getting money from books, endorsement deals, etc. I wonder what the ratio of earnings from playing poker versus talking about poker those guys actually have nowadays.

Regardless of outcome here.. .why shove 100bb's in early levels? It's basically playing your hand face up (any decent player would put you on what?... AK no doubt). You'll be getting called by hands you're losing to whereas they'd more than likely just fold to a 3bet pre (77 - TT stuff).

.... disregard my sig. in this spot, lol

Let me share my idea about this. It must be a win win situation on playing poker for me..when we talk about general results with this one...you already know yourself what was the real standing here... try to work more on the strategy that your doing and don't hesitate to push through with your aim to win.

This speech coming from a person who once decided to call quadruple all-in with AKo in early stage? Yup, that makes real sense. If I DID get called by a pocket pair or a hand range within those areas that was ahead of my AK, then yes, I can actually know that I made a mistake. But that wasn't the case here.

Firstly, I'm just stating my opinion (based on my experience)... how do you figure it's a speech (sounds like it has negative connotations).

Secondly, without including the situation in the hand I played, & then somehow relating it to this hand you've posted.... baffles me.

So you're saying.... If I did get called by a hand that was ahead of you, you can know that you made a mistake.. but if it wasn't.. then you didn't??? Typically You're Only going to get called by hands that beat you here.... and to risk 100bb's to win 3bb's makes zero sense.
I'd "suggest" learning how to play "post-flop" poker. If not, then perhaps turbo MTT's where the game is shove/fold fairly soon after it begins.